The Palio!

5-9-10

It is quite an exciting time in Siena right now because the Palio is happening quite soon on July second. For those of you who don’t know what the Palio is, let me give you some background. Siena is broken down into 17 ‘Contrada’s’, which is another name for neighborhood. These Contrada’s each have an animal that represents the neighborhood (Paris and I live in the Unicorn Contrada, our teacher Silvia lives in the Porcupine Contrada ect…) and each Contrada has a rival to which there is extreme competition. Everyone wants their Contrada to be the best in all of Siena. Every July second and August sixteenth there is a horse race (each Contrada has a horse and a jockey they are assigned and work hard to make sure their neighborhood wins this annual race). With 17 Contrada’s hoping to win there is a tense animosity in the air of Siena in the weeks before each race. To the Sienaese people, these two races are almost as important as their catholic religion. The winning jockey receives 300,000 dollars and enough respect for a lifetime. There are great feasts out in the middle of the streets, fancy costumes, and music as each Contrada tries to out do every other Contrada in Siena.

My teacher Silvia told us that the people of Siena have been known to play ‘dirty’ by poisoning other Contrada’s horses, jockeys ect.. in order to have a better chance of winning. There have been instances when opposing Contrada’s paid the Porcupine Contrada’s (Silvia’s Contrada) jockey in order to make sure he would throw the race and not win. The Porcupines found out about this after the race and beat up the jockey – he then had to be in the hospital for 40 to 50 days. When I ask Silvia about this she smiles and replies “this not so good, but he deserve it” and shrugs her shoulders. Needless to say the Palio in Siena is quite an important part of their culture, so it has been nice to be here to experience a practice that has been occurring every year since the early 1700’s.