Desenzano del Garda 1950: the Circus Boa Escape

On 6 August 1950 the well-known Circo Togni pitched its tents on the sports ground of Desenzano (the “Dal Molin” ground in Via Marconi), with the horses and wild animals that are part of its shows. A travelling circus, as everyone knows, carries with it an air of mystery linked to its exotic animals, which our imagination places in the Asian jungle and the African forests (lions, tigers, snakes, hyenas…). Animals that inspire a fearful respect, even if behind bars they have lost much of their wild ferocity and danger. Still, we feel safer when they are well locked up… But from a Tuesday night that August a real alarm spread through Desenzano: two fine snakes, a three-metre boa and a six-metre python, had escaped from their broken cage and gone for a stroll. The circus staff, as soon as they noticed, set off in search of the missing snakes. The unwelcome encounter with the python fell to a woman who had a vegetable garden near the sports ground where the circus had set up. She found it lying peacefully among the lettuce and tomatoes, but that did not stop her from taking fright and calling for help. Capturing the gleaming reptile was not difficult for those who handled it every day. The boa, however, was still at large, and despite careful searches of the area there was not a trace of it. The episode held the people of Desenzano in the grip of anxiety, and every kind of theory, true or false, sprang up. Mothers kept a close eye on their children while the search went on. People said the fugitive’s hours were numbered: that is, until it came across some poor rabbit or careless hen, farmyard animals that were kept in the houses on the outskirts. Then, its appetite satisfied and grown docile, it would curl up for its long digestion without asking for anything more, and its adventure would be over: one of the circus hands would pick it up.

But that is not how it went. Days and then months went by (September, October…) and still no sign of the boa. Since we attended middle school at the Collegio in Desenzano, we boys from Lonato cycled past that spot every day, near the Pescala ditch and the vegetation that filled the Vallone, places that could well have sheltered the snake. We too were caught up in this thrilling, and also rather amusing, collective psychosis. Beyond the Madonnina and further on, Via Marconi was almost open countryside back then, and we boys (four or five of us…) were afraid of running into the long reptile and hurried away up the stony slopes of the old Lonato road, even though by then nothing more was known of the dreaded serpent…

It was in July 1951 that the boa was back in the news. The story went that it had last been seen the previous summer, beyond the provincial road, in the wood along the Pescala, where repeated and intensive searches had come to nothing. Boys armed with poles and sticks had lived thrilling adventures fired by their imagination. Plenty of tall tales and rumours.

Metal gate and fence with a building and trees behind, near the old sports ground in Desenzano

But since then, no trace of the boa…

In the end, that summer of ’51, the poor boa was found: it had met an inglorious end in a deadly trap, having crawled into the hollow of a concrete pole belonging to the SEB power company, perhaps chasing prey or seeking shelter from the cold, and had been unable to get out again. Near the sports ground there was in fact a stack of hollow concrete poles. Who knows why, or when, the snake had slipped into one of them. It had never managed to get out of the tube.

Historic view of Desenzano del Garda with a metal fence, buildings and a lawn

It was found by two workmen who had to cut a pole: they realised they were sawing through the snake as well, which, after a year, gave off quite a smell.

The pole then became the destination of many visits by townspeople who had lived through those dramatic hours after the reptile’s escape, fearing the worst.

At last the risk of meeting the snake in the street, or finding it at home and living through a frightening and dangerous exotic adventure, was gone.

Article by Osvaldo Pippa for GN Magazine (November 2026).