They Call It The Palio (This is a long one. Feel free to bail at any time.)

Siena is one of the many well-preserved medieval hill towns that dot Tuscany. It’s known for its sloping Piazza de Campo spreading like a fan beneath the Mangia Tower, the tallest secular tower in Italy. Surrounding the Campo, the ancient streets wind and narrow up and down the hills that make up the town. The skies seemed perpetually filled with swifts and swallows. The air is scented with oregano, fennel and roasting meat. Eavesdrop on the local’s conversations and you’ll hear Italian spoken in its most pure and lyrical form. At just about any time of year, it’s worth a trip for its charm and grace. Then, there’s the Palio.
The Palio is a frantic bare-backed horse race that runs three times around the Campo. It’s held twice each summer (July 2 and August 16). It takes a little over a minute but carries centuries of tradition, neighborhood pride, rivalry and pageantry. Ask a native and they’ll tell you that the Palio is the heart and soul of Siena. Like the cloth that gives it is name, it is woven intricately into the lives and history of the town’s residents. It affects all sorts of major life decisions, like marriages, vocations, and housing.
A little history or, at least, the way I got the story… Siena was once a major world power and a rival to Florence in both politics and finance. In the late 13th century , its 60,000 residents made it a larger city than Paris. It was hit hard by the Plague and never regained its status but has always savored the hurt it put on Florence at Montaperte in 1260. It was deemed fitting to offer thanks and honor to the Virgin Mary for that victory by holding a contest in her honor. The contestants were to represent the contradas, or districts, in and around the city. (There are currently 17 but there were close to 60 at one time.) The prize was a decorated cloth, a Palio.
The contest has taken many forms over the years. Originally it was a riderless running of horses from one of the town gates to the Duomo, the main cathedral in the center of town. It has been also been a race run on bull or ox back (…and some think the current race is dangerous) as well as a multi-sided fistfight (Interesting concept there-“In praise of the Blessed Mother I will bust you in the nose.” That particular version was abandoned when people started throwing rocks and in subsequent years smuggled in clubs and knives.) Even today, the saying goes “The Palio is war.”
The race is dangerous and for safety’s sake the number of participating contradas in each race has been dropped to 10. Still, accidents happen. The turns are tight and the track slopes. A large granite arch juts out a few meters after a sharp downhill turn. Riding bareback, the jockeys regularly go down. (They also are allowed and, in fact, expected to smack each other with the narrow canes they use as whips.) On one hand, they are paid king’s ransom wages and riding in the Palio is prestigious. On the other hand, post race concern usually centers on the condition of the horses. The general response to questions of a jockey’s health is “Who cares? He was paid enough.” Mishaps on the track are typically attributed to the jockey’s “stupidity.”
The horse is the real athlete here. The jockey is a helpful but unnecessary accessory. If he tumbles off during the course of the race, the horse can still win. On race day each horse and jockey are taken to the contrada’s chapel. Prayers are said and holy water is sprinkled over both but the priest turns to the horse alone and says “Vai e torna vincitore” (Go, and return victorious). While the horses are assigned by lottery, there is intense devotion and affection for them. The jockeys, on the other hand are seen as hired guns, mercenaries with no allegiance other than to cash. In Siena the expression is “as faithless as a jockey.”
OK, one last bit of background. To say that the Sienese are proud of their contradas is an understatement. It goes way beyond that. You are literally baptized into your contrada is a yearly profane baptism that cannot be undone. You can move across town or across the country, marry outside your contrada, whatever; you remain a member of that contrada.
