Billy Barraclough


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S’Ardia


Every July 6 and 7 since “the mists of time,” the Ardia horse race—also known as S’Ardia, or “to keep watch” in the local dialect—takes place in the Italian town of Sedilo, Sardinia. The festivities commemorate Roman Emperor Constantine’s victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD. following his mystical vision of a cross: a sign he inscribed on his soldiers’ shields, and to which he ascribed his success before converting to Christianity.

Today “the same cross that appeared to Constantine the night before the fight is omnipresent during Ardia, adorning the horses’ harnesses, embroidered on the participants’ standards, punctuating the race route and evoked by the riders’ gestures,” Giovanni Andrea Pes, one of Ardia’s most fearless protagonists, tells me. From the outside, “Ardia might look like a chaotic, 100 horse-race, but a careful observer will spot the countless facets that make it one of a kind,” he says of the event, which proves “that Christianity is safe and will live for another year.”

Words by Gilda Bruno for WePresent
©Billy Barraclough