When I was a teenager I lived in a small village called San Lorenzo a Vaccoli half way between Lucca and Pisa in Tuscany. The patron Saint of the village is, of course, San Lorenzo, who is celebrated on the 10th of August. Amongst the various celebrations that took place there was (and hopefully still is) a tradition which wasn’t particularly religious in nature, but was rather unusual.

Allora, on the night between the 9th and the 10th of August, from dusk to dawn, the teenagers of the village used to roam around in small groups, trying to steal anything they could find from outside people’s houses, and then take their loot to il sagrato della chiesa (the piazza in front of the church). There, the owners, knowing the tradition, would come to reclaim it in the morning before Mass. It’s wasn’t done in a malicious way, but was nevertheless quite annoying for the villagers because the thieves always looked for the biggest possible challenge. E.g instead of stealing a normal pot of geraniums, they would go for massive vases containing lemon trees, and weighing more than 50 kg! And they carried it all out without any mechanical help: no cars, no scooters,  and no tractors were allowed. At the most a wheelbarrow could be used, as long as it had been stolen of course.

I remember one year on the 9th of August I went to close my bedroom window, which faced onto the garden of our backdoor neighbours. It was dark outside, and they were having dinner on their terrazza under a strong pool of light. As my eyes got used to the darkness, I noticed some shadows sneaking around outside the circle of light, obviously invisible to the diners. A moment later Orazio, our neighbour, got up from the table and said to his son: “Gabriele, andiamo a mettere via la roba, prima che arrivino i ragazzi” (Gabriele, let’s go and put things away before the lads arrive), and then: “Ma dov’è finito il tubo dell’acqua?” (But what’s happened to the hose?). The thieves were already off down the road dragging a heavy 20 meter long reel of hosepipe behind them!

Another year some friends of ours, who lived in a tiny bungalow with a small corridor like garden all around it surrounded by a 2 meter tall metal fence, had put everything safely away in the afternoon, leaving out only what they believed to be unmovable. But when they woke up the morning after, they realised that they had underestimated the teenagers’ skills: the heavy cast iron bench that usually stood right underneath their bedroom window had disappeared!

These are just a couple of the many examples that I witnessed, but some which I didn’t personally see have become legends. For example: it is said that un contadino (a farmer) had decided to stay up all night and guard his possessions, but at a certain point he fell asleep on his cart. When he woke up at dawn he was still on his cart, which was now in the piazza in front of the church!

Nobody is spared this tradition, not even the Carabinieri (the military police). Legend has it that one year people complained to the Carabinieri about the thieves, and the Carabinieri replied that it was only a harmless  game, and to treat it with a sense of humour. So it was that the following year, on the night between the 9th and the 10th of August all the heavy outside shutters on the first floor of the caserma dei Carabinieri (Carabinieri’s barracks) vanished!