Il Palio di Siena

Twice times a year, on the second of July and the sixteenth of August, Siena itself stops for the Palio. It is a race of horses that lasts ninety seconds, but for the Sienese represents much more more: it represents the identity itself of the city.

Siena is divided into seventeen districts, each one with its own name, its own colors and its own symbol. There are the Tortoise, the Dragon, the Eagle, the She-wolf, and many others. When a child is born in Siena, he is immediately baptized into the district of the father. It is a belonging that lasts all the life.

The tradition comes from the Middle Ages. Already in the 1300s, the districts organized festivals and competitions. The race modern, however, was born in the 1600s, when the tournaments with the bulls and the buffalo were replaced by horses. Since then, the Palio has not been ever changed much.

Four days before of the race, the districts receive the their horses through a drawing. Only ten of the seventeen districts run in each Palio. The others watch, cheer, suffer. The jockey is chosen with great attention, because must be brave, fast and above all loyal.

On the day of the Palio, Piazza del Campo becomes unrecognizable. On the track is placed the earth packed, and the windows of the houses around the square are decorated with drapes colored. Thousands of people themselves squeeze in the center of the square, under the sun of August.

When the horses enter the track, the silence becomes total. One hears only the breath of the crowd. Then, suddenly, the drumroll of the mortar announces the start. The horses burst out, the crowd shouts, and in ninety seconds everything is over. The winner not is the jockey, but the horse: if it arrives first even without a jockey, it wins the same still.

For the district winning, the celebration lasts weeks. They do dinners long outdoors, one sings, one carries in procession the banner won. For the losers, instead, the pain is real. Some cry in the square, others return to home in silence. But tomorrow it will start again everything, because the Palio is not an an event: it is a life.