There is so much to say about this ploughing competition dating back to the times of medieval castles in Abruzzo, Central Italy. In 1625 the people of Rocca di Mezzo, a small village set on the plateau called the Altipiano delle Roche in the Parco Nazionale Sirente-Velino promised the Good Virgin to plough as straight as an arrow by night if She would rid them of the plague. I seem to think the tradition might even predate the Christian church, but that is just a thought. The plague passed from the village that year, and the “Gare del Solco”, the competition of straight furrows, was born.

There are two other villages that have the same tradition but run the competition during the day. In Castel Morrone in Campania and Valentano in Lazio the competition lasts two days and the teams plough in a radial fashion towards a central church.

The church of the Good Virgin, “Santa Maria del Neve”, Our Lady of the Snows, crests the hill on which Rocca di Mezzo lies at 1350 meters above sea level. It has been closed since the great earthquake of 2009, but is under repair. The medieval bell tower stands south of the church, facing the long crest of the Sirente Mountain. Before tourism overtook agriculture as the greater source of income for the village, a candle would be placed on a wooden tripod near the bell tower as the central point to aim for while ploughing at night. Even as late as the fifties they used only candles to align their furrows and cows to pull the wooden frame holding the man-made steel plough blade. It goes without saying that in those days there were only men doing the ploughing in October after harvest. In some ways the ploughing was easier then as the fields had been worked for wheat and the soil was soft. Needless to say there was food and wine consumed, much as there is today.

The village moved the Gare to the end of August, so the tourists could experience it as well in the high season. Also, now the fields lay unploughed and the soil is hard and tractors are used to pull the plough. Even woman and children participate, with tourists winding their way between the teams.

At its peak there were eighteen teams ploughing over 3 kilometers, from the base of Monte Rotondo to close to the village.  This year there were six teams, better than the four of last year. Now the distance is less as well.  It is not that they plough in a continuous fashion. For the judges the next day who stand under the wooden tripod (the “punto di riferimento”) on the hill next to the bell tower, in fact, the furrows do seem continuous. But in the field they only plough the slopes that face the bell tower, and the art is to make the intervals appear non existent so that the furrow does indeed seem continuous from the bell tower.

On the afternoon of the competition the teams gather in the piazza of Rocca di Mezzo and put on a demonstration on the road in front of the old school, with a single tractor, worn from work but the bonnet draped proudly with the Italian flag. The demonstration model was a Lamborghini, the genuine machine. The old man started out making tractors and in the fifties when he bought a Ferrari  and went to Enzo to suggest some improvements, he was rebuffed. He decided to match it with a supercar of his own, named initially after the size of the engine but later after victorious bulls from the coredas in Spain. The tractors remain nameless, unlike the legendary Muira and Countach.

The demonstration in the piazza is accompanied by commentary on the history and technique of the competition, given by a group of young people on a stage that is used for all the summer village functions. Instead of ploughing up the tarmac they have a big funnel on the back of the tractor that drops a line of sand onto the tarmac. First the “surveyor” of the “squadra” (the team) lines up a plumb line from the start point. The he instructs the members to place the “contraposta” lined up on the crest of the next slope. This is a wooden tripod with a lantern burning brightly. The instructions are shouted across the distance, sometimes relayed by team members, and are very specific to the anatomy of the geography.

No left or right, nor east or west, but rather “a Rovere”, the village to the right, or “a Rocca di Cambio”, the village to the left. Shouting “un pelo a Rovere” to move the “contraposta”. Shouting “unpelino”, a hair’s breadth, does the fine-tuning either way. When the controposta is finally in place, they shout “va beneeee” it’s OK. The chap who man’s the “contraposta” has to move only every time a slope has been ploughed. He is well supplied with good wine or grappa or rattafia, and on the longer stretches may even light a small fire. The temperatures can drop to 5 Degrees Celsius or less even at the end of summer! `The controller of the “contraposta” also has a specific code name for the night, so that his team can communicated only with him, as the teams plough only a few meters apart.

Once the “contraposta” is in place then the members place “lantern” housing candles at intervals of ten meters between the start point (at the plumb line) and the “contraposta”. Each wooden box with glass front housing the candle is placed with the same shouting with respect to the neighbouring villages.  Then the tractor follows the short line between lanterns and ploughs the furrow. Easy in the day time and on a short flat stretch of 50 meters on the village main road dropping sand onto the tar; very different at night in the wild!