Episode 27: Siena – Palio

Buongiorno! I’m Dr. Rocky Ruggiero. Join me in rebuilding the Renaissance and making art and history come to life.

Welcome to the Rebuilding the Renaissance podcast, your guide to the art and history of Italy from the glory of Rome to the magnificence of the Renaissance, and now here’s your host, Dr. Rocky Ruggiero.

Buongiorno, everyone. Today’s podcast is about one of the most exciting events in all the world, and that is the horse race which takes place in Siena called the Palio, right, P-A-L-I-O.

Now, Consider that this is a horse race that actually takes place twice throughout the year. The first horse race takes place on July 2nd, and the other instead on August 16th. Both of the horse races are in honor of the Virgin Mary. The July 2nd race is in honor of the Madonna of Provenzano, whereas the August 16th is dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption, and if you have been listening to these podcasts, you know that Siena has a very special relationship with the Virgin Mary. So, it’s no surprise that both of these races would be raced in her honor.

The term Palio, just so you know what we’re talking about, is actually the Italian for the Latin pallium and the pallium is a standard. In other words, a vertical rectangular piece of cloth, which in ancient Roman times of course was used to identify the legions as they marched into battle, but in Siena, that vertical rectangular piece of cloth is the trophy. In other words, if you win the horse race, you win this particular standard, this pallium or Palio. Upon which not surprisingly, there is an image of the Virgin Mary and usually the Palio is commissioned to an important contemporary artist. Each standard is actually different each year in various contemporary artists actually creating the image of the Virgin Mary and child that you see upon it.

Now, the horse race takes place in the central piazza of Siena or the campo, as it’s called, where essentially the area that kind of runs the circumference of the nearly semicircular space now paved in gray flagstone around the brick nine triangular-segmented central section of the piazza. That area of gray flagstone is covered with earth, with dirt, which is brought in every year, a very rich clay surface that they create upon which the horses run.

Now, the number of horses racing is 10, and the 10 horses represent 10 of the 17 so-called contrade. In Siena, a contrada is a neighborhood and there are 17 of them, but because it gets just too crowded to have all 17 horses racing at one time, only 10 race each time, and if you are excluded from the race in one year, then you’re guaranteed to run in the other.

Now, I think it’s very important for all of you to know that technically the July and August Palios have nothing to do with each other except for the fact that they’re both Sienese Palio. In other words, if you don’t race in the July Palio one year, you’re guaranteed to race in the July Palio the second year, but if you’re excluded from a July Palio, it does not mean that you’re going to run in the August Palio instead, and the contrade all have symbols.

In fact, when you’re walking through the streets of Siena, you’ll see these colorful flags with different objects depicted on them. It could be a wolf, could be an eagle, could be a dragon or a tower or this weird kind of blue and white pattern, which represents a wave, right, and those are the symbols of the individual neighborhoods. Neighborhoods, which when participating in the Palio itself, act like what one social historian called tribes. They’re almost as if they’re these internal urban tribes competing with each other for the ultimate prize, and consider that what one wins when you win the Palio is the standard, but also the bragging rights that come with it.

In other words, you spend quite a bit of money to attempt to win the horse race and what you get in return is no money at all. It’s just bragging rights. You can essentially take that flag and march through the streets of Siena anytime you want. It can be 3:30 a.m. banging drums, waking everyone up and simply telling the city how great you are because you won the Palio.

It is the single most important event in the life of any Sienese person, that is winning a race during your own lifetime, and the Sienese literally live and die for the race. 10 bareback horses ridden by mercenary jockeys who might race for one contrada on one day and another on a different Palio or what have you. Lots of money changing hands as well and these horses race around the square at breakneck speed, and there are essentially no rules to the Palio other than the fact that the jockeys cannot be armed. All they have is the long whip that they use, which is actually made from a dried bull’s phallus and they can use that whip to whip the horse or they could use it to whip the person next to him, instead trying to discourage them or their horse from winning the race.

