Palio di Siena
The Palio di Siena (known locally simply as Il Palio), the most famous palio in Italy, is a horse race held twice each year on July 2 and August 16 in Siena, in which ten horses and riders, dressed in the appropriate colours, represent ten of the seventeen Contrade, or city wards.
The seventeen are: Aquila (Eagle), Bruco (Caterpillar), Chiocciola (Snail), Civetta (Little Owl), Drago (Dragon), Giraffa (Giraffe), Istrice (Crested porcupine), Leocorno (Unicorn), Lupa (Female Wolf), Nicchio (Seashell), Oca (Goose), Onda (Wave), Pantera (Black Panther), Selva (Forest), Tartuca (Tortoise), Torre (Tower) and Valdimontone (literally, "Valley of the Ram" - often shortened to Montone).
A magnificent pageant, the Corteo Storico, precedes the race, which attracts visitors and spectators from around the world.
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History
Any connection with the sacred games of the ancient Romans being obscured by time, the earliest known antecedents of the race are medieval. The town's central piazza was the site of public games, largely combative: pugna, a sort of many-sided boxing match or brawl; jousting; and in the 16th century, bullfights. Public races organized by the Contrade were popular from the 14th century on; called palii alla lunga, they were run across the whole city.
When the Grand Duke of Tuscany outlawed bullfighting in 1590, the Contrade took to organising races in the Piazza del Campo. The first such races were on buffalo-back and called bufalate; asinate, races on donkey-back, later took their place, while horse-racing continued elsewhere. The first modern Palio (called palio alla tonda to distinguish it from the earlier palii alla lunga) took place around 1650. At first, one race was held each year, on July 2; a second, on August 16, was added later.
The race today
The first race (Palio di Provenzano) is held on July 2, which is both the Feast of the Visitation and the date of a local festival in honour of the Madonna of Provenzano (a painting once owned by the Sienese leader Provenzano Salvani, which was supposed to have miraculous curative power). The second race is held on August 16 (Palio dell'Assunta), the day after the Feast of the Assumption, and is likewise dedicated to the Virgin Mary. After exceptional events (e.g. the Apollo 11 moon landing) and on important anniversaries (e.g. the centennial of the Unification of Italy), the Sienese community may decide to hold a third Palio between May and September. The most recent being in 2000 to mark the Millennium.
The field consists of ten horses, so not all seventeen city wards can take part in the Palio on any occasion. The seven wards which did not take part in the previous race are automatically included; three more are chosen by draw (twice a year, in the last days of May and at the beginning of July). Private owners (among them, some jockeys) offer the pick of their stables, selected during the year after trial races, other Palio races in Italy and veterinary examination, from which main representatives of the participating Contrade, the Capitani, choose ten of approximately equal quality, three days before the race. A lottery then determines which horse will run for each Contrada. Six trial races are run, the first on the evening of the horse selection and the last on the morning before the Palio. The devout residents of each Contrada invoke the sacred aid of their patron saint on their horse and jockey. The worldly improve their odds with more profane methods, chiefly bribery and doping. The sensible simply keep a close watch on their stable and their rider.
The race is preceded by a spectacular pageant, the Corteo Storico, which includes (among many others) Alfieri, flag-wavers, in medieval costumes. Just before the pageant, a squad of carabinieri on horseback, wielding swords, demonstrate a mounted charge around the track. Spectators arrive early in the morning, eventually filling the centre of the town square, inside the track, to capacity; the local police seal the entrances once the festivities begin in earnest. Seats ranging from simple bleachers to elaborate box seats may be had for a price, but sell out long before the day of the race. The landlords of buildings overlooking the piazza sometimes stipulate that tenants must be absent on the day of the Palio, in order to rent the space to spectators.
At 7.30 p.m. (July) / 7 p.m. (August), the detonation of an explosive charge echoes across the piazza, signaling to the thousands of onlookers that the race is about to begin. The race itself runs for three laps of the Piazza del Campo, the outer course of which is covered with several inches of dirt, tufa, and the corners of which are protected with padded crash barriers for the occasion. The jockeys ride the horses bareback from the starting line, an area between two ropes. Nine horses, in an order only decided by lot immediately before the race starts, enter the space. The tenth, the rincorsa, waits outside. When the Rincorsa finally enters the space between the ropes the starter (Mossiere) activates a mechanism that instantly drops the canapo (the front rope). This process (the Mossa) can take a very long time, as deals will have been done between various contrade and jockeys that affect when the Rincorsa moves - he may be waiting for a particular other horse to be well- or badly-placed for example.
On the dangerous, steeply-canted track, the riders are allowed to use their whips (in Italian, nerbi, stretched, dried bull's penises) not only for their own horse, but also for disturbing other horses and riders. The winner is the first horse to cross the finish line with its head ornaments intact — and a horse can win without its rider (a condition known as cavallo scosso). The loser in the race is considered to be the Contrada whose horse came second, not last.
The winner is awarded a banner of painted silk, or palio, which is newly created by a different artist for each race. The enthusiasm after the victory, however, is so extreme that the ceremony of attribution of the Palio is quite instantaneous, being the first moment of a months-long celebration for the winning ward. There are occasional outbreaks of violence between partisans of the various Contrade.
There may be some danger to spectators from the sheer number of people in attendance. There have also been complaints about mistreatment of horses, injuries and even deaths, especially from animal rights associations and even from some veterinarians. In the Palio held on August 16, 2004 the horse for the Contrada of the Bruco (Caterpillar) fell and was badly trampled as the race was not stopped, despite possible additional safety risks for other horses. The horse died of its injuries, raising further complaints from animal rights organizations, which do not recognize the municipality's efforts to improve the safety of the race and the exceptionality of that accident.
Sources
- Brown, Margaret Mcdonough and Titus Buckhardt (1960). Siena, the City of the Virgin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Drechsler, Wolfgang (2006). "The Contrade , the Palio and the Ben Comune: Lessons from Siena", Trames 10(2), 99-125.
- Dundes, Alan and Alessandro Falassi (2005). La Terra in Piazza. An Interpretation of the Palio of Siena. 2nd of the new edn. (Orig. 1972). Siena: Nuova Immagine. (Standard work, but meanwhile very controversial because of its Freudian interpretation.)
- Falassi, Alessandro (1985). " Pageant: Siena's Everlasting Republic", The Drama Review 29(3), 82-92.
- Handelman, Don (1998), Models and Mirrors: Towards an Anthropology of Public Events, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Silverman, Sydel (1979). "On the Use of History in Anthropology: The Palio of Siena", American Ethnologist 6(3), 413-436. (Most important counter-model to Dundes & Falassi.)
- Pascal, C. Bennett (1981). "October Horse", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 85, 261-291.
- Spicer, Dorothy Gladys (1958). Festivals of Western Europe. Wilson.
- 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Siena
External links
- Archive of the Palio di Siena I (Italian)
- Archive of the Palio di Siena II (English)
- Regulations of the Palio (Italian)