Though I have already spoken of the Palio in Siena and some possible issues that might be perceived with it, I would like to dive deeper into how involved the experience of living in Siena has been all the way since my arrival on June 12. Within my first week of being in Siena, I began running into contrada parades on the streets just by chance. What this has looked like: large groups of contrada members, usually led by men in traditional wear, followed by other enthusiasts of the same contrada. They walk through the streets, waving large flags that bear the emblem and colors of that contrada. This visual is also accompanied by the audible: several contrada members dressed traditionally also play the drums to a specific rhythm, and the contrada at large has a chant of some sort to complement the drums. This is a wonderful display of contrada pride through the streets for all to witness. Keep in mind I started to see this three weeks prior to the Palio, which is telling about how the Palio is so much more than just a ninety-second race.
These were some initial observations, but I am also grateful for the clarifications that my instructors shared both in the classroom and outside of the classroom. Sonia, my first language instructor, is a native of Siena, and thus was very much able to speak to the Palio’s emotional effect on her and other Sienese individuals. What resonated with me most from her lesson was her description of the moments immediately preceding the race, in which the horses’ line-up is announced. She notes how there are tens of thousands of people, and yet somehow, despite all the commotion, there is an instant where everybody falls to complete silence to hear the announcer’s words. “Mi dà sempre dei brividi,” she tells us, which means that the beauty of this silence and attention is so moving that she often gets goosebumps at this moment. I was touched to hear this, and I kept this in mind as she showed us various clips on the screen of previous Palios. Luca, our culture class instructor, happened to teach us about the Palio on the very same day. He shared many of the same details as Sonia, and also added his own emotion to the descriptions. Though not native to Siena as Sonia is, Luca is sixty-seven years old and has lived in Siena since he was seventeen. What he has mentioned several times to us, jokingly, is that he thought the people of the city were a bit odd for how strongly emotional they would get during the Palio season. Now, he says, after so many decades of living here, he too feels a very deep connection to the event and all of its traditions. He even shares with us details beyond the Palio, more specifically of the contrada system. It was very evident to me how much he loves his contrada – Torre – as one day in class he led us to that section of the city and invited us into its church and museum. The character was incredible, and the museum touched me even more. It serves as an artifact of the many traditions of the Torre contrada across centuries, including much of the traditional dress that I have seen on the street throughout the weeks in Siena. The final room we visited in the museum featured dozens of large, elongated banners. They were exquisite, painted by hand onto a fabric, from an assortment of years. These were the banners of the Palio during the years that the Torre contrada won. This respect for history and tradition is something I very much admire, and I greatly appreciated the combination of the following:
- My first hand experiences in the streets of Siena
- The lessons on the Palio by Sonia and Luca
- The accounts of the same two individuals who are so clearly impacted by a love for their city and for their respective contrade
This perspective is much more complete than something I might read in a book, and certainly, this has expanded upon my very first notion of the Palio. In my class taught by Professor Kathleen Boyle in Spring 2019, I saw a video clip of a past Palio, and was grateful for this initial exposure so that I would be aware of it three years down the line when I would incidentally live the Palio.
I also liked getting other outsiders’ perspectives. My other language instructor, Bianca, does not feel as Sonia and Luca do. She appreciates the tradition, but she hails from Agrigento, Sicily, and despite living in Siena for ten years, she does not feel as strongly. I imagine that her perception of the Palio might change later down the road, if she remains in the city for the following decades. I also met an American classmate, older than I am, who has been visiting Siena across decades. In fact, she has watched the Palio in person multiple times, often paying for a special balcony seat. Even not native to Siena, she has a great admiration for the event and has many experiences to share with the class.
The brividi Sonia mentioned several weeks before the Palio are something I feel myself even several days before the Palio, on Wednesday, June 29. This is the day of assigning the horses to the contrade, and this is an important, well-attended tradition hosted in Piazza del Campo. The school thoughtfully brought us over to the Piazza around noon to watch this, and I noted the same silence falling over the crowd every time a horse assignment was about to be announced. I, too, felt the goosebumps that Sonia once mentioned, and found myself getting caught up in the emotions. Naturally, as a temporary resident, I am not part of a contrada, but my friends and I had a few contrade that we were supporting: Torre, because of Luca; Istrice, because of our other teacher Guido and because of our upcoming contrada dinner; and Lupa, because that is the contrada in which our apartment is located.
Friday, July 1, the evening immediately prior to the Palio, was the night that all contrade hosted very large, formal dinners. The Dante Alighieri School of Siena has again gone above and beyond to provide us with an incredible cultural experience: the Notre Dame students were able to go with Guido to the Istrice contrada dinner. I was naturally very excited for this, so Iliana and I took a stroll down the streets of Siena Tuesday evening to find ourselves nice dresses for the gala-style dinner. On Thursday morning and evening, Friday morning and evening, and Saturday morning, there were what are called prove, which are relaxed “tests” of the race around the Piazza del Campo.
