Piazza San Biagio, San Vito Romano — the Sixties, the Seventies and even earlier
There were afternoons when the square needed no shop-bought toys, nor anything grand, to fill up with voices.
All it took was a group of boys, a run-up and leapfrog, the game we called la cavallina:
“Uno a monte alla luna, due monta il bue, tre la figlia del re, quattro la raspatura del gatto, cinque il cioccolato…” (“One, up to the moon; two, the ox climbs on; three, the king’s daughter; four, the cat’s scratch; five, the chocolate…”)
We laughed, we competed to jump the farthest, we waited for our turn with our hearts in our mouths. And a little further on, the girls drew the hopscotch grid, la campana, in chalk on the pale sandstone cobbles: a stone tossed into a square, one foot only, balance, laughter and the odd little argument that lasted no longer than a breath.
They were simple games, but there was a whole world inside them: friendship, courage, imagination, rules learned among peers and that freedom which turned Piazza San Biagio, and the other lanes and squares of our village, into one big courtyard for everyone.
This reconstruction aims to give back, with respect, not just a game, but a piece of the life of San Vito Romano: when a square was school, gym, theatre and family.
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The image is a reconstruction created with artificial intelligence.