The traditional orange throwing has its roots in the middle of the XIXth century. Earlier and more precisely in the middle ages, beans were used in this battle. Around the thirties and sixties of last century, girls started to throw some oranges from their balconies onto the parade carriages together with confetti, lupins and flowers. The targets of these were the boys by whom the girls wanted to be noticed. From the carriages the boys started to answer in kind and little by little, the gesture of homage became first a duel and then a real fight between the throwers on the balconies and those in the streets.Today the contest is still enacted in the main squares of the town where teams in carriages (symbolising the tyrant’s guards) battle against the orange thrower teams on foot(the rebellious commoners) which consist of hundreds of throwers. Undoubtedly this is the most spectacular event of the festivities representing the fight for liberty,the symbol of the Ivrea Carnival. http://www.carnevalediivrea.it/defaulteng.asp