Towards the Year 2000


At the end of this memorable millenium, the Palio once more seeks its new face. Taking on an ever more important role is the Consortium for the Guardianship of the Palio, intervening with punctilio against abuses of images, commercial manipulations, and publicity exploitations of the Palio and of the Contrade. The Magistrature of the Contrade celebrates its 100th anniversary, the Committee of Friends of the Palio the 50th anniversary of its activities.

Territories outside the city walls are once again a question of high priority. The idea of dividing the territory in the entire Municipality into slices  has been debated for decades. In 1994 a docu-ment was discussed in all 17 sovereign assemblies of the Contrade: the great majority came out against the hypothetical assignment to the Contrade of 17 territories outside the city walls to cover the whole Municipality of Siena. All the Contrade instead reiterated the need to revitalize the historic territories as a measure to protect against their progressive  depletion.

Palio justice remains a much-debated topic. There is the generally perceived need of rethink procedures which, for now, delegate the investigational phase almost exclusively to reports made by the Deputees of the Festival (essentially an historical document) and do not make provision for an appellate judgment for the existence and merits of penalties meted out to jockeys and Contrade after every Palio by the Municipality of Siena, all the more so because changes that have arisen in recent Italian legislation have redefined the role of mayors, town committees, and municipal councils. In response, Palio justice has seen the limiting of the role of the municipal committee, underlining that of the mayor;  the municipal council is called upon to decide on questions of the legitimacy of sanctions. Disagreement also concerns the concept of the objective responsibility of the Contrade, stated in the famous Article 101. Opinions differ between 2 extremes: some would have Contrada responsibility applied at all times and in all places, others only during the Palio and in the space of the Piazza.

The Start of the race remains at the center of many discussions and recriminations, above all regarding the role of the Starter with respect to the "running start" of the10th horse. Over the 9 jockeys between the starting ropes, the Starter has absolute power. Over the jockey entrusted with the "running start," the Starter has only the power of veto: he may only stop him from entering when the alignment of the other horses between the starting ropes is not, in his judgment, satisfactory. But when the alignment is as it should be, it is the 10th jockey who chooses the moment of his own entry between the starting ropes, signifying the start of the race. Consequently the Palios of recent years have marked the growth of long, exasperating waits.

In the last several years the world of the jockeys has witnessed the reign of Aceto divided into a diarchy of 2 Sardinian jockeys, Salvatore "Cianchino" (because he reminds many of the legendary Ciancone) Ladu and Beppino "Pesse" Pes. In the decade that is about to close, the two have won 10 of the 16 Palios run. Today their palmarès amount to 8 Palios in 7 Contrade for Cianchino and 8 wins in 5 Contrade for Pesse.

The Pantheon of Palio horses welcomes its most recent heroes. Panezio, trained by Canapino, has become the emulator of Folco: like Folco, Panezio ran20 races in the Piazza. Between 1973 and 1983 he won 8 times. Benito dominated the Piazza in the 1980s, peremptorily winning 5 races, 2 of which were "riderless" victories. After these, no others have been admitted yet to the circle of the Greats. The animals coming to the Piazza often prove themselves poorly adapted to a race that was not made for horses with too pure a blood or too fast a speed, fragile and nervous as many of them are today. Accidents on the track prompt repeated arguments. The Municipality, in cooperation with other organi-zational bodies of the Palio, applies constant pressure that all horses be scrutinized to ascertain not only their state of health but also their physical suitability to the Piazza. Facilities have been built for the care of injured horses.


Horses at San Martino's corner. 


The colors of the Palio become ever more vivid. Artists of international renown have been called upon in recent years to paint the Great Banners. It began in 1969 when Marte, a Sienese graphic artist who had emigrated to Zurich, gifted to the Palio a Great Banner done in the style of great European Pop Art. Mino Maccari and Renato Guttoso followed, the latter of whom for the August, 1971 Palio painted a Great Banner that satisfied (though perhaps not immediately) the cultured and the unsophisticated alike. Later came artists such as Cagli, Decca, Attardi, Sassu, Treccani, Vespignani, Tadini. In 1975 the first foreign artist was commissioned to paint the Banner, the Japanese Sho Chiba, followed then by the French Gérard Fromanger, the Spanish Eduardo Arroyo, the British Joe Tilson, and Leo Lionni, citizen of the world. In 1981 the Banner by Valerio Adami prompted clamorous arguments, but will remain a yardstick for later artists. Sandro Chia painted the Banner of August, 1994 and executed for the Porcupine and the city a large bronze horse with its colt, standing  in the Lizza gardens, symbol of the Palio's continuity.

Siena constantly appears as the first, or among the first, on recent lists of the most liveable cities in Italy.

To the ever more numerous guests who come to Siena to understand its reason and its secret, the Sienese ultimately reply, "Because in Siena there's the Palio, Because in Siena there are the Contrade."

In one of her essays, Judith Hook portrayed Siena, the Palio, and the Contrade as an everlasting trinity. Others have identified the three parts of the Sienese trinity as municipalism, tribalism, and narcissism.

One thing is certain: without the Palio (and the Contrade that participate in it and hand it on) Siena today would be only a beautiful city in Tuscany.