There are about 50,000 people in the piazza when the Palio actually takes place. You have standing room only inside of the track and that gray paved area of the piazza itself. Then they put up bleacher seats all the way around the so called palchi, P-A-L-C-H-I, and those seats are up for sale and then just about every terrace and window in the piazza is also available for rent, and of course, the prices get somewhat exorbitant depending on where you are, and although some of those windows look quite large, most of them cannot accommodate more than three or four people watching the race comfortably.

Now, the whole notion of the Palio is some have actually described it, is that when Siena was conquered by Duke Cosimo the First in 1555, their kind of expansionistic ambitions were killed. In other words, they were now a subject city to Florence, and so the idea that the city is somehow turned internal. In other words, if they couldn’t compete against neighboring cities for territory and land and power, what have you, what they could do is compete internally amongst themselves, and so a horse race, it was just one of many of these kinds of social phenomenon that went on.

Another was a kind of sanctioned fist fight that happened. Another pastime from the Middle Ages was involved, the sesatha, they would throw rocks at each other, and the Palio was just one of these particular ceremonies which allowed societies a kind of catharsis, right? I mean the idea essentially of these Palios and the other ceremonies that took place or rituals that took place is much the same idea of what Mardi Gras is supposed to be or the idea that you drink and eat yourself into oblivion so that come lent you are prepared to fast and to sacrifice, right? This is essentially the idea, and consider that in Siena, it actually does work in the sense that the excitement and the energy and the violence that goes in to these Palio it’s so extraordinary that the crime rate in the city is actually quite low. Now, the contradaoli, that is those people who belong to a particular contrada, as I mentioned before, sort of living and dying for them, the neighborhood is everything and they will do whatever it takes to win a Palio.

Now, what happens is that there’s this whole selection process for horses. Throughout the year these contradaoli, these members of the contrada, they actually go out and visit different horse ranches to pick the horses that might run in the Palio. Once they’ve made the selection and all these horses are actually brought to Siena, not that long before, we’re talking them centrally about weeks before, members of all the neighborhoods that are racing will come to actually inspect the horses, and the interesting thing is that they will discard the strongest and the weakest of the group.

In other words, you don’t want a horse that’s super fast because these horses are assigned to the neighborhoods by lottery and consider that the next best thing to winning an actual Palio, which I told you was the sort of fulfillment of a lifelong dream, was your enemy contrada actually losing it. Coming in second in the Palio is essentially losing the Palio because you were so close to coming in first, but you didn’t.

So, that the idea is if you choose a horse that’s particularly fast to participate in the Palio, there is no guarantee that your enemy contrada will not receive it. What you do is you cut off the head, the best horse, you cut off the worst, of course, which of course is the slow horse because that might end up as your horse as well, and once these horses are assigned, the neighborhoods of course make do.

Now, they’ve already negotiated with jockeys and these jockeys again as I mentioned are mercenaries, certain social historians equating them to these sort of medieval mercenary generals of fortune, right? Fighting for the highest bidder or what have you, and the jockeys of course are assigned horses as well, but the jockeys are also sanctioned and authorized by their respective contrade, or neighborhoods, to enact what we call partiti, and partiti are deals technically speaking.

In other words, one particular contrada has $150,000 at its disposal. I’m making these figures up just to give you a better idea of what actually goes on and essentially it’s now up to the jockey to while he’s in the courtyard of the Palazzo Pubblico, which is really the only time the jockeys are alone, they are constantly in the company of contradaoli, making sure that someone from another contrada does not essentially bargain or bribe their jockey to throw the race or what have you.

So, there’s always protection around them. Really the only time that the jockeys are alone is just before the trials. When they’re inside the Courtyard of the Podestà and there through very discreet signals they can communicate with the other jockeys. Look, my contrada is willing to pay you $50,000 to throw the race. Look, my contrada is willing to pay you $25,000 if you will help me in preventing this other neighborhood from winning the race. This is essentially the idea of the actual horse race itself.

Now, those deals continue all the way up to the starting line or what the Sienese call la mossa, and la mossa is essentially this roped-off area. If you’re in the piazza with your back to the Palazzo Pubblico, it is at about 11:00. That’s where they have this rope, and then there’s this sortition, this lottery system essentially where they determine the actual order of horses to come out, and of course the lower numbers, the one and two spot are the most important because the horses come out, there are no starting gates. This is not the Kentucky Derby where horses are inside of boxes. These horses are actually banging into each other as they try to line up in a horizontal formation, one, two, three, all the way to 10, but the 10th horse is the rincorsa.