There are intense rivalries and allegiances between contradas, some of which have been in place for centuries. Every contrada but one has at least one arch-rival. (The Drago (Dragon) contrada had a rivalry going with the Bruco (Caterpillar) contrada but Bruco, the smallest contrada with the least resources, went so long without winning that they called a truce. Drago has other problems though. The creator of this year’s Palio banner chose a St George and the dragon motif. Imagine Drago’s chagrin in seeing their symbol lying slain on the race’s prize.). Each contrada’s goal is, of course, to win the race but equally important is seeing your rival come in second, the most heartbreaking position. Deals are struck in the weeks and minutes before the race (just like Survivor), and part of the jockey’s huge wages are expected to be put to use greasing the appropriate palms. However, few if any Sienese would say that the race is fixed. Palio politics is just part of the game.
OK, enough history. I arrived in Siena on Tuesday night with the race scheduled for Friday. I was staying at an agroturismo (working farm/B & B) a few miles outside of town. (Frances Lodge, a nice place. They grow olives for oil, a number of fruits for jellies, and crocuses from which they harvest saffron). I walked into Due Ponti a small town at the bottom of the hill around 7:30 for dinner and got a seat at the first restaurant I came to. 7:30 is ungodly early for an Italian to eat dinner so I had the place to myself. I ordered (pasta and chiangalle, boar, a Tuscan specialty) and looked around. The TV was playing something that looked suspiciously like the Palio.
Turns out there are six test races prior to the real thing, which makes sense considering the track is the town square and otherwise engaged most of the time. None of the tests run the full three laps and few are at full speed. The first I saw was barely more than the start but those in attendance seemed satisfied, leaping over the infield rail to escort the horse and rider out of the square. As the camera panned the crowd, everyone was wearing his game face. The Palio is a male dominated event although women regularly serve as contrada captains, the chief strategist.
Breakfast service the next morning was interrupted at 9 for television coverage of the next test. The Lodge is run by Franco and Franca. He is Sienese while she comes from Florence. He lives for the Palio and she seems happy to indulge that. All of the guests were returnees who: 1) had come for the Palio, and 2) knew about Franco’s passion for it. We were happier to watch and hear him analyze the test than to enjoy a perfectly good breakfast (Franca does make a great fig preserves). Regarding the test, Franco was not impressed. All of the horses looked slow. (By the by, Franco is of the Torre (Tower) contrada. Torre has won the Palio twice in his lifetime. For the second win, Torre spent one million Euros. Both wins came under female captains, mother and daughter, in fact.)
After breakfast, I headed into town. There’s a fair amount to see in Siena. (By the way, most of the old buildings are of a brown brick color that was duplicated in those Burnt Siena Crayola crayons.) The Duomo is a mammoth structure with bas reliefs on the floor, a library of illuminated manuscripts, a Bernini chapel (closed for remodeling), and a small Michelangelo (St Paul, about the size of Jerry Mahoney.) The town has two basilicas, San Francisco (cavernous, but oddly everything is in the transept, the nave is, well, empty) and San Dominico (Where you can see the head and thumb of Catherine of Siena. Apparently she tiny had little hands). My favorite sight though was that bench under the shade tree where there was a bit of a breeze blowing. The Tuscan sun can be brutal.
The test was scheduled for 7:45 so I sauntered over to the Campo around 5, planning to stake out a good spot. The crowd was still pretty sparse and, thankfully, shadows had begun to creep across the bricks. I was able to grab some space that was in the shade and along the rail about 20 meters from the starting point. The method of start is one of many oddities about this race and can take a while. Here’s how it works. You take a rope about the thickness of your arm and stretch it across the track. Nine horses line up along that rope. About 15 meters behind that, you get another similar rope and, with the help of a little saw horse type thing, you stretch it about 9/10ths of the way across the track. The 10th rider hangs out behind that rope and acts as both contestant and starter. When he feels that the other horses are lined up properly (and these are thoroughbreds, they are not big on just standing there) and that he can get by, he takes off. When he crosses the back rope, stewards drop the front rope and the Palio is on… theoretically. In reality, the 10th rider tends to milk the start, frustrating and lulling the other riders and looking for a moment when a rival horse is in an awkward position or napping. While he’s doing that, the other jockeys are trying to keep their horses in line and not nipping or kicking each other. Last year the start took 1 ½ hours and the race got off at just about the last possible minute. Any more of a delay, the race would have been called due to darkness and postponed a day.
