The jousts of chivalry belong to a tradition dating to the year 1200, at least, even if numerous hypotheses have been made on their origins.

Some say that they date to the VIII century A.D., when the young people of Arezzo trained to fight against the Saracen pirates, who made incursions along the Tuscan coastline. Others maintain that they might have been imported by the Arabs or by the Crusaders who had known this kind of competition during their stay in the Holy Land. Another possibility is that the Giostra could have originated from a previous "Quintana" disputed by five quarters. Nevertheless, the few evidences available are not sufficient to give credit to any of these theories.
One celebration joust was cited in a letter written in 1331 by the Tarlati family, the rulers of Arezzo. The most illustrious witness of these events was undoubtedly Dante Alighieri, who dedicated them the first tercets in the XXII canto of the "Inferno" of the famous Divine Commedy:
"Io vidi già cavalier muover campo,
e cominciar stormo a far lor mostra,
e tal volta partir per loro scampo;
corridor vidi per la terra vostra,
o Aretini, e vidi gir gualdane,
fedir torneamenti e correr giostra;
quando con trombe, e quando con campane,
con tamburi e con cenni di castella,
e con cose nostrali e con istrane"


It hath been heretofore my chance to see
Horsemen with martial order shifting camp,
To onset sallying, or in muster ranged,
Or in retreat sometimes outstretch'd for flight:
Light-armed squadrons and fleet foragers
Scouring thy plains, Arezzo! have I seen,
And clashing tournaments, and titling jousts,
Now with the sound of trumpets, now of bells,
Tabors, or signals made from castled heights,
And with inventions multiform, our own,
Or introduced from foreign land

If the jousts mostly had medieval origins, many "giostre ad buratum" ("Buratto Re delle Indie" is the name still given to the puppet in the Piazza Grande) were disputed in the Renaissance, too. They mainly took place when illustrious people visited the town or to celebrate events such as the Carnival or the wedding of some young people belonging to the city's important families.
The first draft of written regulations about the award of scores dates to a joust of 1678 in honour of St. Nicolò. Moreover, there are testimonies of at least two famous jousts, one of 1684 that was described by Federigo Nomi while the other dates to 1904. Some of them were carried out at the beginning of the XX century but it was mainly the aristocrats who took part in them.
On the 7th of August, 1931, the Potestà of the city established that the Giostra del Saracino had to be disputed after a long and accurate preparation carried out by the historian Nino Novarese. It can be considered the first edition of the Modern Era because the nobles and the horsemen were not the only ones to participate in it, but five "quinteri" according to the ancient division of the city.
They later became the four current quarters in 1932 and each of them has its own jouster. Only after the Second World War the quarters had their own emblem, a drum, a Capitano and a Consiglio headed by a Rettore.