In other words, that horse does not line up next to the others. It gets a running start and is essentially the horse that determines when the race begins because of course that horse, while they’re trying to get them into that starting space, will go back and forth waiting for the most opportune moment for it to begin it’s running start, and once it sees its window, it takes off, and once it does, there’s a judge, the mossier, they call him, the master of the mossa, the master of the start. His job is to then drop that rope and to actually mark the beginning of the race and then it’s just pandemonium.

Bareback again, riding, whipping their horses as they go around, and it’s actually the second turn that is the most perilous, which is the Curva of San Martino. San Martino because just behind this curva, or this curve, is a church dedicated to St. Martin, and it’s about an 80-degree turn and downhill.

So, these horses, they’re coming at breakneck speed, gaining even more speed, obviously because of gravity, and then needing to turn a hairpin, 80-degree turn, and so that this is usually where the horses become scosse, that is where they might lose some of their jockeys because they might take it too wide and end up, now the entire area is line with these white mattresses, which are the same type of mattresses they use in Formula 1 racing for instance, because obviously of the high velocity that’s involved, and they race clockwise, which is a rarity in horse racing, and most of the time horses are running in the opposite direction, and that takes some getting used to right for these horses as well, and they go around three times.

Now, consider that the winner is the horse. So, if the jockey has fallen off, but the horse wins, the horse and the contrada win, regardless of whether or not the jockey is with them, and when you see a victory, it’s a moving site because you’ll see Sienese people just drop to their knees in tears. I mean, just moved, just overwhelmed by the enormity of actually having won a Palio during your lifetime and you’ll see them. They formed this kind of human ladder as they climb up to grab the standard, which is kept on a balcony very close to the actual starting line, and then the party begins.

Now, it’s not just the race, and this is what I want everyone to realize, by the time you get to the race, it’s become not a formality necessarily, because obviously anything could happen, but the Sienese, they essentially eat and drink themselves into this semi-catatonic condition leading up to the actual race itself. The level of anticipation and anxiety and preparation and prayer and everything else that goes into it is simply astounding. So, by the time you get to the race, they’re at a breaking point. I mean, they’re at the boiling point where essentially the whole city can actually come unhinged because of what is going on, and that really is the Palio, right? It’s something that goes on all year long. It’s not just the race itself. Consider that your identity is your contrada first and your city second. You are first a member of your neighborhood and then only after that are you Sienese.

In fact, this was kind of an issue because they’re so nationalistic about their territories. The idea of marrying someone from a different contrada, never from an enemy contrada, that would be unheard of technically, or the fact that when they built the hospital in Siena, it actually fell into the territory of one specific contrada so that technically you’re born into your neighborhood. You’re born there because up until fairly recently, children were born at home, and so the story goes that there were grandparents who were just beside themselves in horror with the thought that their grandchildren would become members of a contrada because the hospital was located in this particular neighborhood, and so you hear of desperate grandfathers rushing into the delivery room with buckets full of dirt from their own neighborhood, throwing the dirt underneath the delivery table in hopes of guaranteeing, of course, that the child would therefore be a member of his own contrada.

Eventually, they did away with the territorial birthright of contradaolioship, if that’s the right word, and what they do instead is that you’re actually baptized, you’re initiated into a contrada, and many of my friends, who are not even Italian, are members of the various contrada because they’re baptized in. They are historians or art historians who dedicate their careers to Sienese history in art and so have been adopted by some of these neighborhoods as their own members, and you take that identity with you everywhere, right, and again, those flags that you see, those handkerchiefs that they wear as well.

Consider that during Palio time, which again is weeks, right, leading up to the actual race, that if a married couple is from two different neighborhoods or two different contrade, that usually they sort of go off to their own contrada, and so this kind of separation actually does much for successful marriage life that the divorce rate in Siena is unusually low because of this break that married couples get from each other during Palio time.