Where was I, oh yeah, I got a spot at the rail. Things started to fill up. The first thing that happened was that school children from the various competing contradas come in loudly singing their contrada song. Anyone who’s been to the Palio knows the song I’m talking about. The melody is the same for every contrada and there aren’t many moments when you can’t hear some group singing it. The lyrics change from district to district and year to year (if not day to day) but the jest is “We’re great. You suck. And that’s why we’re going to win.” It sounded cute coming from the kids as they were seated on the bleachers in front of the town hall. When the adults came in, escorting their horse, there was nothing cute about it. It was a competition and the testosterone level ramped up considerably.
Around this time about a dozen high school girls showed up near me. (OK, maybe it wasn’t just the testosterone level that was ramped up.) One walked up to me and asked me to move. I told her there wasn’t any room but she responded that she wanted my place. A little surprised, I laughingly said no. Then she let me in on a secret about the Palio. “You are tourist,” she said, “I am Siena.” The Palio is for the locals. Actually I already had an idea of this. I had met Franco on a previous trip to Siena and he told me then that they didn’t like locals coming into town telling them that the Palio is crazy. “We already know we are crazy.” For that matter, just a little while before, when I asked someone near me in the crowd if the school kids get those great seats on race day, he responded that all seats were for the citizens of Siena. This isn’t for tourists. Tourists will be tolerated. Just don’t get in the way.
Well, I had been standing there for a couple hours by then and I wasn’t about to give up my spot. There were a couple of women from Turin who felt similarly so the three of us ignored them, or tried to. Teens in a pack can be bold and the area quickly degenerated into a mosh pit but we didn’t move. The horses came out. It was hard to pay too much attention with all the pushing but I managed to wedge my knee between the rails and anchor myself. The Turin ladies were sheltered beside me but the occasional punch on the back or shoulder still came our way. Anyway, the horses broke and the mortar fired (Did I mention there was a mortar?), followed by two successive blasts. False start. Damn, I was ready for this to be over. They brought the horses back and gavea it another go. A second start and mortar blast and this one was good. They went around about twice and called it. The Istrice (Porcupine) contrada won, which unfortunately was the girl’s contrada. They went scampering over the railing and were never seen again but I now had someone to cheer against. ( I did think about grabbing one of their sneakers as they went but decided that might cause an incident). One of the ladies form Turin shook my hand and thanked me, adding that all Italians aren’t like that. I told her I knew that. Still I may have had enough Palio.
I grabbed a quick dinner (Pasta and rabbit. Tuscany is big in meat and game.) and decided to walk back to the Lodge. It’s a long walk but mostly downhill. On my way through town I walked through a couple of contrada dinners. Huge seatings, 500 to 1000, set up in a piazza or right out in the street. Everyone was laughing and singing (that song again) under the deepening Tuscan sky. Charming as hell. Okay, maybe I hadn’t had enough Palio.
The next day was much the same. Breakfast with a break for the test. Bus ride into town. Wandering about looking for shady spots. I gave the Palio another go but set up across the Campo by the dreaded downhill turn. The crowd was pleasant and I struck up a lengthy conversation with a British women who was there with her Italian husband. They had been to more than a few of these and gave me the inside skinny. The smart money was on Nicchio, the Seashell contrada. They had the horse and the jockey and were spreading money around. She also said she always leaves the actual race to the Sienese and suggested I do the same. Everybody was nothing but nice.
There were a few more preliminaries this time around. A couple hours before the race, drummers and flag bearers wearing medieval garb (which must have been real hot) enter contrada by contrada and take a lap around the crowded track (people are still milling about). Then came the singing school kids, followed by the men escorting the horses. The song is sung over and over. Then police, military, and trash men take a slow lap sweeping people and trash from the track. A contingent of mounted military in full dress entered from another alley. This was new. Riding white stallions they trotted a lap, then, drawing their swords, they broke into a gallop, their speed increasing as they leveled their weapons. They flew around the track and shot out through the alley from which they had come, the last rider careening slightly off the wooden support.