However, in the Friday evening prova, the horse of Istrice got a bit hurt. It was hard to understand what had happened because I heard about this secondhand. Furthermore, this event is very important to Sienese people, so when something upsetting like this happens, there is such a range of emotions that I did not wish to upset someone further by asking too many questions out of curiosity. As such, in the approach to the Istrice contrada dinner, there was a noticeable sadness in the air, as it was anticipated that their horse would not race the next evening. I could sense some sadness, which made me and my classmates in turn also a bit sad out of empathy for the contrada members and for the horse. That said, people’s spirits across the board seemed to be lifted once we all settled down for the courses of dinner. We were seated across a large expanse of outdoor space, totaling around 2,500 attendees. Volunteers came around the long tables presenting us with each course throughout the night, an event, complemented with speeches, that extended until 1:00am.
On the day of the Palio – Saturday, June 2 – the excitement was once again obvious. I wondered to myself how the event is affected when it does not so perfectly fall on a weekend day as it does this year. Are businesses closed? Or are streets emptier because everyone resumes normal business operations? I imagine it is somewhere in the middle, but this is something for me to confirm down the road when I return to Siena.
I had previously decided with my friends that the several hours standing in the hot sun before the Palio’s start might come to be too much. That is, in order to watch the Palio in person and not pay several hundred euros to sit in a balcony, you would have to stand with a mass of people in the center of the Piazza waiting for the event’s commencement while also hoping that you have a good view of the race. In fact, the Piazza slopes down in the middle, much as a shell would – and this reaffirms the shape of the shell that is identified in Piazza del Campo. This downward slope might even further obstruct a spectator’s view, and it would have been much more crowded than my observation of L’assegnazione dei cavalli four days prior in the same spot.
As such, the six of us walked around in search of a restaurant with a television. Gabe found one less than ten minutes from the Piazza, and the atmosphere even at the restaurant was electric. Many patrons sported their contrada’s scarf proudly, and maintained an attentive eye towards the TV. Naturally, as the start of the race approached, more spectators began to surround the restaurant, purchasing some kind of beverage to be able to reasonably stand around and benefit from the business’s showing of the race. From that point forward there was an assortment of shouts, scoffs, and exhales as we all waited through four to five restarts of the race. The complicated nature of the race comes from the fact that the final horse in the line-up, as he passes a designated point, indicates the start of the race. But this moment must be preceded by all horses settling perfectly in their proper positions, something which is difficult to accomplish. And, for whatever reason that I still do not understand, the starter gun was prematurely shot almost every time – that is, it came before the final horse trotted past the line. Though this served as a source of frustration for many Sienese people who had been waiting three years for this moment, I was grateful for the “dragging out” of the race. I was able to soak in more of the atmosphere and the anticipation. And I am also grateful to be in Siena the first year of the Palio since the pandemic began, because the additional layer of enthusiasm on the part of Siena as a whole was wonderful to experience.
Ultimately, the contrada Drago won, but I did feel badly for the contrada of Luca – Torre – because it really did seem to have won. Drago won by a hair, and Luca had once said that finishing second is almost worse than any other finish because the win was so nearly in the contrada’s grasp. The moment Drago won, the spectators around us from that very contrada jumped up immediately in a cry of overwhelming gratitude and immediately ran out of the restaurant towards the Piazza del Campo several blocks away. Even just reflecting on this now, I get goosebumps as I write. The six of us waited patiently for the restaurant to empty out, and then we strolled down the streets eager to go visit the contrada of Drago. We knew that there would be celebration, and we wished to see it all. When we arrived in Piazza Matteotti, we waited for about ten minutes or so before we heard the drums of the triumphant contrada returning from the central Piazza del Campo. A large mass of people arrived, and trailed behind the drumline and flag bearers, up the stairs, into the contrada church. The electric atmosphere in Piazza Matteotti lasted at least forty minutes, and once the masses had emptied out, we went to the Piazza del Campo ourselves. At this point, over an hour had passed since the race’s finish, and we entered Campo to find a parade around the circumference of the piazza. It was beautiful to witness, and we remained there for two hours grateful to be surrounded by so much excitement.
What touched me even more was the resumption of the proud Drago members’ celebration throughout the streets of Siena for the next three days and nights. I would often happen upon this while sitting behind the Baptistery or while sitting on the ground of Piazza del Campo. Each time, the leading drumline and flag bearers would come in their uniforms, keeping the traditions alive to an extraordinary extent. This unique cultural experience will stick with me for years to come, and I am thankful for the insights my teachers and peers shared along the way so that it would resonate with me even more.