Children will oftentimes either alternate between, now gain the birth rate and Italy is embarrassingly low right now, but if there are multiple children, then the children will go off to their parents’ respective contrade and then the following time they’ll switch up, or if there’s one child, you’ll simply alternate back and forth.

It’s just, it infiltrates every little aspect of Sienese life. I watch it every year and I still remember that after the race, my hands were literally trembling with the excitement of watching this race and these horses at breakneck speed coming through. The way the people are just so excited about what’s actually happening in the race. It’s just an absolutely marvelous experience to see and consider again, that it’s not a spectacle that the Sienese put on for tourists. This is not about tourists. Tourists happen to come, obviously it generates a considerable amount of revenue for the city because people will come to Siena just to see the Palio.

If you’re new to me and new to my podcasts, I actually offer a Palio program, and the whole point of this is not just to watch the race. The whole point of my program is to have you eating in the neighborhoods. You’re eating in the contrade. The veterinarian talks to us about what happens behind the scenes, right, because in theory, once the horses are assigned, they’re protected. It’s airtight security because theoretically another contrada could come and poison your horse.

Another contrada could come and sneak laxatives into your horse’s food. You follow?. So, they need to be protected, and so the veterinarian actually talks to us about how the horses are treated, if in fact there’s any chemical enhancement that goes on. We have a jockey talk to us about his experiences and consider that it has been known for jockeys to throw races, and if you do this, then your life, and I mean this literally, is in peril. So, what has happened in the past is that if it becomes fairly obvious that a jockey has thrown a race, the jockey will usually dismount and run off the field before he gets to the finish line, where of course he might be lynched by his bosses, and one particular occasion there was a taxi actually waiting for the jockey nearby the Piazza del Campo to take him to the train station out of the city as quickly as possible.

Other times, if a jockey lost because of his lack of skill, again, the contradaoli might become particularly angry and that’s when it’s the job of the vigili, of the civil police, to step in and actually protect the lives. Emotions run very, very high during Palio time and it’s not that uncommon for fisticuffs to break out between rival contrada, as well as bands of young men walking, obviously after these long wine-filled dinners that they have taking place and sort of coming into each other and then fisticuffs actually breaking out as well.

It’s just an intense time to be there. We watch the Palio from an extraordinary vantage point, which is a terrace right there. It’s so close. You can actually feel the horses shaking the ground. You feel their trembling as they come through. You can almost reach out and touch them, and so we’ll immerse ourselves fully into the Palio experience, and then actually watch the combination of it all, the climax of it all with the race itself.

We’ll actually also be seeing the blessing of the horse because all of these horses are put into these spaces and then brought into the contrada chapels. Every contrada has a headquarter building and inside of which there’s a chapel and the horse is actually brought into the chapel to be blessed, obviously as good omen. In fact, one of the local traditions is that if a horse defecates while in the chapel, it’s a good sign. That is a good omen and portent to a horse that might potentially win the race.

It’s a phenomenon which to many might seem barbaric, which might seem to be cruel to animals, but of course the objective is not to hurt animals. The objective of the Palio is to treat these horses very well, and the amount of money that goes into actually healing the horses after the race, and so it’s not just putting them down because they know they could no longer run, but the Sienese expending quite a bit of financial resource to then aid those horses who might be injured during the race, and of course, at such breakneck speed and in such a situation there is always that possibility.

Okay. So, the Palio is the catharsis. It is the living heart of the city of Siena, which lost its identity in 1555 again when it fell to the city of Florence, and in many ways now what was taking place outside the walls of the city as the great city-state conquered the territory to it’s southwest in the contrado instead now turn intrinsic and internal as the different neighborhoods of the city vie and compete for that supremacy. That supremacy over the city that we are the number one neighborhood of the great medieval city of Siena.

So, stay tuned for more. In my next podcast we’ll actually be heading back to Florence and picking up with the medieval traditions of that city and how eventually, of course, Florence would come to dominate all of Tuscany and in some ways, all of Europe during the Middle Ages.

For more information on lectures and programs in the United States, art history, tours in Italy and for online video lectures, visit rockyruggiero.com.