As the crowd started to settle, the horses came out and lined up. The start took a while and when the mortar fired no one seemed to be going too fast. My British friend said that something was wrong and wondered if it was a false start. Bad start or no, it held although I forget who won that one. Regardless, the crowd stormed the track, people sang the song and I cleared out.
Our hosts had gotten us passes to the Bruco contrada dinner. Halfway down a steep street heading out of town, we were ushered through a door, through the small contrada “museum” and out into a walled garden that must have covered a couple of acres. (This is the poor contrada? Everyone else was eating out in the street . I think Bruco is holding out on the rest of town. By the way, in spite of their poor cousin status, Bruco did win the whole thing a couple years ago.) A sea of fifty foot tables were set out in a phalanx. A dozen or so mammoth grills were blazing, each with a kerchiefed steward at the ready. High school aged children swarmed around, acting as servers. We were led to a table that had been reserved for the English speakers. (Comparing notes, we all had heard the rumor that Nicchio had bought the race.)
The air was festive and convivial. The only low point was the contrada mayor’s rather lengthy speech late in the evening. The jockey, seated at his right and clearly drunk, had a difficult time staying awake. When asked if he had any words for his supporters, he muttered “No.” The servers passed around dessert, and we trundled home.
Race day began, as usual, with Franco’s commentary on the final test. There was a lot of talking amongst the jockeys as they brought the horses to the line. More last minute politics. I headed to town, where the horses were each taken to the appropriate chapel to be blessed. I saw the blessing of the horse from the Selva, (Forest, their mascot is a rhino) contrata, a dappled grey mare with a reputation for skittishness but also a past winner. Tones dropped to a whisper as she was led in and as many of us as possible followed into the church. As soon as the holy water was sprinkled she got a little antsy and immediately we were frantically (but quietly) waved out.
Around town each contrata had assembled a medieval color guard, some in full armor, and a parade of sorts through the teeming streets of the town had begun. One of the key stops was the Bank of Sienna, a centuries old institute and the main fiscal power behind the Palio. The march in the Campo was scheduled for 5:30 and all motion headed in that direction. Except me, I went off to scope out a public TV and maybe a little shade.
Eventually the tower bell started to toll, the signal that the march had begun. The various contrada color guards line and slowly revolve around the Campo. The main feature is the handling and throwing of the contrada flags. Each contrada has a pair of flag bearers with an elaborate routine based on the ancient use of flags on the battlefield. The throwing has been added for flourish and they toss them a good 30 meters into the air. (OK, so I didn’t wander that far and was watching what I could see through a break at one of the entrances.) All the while, the bell continues to toll. One lone town member at the top of tower had the task of swinging the clapper back and forth for about two hours. He never broke rhythm.
Now, I had told myself that I wasn’t going to attend the final race and everyone I talked to said that was a smart plan. “Leave it to the Sienese.” was the basic response but, well, I was in Siena, I was a couple hundred yards away from the Palio. What was I going to do? After a couple of minutes of waffling, I plunged into the stream of people flowing into the Campo. There was a moment there when I was lost in the current and my only concern was staying upright but once I got into the center, things were fine. There was plenty of room. If I had a hula-hoop I could have hula-hooped, if I knew how to hula-hoop.
The march went on for a little while longer and the final spectator entryway was closed. From another alley (there are something like nine entrances to the Campo) came the war cart. About 15 town elders displayed the Palio from this wheeled wooden cart being drawn by two pair of white oxen. (I had never actually seen oxen before. Oxen are huge. They look as if they’ve been warped in from another era and that their horns got knocked all out of whack in the process. They are imperturbable.) The town elders unloaded the Palio and took their seats amongst the other costumed participants on the bleachers (no school kids for the real thing). The flagbearers came out for one last flourish and throw and so ended the preliminaries.
