Giorgio Pogliano of Turin sent me this colorful description of the Ivrea Carnevale, held on the traditional carnival date, 40 days before Lent.
Ivrea is a small city about 40 minutes North of Turin. It was the headquarters of the first (short-lived) post-Roman kingdom of Italy, around 1000 a.D. More recently it became typewriter and then computer city, headquarters of Olivetti. Right now, with the computer industry gone East, it's a city between jobs. It has its day of glory one time a year during Carnival, when a unique, exciting, anachronistic and most of all juicy orange battle takes place.