What Easter tradition in Florence uses a colombina rocket to ignite a fireworks-filled cart?

The Florence Easter tradition in which a colombina rocket ignites a fireworks-filled cart is the Scoppio del Carro.

The ceremony begins with a decorated cart being pulled through central Florence to the cathedral. During Easter Sunday Mass, a dove-shaped rocket called the colombina is sent along a wire from the cathedral toward the cart. If it reaches the cart and sets off the fireworks, the ceremony is completed in its traditional form.

The cart is commonly associated with the Pazzi family and with Pazzino de’ Pazzi, a medieval Florentine figure. A traditional account says that he brought sacred stones from Jerusalem after the First Crusade. Historical details of that origin story are debated, but the ceremony itself became a long-standing Florentine Easter institution.

The event combines religious ritual and civic pageantry. Its outcome has traditionally been treated as an omen for Florence’s prosperity, harvest, and future. The colombina is not an ordinary decorative bird; it is the specific rocket that links the cathedral ceremony to the cart.