When Buffalo Bill came to Ferrara

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:02:32 +0000
Num. 21

The Wild West in Piazza d'Armi: cowboys, cowgirls, horses, Indians and gunslingers in the first great American travelling show
William Frederick Cody was born in Iowa in 1846. From childhood on he had been forced to provide for himself and his family, who had fallen into poverty after moving to Kansas.
Will Cody learnt to hunt when very young. At the age of eleven, he set off on a wagon train armed with a Mississippi Yaeger rifle. It was his first job: board, plus 40 dollars a month paid directly to his mother.

At 18, Cody, now one of Pony Express's best mounted couriers, joined the 7th Kansas regiment and began his career as an army scout under General Custer.

After a few years, he signed up as a buffalo hunter for Union Pacific, the company building the railway linking New York and San Francisco. Within a few months he had killed so many buffalo that he earned the nickname under which he would become famous: Buffalo Bill.

A man of magnetic personality, a reckless horseman and an outstanding shot, he could transform himself from a wild explorer into an elegant socialite. His stories became legendary in sophisticated circles and attracted the attention of Ned Buntline, a writer of dime novels who made his own fortune and that of Buffalo Bill in his "King of the Border Men".

In 1872, Cody realised his true vocation and moved to New York to launch his career as a showman. He collected a troupe of cowboys, Indians, gunslingers and even women, including the legendary cowgirl Annie Oakley, to produce one of the largest Wild West Shows ever to cross the United States.

In 1887, Buffalo Bill and a company of more than two hundred crossed the Atlantic to perform in London before Queen Victoria.

The success was such that a few years later he again travelled to the old world for a tour organised with an attention to detail outstanding for the era.

The tour reached Ferrara in 1906 where it received the same acclaim experienced everywhere.

On 6 April, La Rivista - Giornale democratico drew attention to the extravagant publicity consisting of notices and posters plastering the entire town. On hearing of the arrival of the circus many townspeople flocked to watch the arrival of the railway carriages ("four trains, two and a half kilometres long"), a spectacle in themselves.

After unloading, there followed frantic activity while the entire troupe put up the immense tents that acted as kitchens, stables, lodgings, and shelter for the spectators, and erected the backdrops painted with the landscapes of Wyoming. All this took just a few hours.

As well as the performers, there was an army of cooks, tailors, servants and labourers. There were hundreds of metres of rope, canvas, banners, stakes, and 500 horses and a host of different people who could be admired for the first time close up - Cossacks, Japanese, Indians. Buffalo Bill himself arrived later, in his personal train, at one o'clock.

Only two shows were planned for Ferrara, both on a single day: one at 2.30 and an evening performance at 8.00 pm with floodlighting from the company's own powerful generator.

The programme included a cowboy band, a parade of all the horsemen with daring choreography, a reconstruction of the battle of Little Big Horn, Indian attacks on stagecoaches, a rodeo and finally Buffalo Bill himself.

As well as the performers, there was an army of cooks, tailors, servants and labourers. There were hundreds of metres of rope, canvas, banners, stakes, and 500 horses and a host of different people who could be admired for the first time close up - Cossacks, Japanese, Indians. Buffalo Bill himself arrived later, in his personal train, at one o'clock.

Only two shows were planned for Ferrara, both on a single day: one at 2.30 and an evening performance at 8.00 pm with floodlighting from the company's own powerful generator.

The programme included a cowboy band, a parade of all the horsemen with daring choreography, a reconstruction of the battle of Little Big Horn, Indian attacks on stagecoaches, a rodeo and finally Buffalo Bill himself.