The festival's origins are somewhat unclear.The core celebration is based on a locally famous Battle of the Oranges that involves some thousands of townspeople, divided into nine combat teams, who throw oranges at each other with considerable violence during the traditional carnival days: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The carnival takes place in February: it ends on the night of "Fat Tuesday" with a solemn funeral. Traditionally, at the end of the silent march that closes the carnival the "General" says goodbye to everyone with the classical phrase in dialect "arvedse a giobia a ‘n bot", translated as "we'll see each other on Thursday at one", referring to the Thursday the carnival will start the next year.