The Frosinone Carnival is a festival of historical importance because it embodies a much older event: the Festa della Ràdeca which takes place in Frosinone on Shrove Tuesday.
Carnival celebrations include a parade of allegorical floats with costumes and masks, while at the end the ancient tradition of Ràdeca is revived (in the Frusinate dialect an agave leaf symbol of fertility).
The Ràdeca festival culminates in a dance where the participants wave agave leaves, called 'radeca' in dialect. The event takes up the tradition of an ancient pre-Roman festival dedicated to fertility and fecundity.
During the Roman period this festival became that of the Lupercals dedicated to Luperco, a pastoral deity dedicated to fertility.
The festival was celebrated in February, the month dedicated to purification, the passage from death to the life of nature and culminated with a large bonfire.
The carnival festival is also mentioned in the Statutes of the City of Frosinone among the festivals. The agave leaf was introduced later and the agave is a plant that arrived in Spain and throughout Europe in the sixteenth century.
The Radeca festival was then incorporated into the Carnival and in Frosinone, from the eighteenth century, it also took on a 'political' connotation.
In fact, the rebellion against the French and the expulsion of their troops are celebrated.
The bonfire culminates with a puppet representing General Jean Antoine Étienne Vachier known as Championnet.
In 1798 the Frusinati rebelled against the occupation of the French who supported the Roman republic and had imposed huge taxes.
The French reacted with looting and destruction in which they damaged churches and palaces.
The following year the people asked to celebrate the Radeca Festival using the traditional irony against the powerful and rulers.
The Frosinone sent an envoy to the chief of the French troops, General Jean Etienne Championnet who was based in Anagni, to announce a revolt in Frosinone.
When the general arrived in Frosinone he understood the goliardic atmosphere of the crowd shouting 'Esseglie ... esseglie (here it is, here it is)!'.
Championnet joined the crowd by drinking wine and eating 'fine-fine' and became the symbol of the party.
Every year his puppet is carried on a wagon around the streets and the festival ends with the usual condemnation of the general, the reading of the will left by the general and the stake of the puppet.
As the cart passes through the city, people dance to the rhythm of 'salterello', singing the traditional 'Canzone de Carnuale' (carnival song) played continuously by the musical band and waving the briar leaves.
It is absolutely important to have a 'leaf' in hand otherwise you will be punished with a certain number of 'leaf'.
Foreigners must be 'baptized' with a touch of the radeca on the back. It is forbidden to go around with hard hats reminiscent of those of the French troops.
Anyone who does not find a 'radeca' can bring a cabbage.
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