Limbo, off the
Borgo SS. Apostoli, and every year the flints are used to kindle
the fire needed for the right preservation of Easter Day. Gradually
the ceremony enlarged until it became a spectacle indeed, which the
Pazzi family for centuries controlled. After the Pazzi conspiracy
they lost it and the Signoria took it over; but, on being pardoned,
the Pazzi again resumed.

The Carro is a car containing explosives, and the Scoppio is its
explosion. This car, after being drawn in procession through the
streets by white oxen, is ignited by the sacred fire borne to it by
a mechanical dove liberated at the high altar of the Duomo, and with
its explosion Easter begins. There is still a Pazzi fund towards the
expenses, but a few years ago the city became responsible for the
whole proceedings, and the ceremony as it is now given, under civic
management, known as the Scoppio del Cairo, is that which I saw on
Holy Saturday last and am about to describe.

First, however, let me state what had happened before the proceedings
opened in the Piazza del Duomo. At six o'clock mass began at
SS. Apostoli, lasting for more than two hours. At its close the
celebrant was handed a plate on which were the sacred flints, and these
he struck with a steel in view of the congregation, thus igniting a
taper. The candle, in an ancient copper porta fuoco surmounted by a
dove, was then lighted, and the procession of priests started off for
the cathedral with their precious flame, escorted by a civic guard
and various standard bearers. Their route was the Piazza del Limbo,
along the Borgo SS. Apostoli to the Via Por S. Maria and through
the Vacchereccia to the Piazza della Signoria, the Via Condotta, the
Via del Proconsolo, to the Duomo, through whose central doors they
passed, depositing the sacred burden at the high altar. I should add
that anyone on the route in charge of a street shrine had the right
to stop the procession in order to take a light from it; while at
SS. Apostoli women congregated with tapers and lanterns in the hope
of getting these kindled from the sacred flame, in order to wash
their babies or cook their food in water heated with the fire.

Meanwhile at seven o'clock the four oxen, which are kept in the
Cascine all the year round and do no other work, had been harnessed to
the car and had drawn it to the Piazza del Duomo, which was reached
about nine. The oxen were then tethered by the Pisano doors of the
Baptistery until nee