The jockeys emerged and the crowd went nuts. During the tests, the jockeys had worn the traditional garb of their contrada which resembled, well, really colorful pajamas. They had also worn flop brimmed hats, some accompanied by a feather. When riding at any speed, the brim tended to fly up, making them all resemble either Hunts Hall from the Bowery Boys or that guitarist from Cheap Trick, depending on your generation. On race day, though, they wore helmets. The reason being the previously mentioned canes they all have. As they brought their horses out, most brandished said cane to their supporters as if to say “I’m going to kick me some Sienese butt with this.”
Bedlam reigned, but only for a minute. As the horses approached the starting area, the crowd grew positively silent, shushing the clueless newcomers who didn’t know that the all-important order of the horses was about to be announced. A venerable voice read the order by contrada and the crowd responded with stifled cheers, sighs and curses. “La Madonna e una puttana” (Our Lady is a whore) my personal favorite seemed appropriately devotional.
The start took about 20 minutes. Nine of the riders brought their horses to the line and vainly tried to settle them while the tenth rider, Torre, appeared to be just chatting with some ladies in the crowd. Three or four times, all of the horses were pulled away from the line and reset. During each of these resets, there was a lot of chatter amongst the jockeys, more “strategery”. The crowd was getting restless (although I’ve since been told that twenty minutes is a quick start) and then, suddenly, Torre took off, the crowd let out a gasp that turned into a roar, and it was a race.
Even having watched five tests, I was stunned by how fast they moved. The excitement was surprising which made the whole thing more exciting. Onda (The Wave) jumped out to a quick start (The Wave? Where the hell did they come from?) and held it for the first lap. I realized I was surrounded by Onda and they were delirious, until the Selva mare started to make a move. A third horse, moving rapidly, was riderless. Selva passed Onda midway through the second lap but Nicchio seemed to be moving forward from back in the pack. The riderless horse glanced against the wall on the third lap and two more horses tumbled, causing NIcchio to go wide. Forest crossed first with NIcchio a couple lengths behind in the heartbreak position. Beyond that it didn’t matter. Immediately the track was flooded with spectators while the Forest color guard ran down to the church of Madonna Di Provenzano to shout the Te Deum in thanks.
Other than watching Phil Bradley leg out an inside the park home run, it was the most exciting sporting moment I’ve ever witnessed. Looking around the Campo, I saw people laughing, crying, hugging, clapping, singing, and positively inconsolable. It took about a half hour for the infield to clear enough for the trash trucks to move in. Already, the pizzerias and trattorias that line the square were setting up tables on the track. I fell in with some of the folks from the lodge that had paid money for bleacher seats and we grabbed the first available table.
We ordered and watched the transformation of the Campo. The sky darkened to a rich cobalt blue and torches were lit atop the Mangia Tower and the bank building. Already the Forest flag was lining the Campo. As we ate, the sound of drumming could be heard as the Selva contrata began their celebratory march around town. They encircled the Campo, waving their flags and drumming. Many had glow-in-the-dark pacifiers in their mouths. (When you win the Palio, you are reborn.) Traditionally the winning contrada parades for a week which means they are still at it as I type. God bless ‘em.
One last note. At breakfast the next morning we asked Franco his take on the race. He was unhappy because of the number of horses that went down, blaming that on the Leocorno (Unicorn) jockey who fell, apparently for no good reason, in the second lap. He brightened when the newsman reported that all of the horses were fine. As expected, there was no word on the jockeys. In spite of his concern for the horses the previous night, he did manage to stop by the Montone (Ram) contrata where they were having a big blowout. This was puzzling news as Montone didn’t even run in the race but he explained “It’s true they didn’t race, but they are Nicchio’s rival.”