Il Palio di Siena

As promised, I am here to give you my account of the Palio. Unfortunately it is more than a week after the fact because I had a few connection issues; but nevertheless, we are here now! My apologies for the late post. For those of you that have no idea what the heck a Palio is, here is a quick run down…

The actual Palio (apart from referring to the event itself) is a giant banner with a few ornamental medieval flourishes. It is presented to the winner of a bareback horserace held in the main square (Piazza del Campo) in Siena.

Siena is broken up into seventeen areas within the city walls. Each area (or contrada) has it’s own flag depicting their symbol and colours. For example, the contrada in which I live is il nicchio (the shell), represented by the colours blue, red and yellow.

There are two Palio events each year (July 2 and August 16), and for each, only ten of the seventeen contrade can compete. The seven that did not get to compete in last year’s July Palio were a given for this year’s, and to make up the ten they draw lots to determine which will gain entry to the race.

The race itself is planned and executed with the utmost care and strict adherence to its eight-hundred-year-old traditions. The Palio is more than a horse race to the Sienese. Not only does it extract from the locals a level of passion rarely seen elsewhere – or never seen in countries like Australia! – but victory is coveted for a more significant reason than the mere euphoria of winning.

The Palio is extraordinarily meaningful to the Sienese because they have such a deeply ingrained sense of belonging to their contrada (for life) and because they believe that they will live under a promise of favour, protection and prosperity in the year to come if they win. It is also strangely associated with their brand of Catholicism, which is the justification given for the strange practice of having the horse and jockey ‘blessed’ by a priest in the contrada’s local church!

This is serious business! Husbands and wives who come from different contrade separate and return to their respective areas for the pivotal four day period leading up to the race. Loyalty to one's contrada comes before any other allegiance!

The night before the race, the locals of each contrada have dinner together and it is common to see the streets filled with tables and chairs to accommodate the entire community. Forget sleeping peacefully around Palio time! You will be kept up at night by singing and woken up in the morning by drummers in medieval costumes!

The race itself is over in less than two minutes, but all the pageantry leading up to it takes HOURS. All the costumes and props (down to the six oxen pulling a cart filled with some older, official looking men) are as authentic as they can be.

July 2 was a burning hot day and 30-40,000 people filled the main square awaiting the race; which finally commenced at around 8pm. Jockeys hit the ground, horses bled, the crowds went wild and IL NICCHIO…

… came second!

This is even worse than coming last!

The winning contrada was Selva (the Woods), which is represented by a tree and rhinoceros. Why? I have no idea; there are neither woods nor rhinoceroses in Siena. However, this absurdity did not prevent them from waving their orange, green and white flags high and proudly for… well… they’re still waving them. They still hang over houses and around the necks of Selva residents a week later.

It is an event like no other and I highly recommend seeing the spectacular at least once in your life. As for me – yes, I will be at the August one also. Il nicchio is running again, so here’s hoping for a winner next time!