Morra players in Frascati

The players’ dress was usually a suit, a dark one normally used as Sunday best, jacket left off and shirt sleeves rolled up. With waistcoat. They played mostly in the afternoons before dinner. Not everyone played, but often young with old, on their own or in pairs. One hand behind their backs keeping count of the score and the second hand waving around in the air.
The idea was to announce the number that would come up from the two players’ hands but all with intense rhythm, strategy, physical and mental strength, with no errors.
There were real champions who would avoid encountering each other, except for playing on grand occasions.
Their posture was similar to fencers, onlookers were competent and joyous and even though the women would chat amongst themselves they still made the most of the occasion to eye up the men.
Frascati wine was there on the tables, an aid to concentration but also fuzzing the minds of those that had too much. The morra players in Frascati were handsome, some reckon that this is where the best-ever would meet up, laughter and sweat coloured those days and they waited for the evenings to make love.

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