The Contrade Today


The Contrade TodayBeyond the Palio and the Piazza, the city changes. The center empties. Neighborhood life grows thin. The majority of Contrada members, about 90%, live outside the boundaries of their neighborhoods and only commute to it. But stopping the city from changing face altogether there is still the iron-like, invisible 4th dimension of the Contrade, a dimension in symbolic space. Today the Contrada, in the territory of its boundaries, has a series of meaningful places, first of all a symbolic “gate,” unmarked by special architectural signs but known by tradition, facing the center of town. The  church, the most ancient place of the Contrada, serves as chapel for the religious ceremonies of the Contrada and of individual members. The Contrada Association is a vast recreational circle that is open every day, run by Contrada volunteers. Usually a wide green space is connected to the Contrada, owned by the Contrada or used with the liberal consent of the Municipality, wisely committed to defending the green valleys within the city walls, in the belief that the Contrade are the groups best equipped to guard them and to put them to socially important use. The Associations take on the task of the daily socialization among members through the organization and management of free time, creating and searching for new opportunities to promote social life in step with the times. Once societies open only to men, the Associations have become ever more clubs for "members and families." Within the Associations groups of various ages and interests form and hold their meetings. Life in the Association has taken on the same functional and symbolic role held by life in the neighborhood in past generations. The Association is the secular arm of the Contrada. Fountains bearing the crests of the Contrade have spread throughout the city. They are used for baptism within the Contrada, and above all they constitute the most characteristic architectural sign of the Contrada; the tabernacles of the Contrada take on color and Contrada connotation once a year when the children decorate them with flowers and colors for the Feast of the Madonna on 3   September. 


The Contrade and the rites of passage:
Contrada baptism, wedding, and funeral 


The Historical Seat/Museum is referred to by the members as the "Contrada" through antono-masia, and they refuse to  think of it as "a museum." For them indeed, the building is a natural extension of home, a communal home that carefully houses and proudly displays objects of historic, artistic, and archival value purchased or donated by the members. Similarly the population of the Contrada is considered by   members as the natural extension of their biological family. To observers who have searched for analogies with other times, places, and cultures, the Contrada has appeared a metropolitan tribe, a Mediterranean clan, a modern junto or faction, a modern "clan" of mixed social classes. The Sienese instead prefer to underline the Contrada’s historic and sociological uniqueness. The Contrada  continues to take part in the Palio and to deliver rites of passage and of identity confirmation. It is there at births, weddings, and funerals with its page and its flag; on the special occasions in the lives of its members, the Contrada sends cards of greeting, congratulations, solidarity, condolescence.
 The Contrada loves to posit itself as a small autonomous patria, a city in the Sienese "confederation" of cities. In this light, after the War twinnings between the Contrade and other Italian cities flowered: the Eagle and Aquila, the Snail and Venice, the Porcupine and Perugia, the Panther and Lucca, and so forth. But the consubstantial incompatibility of the Contrada with all that happens "outside" has left such twinnings as mostly formal, practically inactive acts. It is Siena, following a European trend, that has twinned itself and carries on active cultural exchanges with Weimar, Wetzlar, and Avignon. Traditionally one belongs to a Contrada in different ways.The oldest is jus soli, by birth within the boundaries of the Contrada..
The Historical Seat/Museum is referred to by the members as the "Contrada" through antono-masia, and they refuse to  think of it as "a museum." For them indeed, the building is a natural extension of home, a communal home that carefully houses and proudly displays objects of historic, artistic, and archival value purchased or donated by the members. Similarly the population of the Contrada is considered by   members as the natural extension of their biological family. To observers who have searched for analogies with other times, places, and cultures, the Contrada has appeared a metropolitan tribe, a Mediterranean clan, a modern junto or faction, a modern "clan" of mixed social classes. The Sienese instead prefer to underline the Contrada's historic and sociological uniqueness. The Contrada  continues to take part in the Palio and to deliver rites of passage and of identity confirmation. It is there at births, weddings, and funerals with its page and its flag; on the special occasions in the lives of its members, the Contrada sends cards of greeting, congratulations, solidarity, condolescence.
 The Contrada loves to posit itself as a small autonomous patria, a city in the Sienese "confederation" of cities. In this light, after the War twinnings between the Contrade and other Italian cities flowered: the Eagle and Aquila, the Snail and Venice, the Porcupine and Perugia, the Panther and Lucca, and so forth. But the consubstantial incompatibility of the Contrada with all that happens "outside" has left such twinnings as mostly formal, practically inactive acts. It is Siena, following a European trend, that has twinned itself and carries on active cultural exchanges with Weimar, Wetzlar, and Avignon. Traditionally one belongs to a Contrada in different ways.The oldest is jus soli, by birth within the boundaries of the Contrada.