The Palio

The Palio.

It was started hundreds of years ago by the people of Siena. I'm not sure that anyone knows exactly when or why it was started other than that the people wanted to have public games of some sort. The style and type of games varied through the years. In the 16th or 17th century bull fighting was included. Today, it is a horse race.

The Palio itself is not the race, but the prize. It is a large banner, always painted by a different usually local artist with the colors of the ten contrade represented in the race (there are seventeen total) and with the Virgin Mary on it, because almost every Palio is dedicated to her as the cities patroness.

Gianfranco told me that during the whole year, all of the contrade and thus the entire city are very unified, but at the Palio everyone is for their own contrada. The people of the contrada have dinners, their own churches for weddings and other important events, and contrada museums where all palios (pali? palii?) and costumes are displayed (I saw one which had a Palio from the 18th century). The neighborhoods are very unified. Flora told me that if she needed help, all she would have to do is call the people from the contrada and they would all help her. You are always a part of the contrada you are born in, even if you move from the contrada.

Throughout the year, every contrada has its own festivals and holidays for which the people of the contrada hang out flags and banners, and have parades through the city with elaborate medieval costumes, drummers and banners. These parades usually happen only one or maybe two contrade at a time. For one week, all of the decorations will go up in one contrada. They will have a party, a parade, and then the decorations will come down. Life goes on as normal in the rest of the city.

For the Palio, every contrada participates, and all ten that are running put up every light and every flag they own. Over half the city is covered in banners and decorative lights. For days, there are people drumming, singing, everywhere. I would walk by restaurants and see a table of men sitting around their lunches belting out songs

This all started on Wednesday, the day the horses were chosen by lot for each contrada. The local channel begins to cover nothing but the Palio. As horses and jockeys begin the Prova, trial runs, the practice races and crowds are shown on repeat. People put on their contrada scarves and go to the campo every morning at nine and evening at seven to see the Prova. These are crowded- not nearly as crowded as the real Palio, but still quite crowded. The horses parade to the prova with their contrada behind them, singing and drumming the whole way.

This year in the Friday morning Prova, tragedy struck the Chiocciola contrada when their horse was injured and died several hours later. The horse is the most important part of the Palio race, and they cannot be replaced if anything happens to them. Chiocciola was no longer able to participate. I was not at this prova, but I found out several hours later. Within a few hours, the entire city knew what had happened.

The prova Friday evening was cancelled due to bad weather, and so my friends and I planned to go to the Provaccia, the prova which takes place the morning of the race, but is a bit of a joke because none of the jockeys push the horses. They don't want to tire them before the race starts. The best horses were trotting around the arena at a nice leisurely pace.

The actual Palio started at 7:15. There is a large parade before hand which all of the contrade participate in. It is led by representative of the Comune di Siena, followed by representatives of each contrada in a medieval style procession involving a flag throwing contest and a very slow procession around the Campo. We arrived in the already crowded Piazza del Campo at 4:45, and the parade started perhaps 20 minutes later. People continued to pour into the piazza throughout the parade until there were thousands there. We had a spot near the fence at the top of the campo, and were able to see the entire track except the part closest to us! All of the tallest men in Italy decided to stand around where we were, it seems. But we were able to see the flags flying in the air. The contrade were followed by five men on horseback wearing oddly decorated helmets- one with a lion, one with a serpent, a hand grasping a sword, and something that looked like an otter. These men represented the contrade which no longer exist. And they were followed by the Palio- mounted on a cart in front of the banner of the Comune di Siena, raised high above the ground and pulled by two huge white oxen. This was taken around the to the starting line.

This is not my video, but it may give an idea of what the city is like.

After the palio is mounted, the Palio race is ready to begin. The jockeys ride out from the Piazza Pubblico on the horses and move towards the starting line. They ride in a circle in front of the starting line, and slowly the entire Piazza becomes completely silent. In a crowd of thousands of people, no one speaks. Then, the sound of someones voice comes over a speaker with the name of a contrada, the first in order to start.

Some people cheer, and then everyone falls silent again.

This continues until all of the names have been called. After they have lined up, they leave the starting area and begin to ride in a circle again. Some of the riders come up next to others, most likely ally contrade, and speak with them. Every jockey is usually given some bribe money, and often the jockeys work together to block enemy contrade. They are given a certain amount of time to ride more, and then their names are called again, in order.

Again, everyone falls silent. I was leaning forward trying to see the start line over tall men's heads. The horses line up, move around, try to get out of order without being noticed. When everyone is even sort of lined up, the rope is dropped and suddenly the race begins. \

It usually lasts less than three minutes. Sometimes less than two.

This year, not one, but four jockeys fell from their horses. The horses flew around the campo-on jockey fell when his horse brushed the crash barrier, another (who was in the lead) fell when his leg caught on a fence, and without stirrups he couldn't hold on. This horse came close to winning anyway- it was only steps behind the winner. I don't know when the other two fell, but I realized suddenly that four horses had no jockey anymore.

This is the race.

It was incredible. la Contrada dell'Oca won the race, and they ran out onto the track, lifted the jockey onto their shoulders and all started touching the horse. People paraded around the entire rest of the day. There was no order, there was just a huge party through all of their contrada and the Piazza del Campo.

Today all of Oca is still wearing the banners and parading. They are going to be partying for a while, I think.