At the start of the century the Civic Community adopted two historic measures, the brainchildren in 1802 of Gonfaloniere Forteguerri. He ordained “that jockeys are not to hold back or beat each other until after the race has begun and the starting rope 

has dropped, and they have completely passed the Lord Judges’ Stand, upon penalty of imprisonment.” Thus ended the indecorous spectacle of jockeys whipping and hitting each other before the Start.

In another measure the Civic Magistracy divided into 2 parts the prize which had always been given to the winner of the linear Palio on 15 August, a crimson velvet drape worth 110 thalers. From then on, 70 thalers were given in cash to the winner of the linear Palio, and 40 to the Contrada winning the circular Palio. Thus the long, process of popularization of the Palio was concluded, renewing the aspect of a feast for one and all, an official celebration of the city.

A drastic change is found in the paintings on the Great Banners, caused by the French dominion over Tuscany. A reflection of the new egalitarianism from across the Alps, between 1808 and 1813 the heraldic symbols of the Great Banner were reduced to the simple, intertwined initials of the Deputies of the Festival: soon, however, the monograms were overhung by the new enormous crest of Emperor Napoleon.

The height of political interference in the Palio came about in August, 1808, when the centuries-old celebration of the Assumption became a celebration of Saint Napoleon. Fortunately the innovation did not last.
The rock-bottom of misguided inventions was reached in April 1810. The decision was made to offer in the Piazza del Campo a great banquet for the paupers of the Contrade, each Contrada having to find and invite 6 such individuals. The  paupers were set up in tents bearing the insignia of the Contrade to which they belonged, while a crowd of pharisaical curious onlookers watched them eat. In the center, a bigger pavillion brought together the paupers of the Eagle, the Panther, and the Tortoise. This union revealed the motivation of the grotesque event disguised as philanthropy: The colors of the 3 flags alluded to France, Austria, and the Empire, and to the recent political-dynastic wedding of Napoleon and Marie Louise of Austria.

The continuing homages to the sovereigns of the moment were paid willingly by the people (homages were a ”toll” paid in order to have future Palios) and by the nobles (homages were occasions to show pomp and to meet otherwise unreachable sovereigns and notables). In the space of a few years there were celebrations for the French Revolution, the Kingdom of Etruria, Napoleon, Elisa Baciocchi, then in 1818 Ferdinand III of Lorena, and in 1819 Metternich was made welcome. What may appear flunkeyism or indifference in the case of the Sienese came from their initially forcible and then endemic detachment from history, their ever more marked “dream of the Middle Ages”: despite the floats with neoclassical allegorical figures, in the procession of 1813 the Carroccio wagon reappeared, recalling even today the great, ephemeral triumph at Montaperti.

Siena’s passion for its own history and for the tradition of the Contrada as a small patria never stopped the Sienese from participating on the front lines of history. As an example of what recent anthropological reflection has dubbed “multiple identity,” the Sienese of the 1800s were at once aware of their identity within the Contrada and staunchly patriotic throughout  the Risorgimento. Virgilio Grassi, meticulous historian of the Palio, underlined the Sienese Contrade’s contribution in the Risorgimento; a stone was placed on Palazzo Spannocchi in honor of the “helpful Contrade Dragon, Goose, and Forest.” The Contrade raised funds to support the volunteers in the Wars of Independence, as an “offering to the volunteers who, coming back from patriotic battles, find themselves in the neediest circumstances.” In July 1848 the Palio did not take place. The sum that would have been spent on the race went   instead to the support of the volunteers who fought in Lombardy.

In 1839, as a poster records, no military draft was necessary, so great was the influx of Sienese volunteers under the tricolor flag.

The Risorgimento was mirrored in the flags of the Contrade. Though in 1845 the Municipality issued an ordinance that immutably codified the colors, their definitive arrangement had to await the Unity of Italy.

The Eagle never stopped unfurling its yellow insignia with the bicipital eagle, which according to tradition was given by Carlo V in person on one of his visits to Siena. For the whole Risorgimento the Eagle received upon its entry in the Piazza salvoes of whistles, intended for the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The same happened to the Tortoise, which back then unfurled a yellow and black insignia that recalled the insignia of the Austrians. Full of enthusiasm for Pius IX, in 1847 the Tortoise substituted the black with white, thereby unfurling the papal colors. The whistles turned into applause. But two years later, liberal enthusiasm for the Pope having vanished, the insignia went back to yellow and black and the whistles started up again, hushed only in 1859 when the Tortoise took on its present colors.

The opposite fate touched the flag of the Goose, which ever since1791 had been green with white and red arabesques. The patriots who saw in the flag the Italian tricolor applauded warmly wherever the flag was seen, so much so that from 1849 to 1859 the authorities changed the colors to white, pink, and green.

Giuseppe Garibaldi, who attended the Palio in 1867 along with his Red Shirts, was particularly celebrated by the red insignia of the Tower, which along with its share of its applause received the fervent cheers of the “extreme party,” as note was made in a report by the King’s police.

Even Siena, though, was not without its Austria-lovers, who strongly opposed the adoption of the “Piedmont-style” costumes seen in the Piazza in 1836, and used later on  other occasions.

The Risorgimento definitively liquidated the pretense of likening jockeys to the heroes of Olympus. The Sienese knew the jockeys all too well. If the 1700s was the century of ferocious combat between jockeys, the 1800s saw their most savage and sensational betrayals.

The champion of this ilk was Francesco Santini, the Gobbo (“Hunchback”) Saragiolo, who changed flags for 30 years. He ran for 15 Contrade, flattered them, despised them, betrayed them all. He won 15 times for 7 different Contrade. When in 1855 with one of the favored horses he went straight at San Martino’s corner on purpose and was asked why, he burst out, “Why should I win for you miserable lot who gave me 140 coins when I earned 170?
Like Judah, someone noted, he had betrayed for the price of 30 coins. Sometimes, the roads not being closed off back then at San Martino and at the Casato, feckless jockeys left the Piazza at top speed and galloped off past the city gates. This was what Baicche did in 1877 and again in 1885. 

n 1896 Ansanello, in the middle of the night, went to ring the bell at the gates of the Monks of the Osservanza, still dressed in the racing jacket of the Tower. “There’s a man who wants to sleep here. He looks like a stick of sealing wax,” the amazed guardian father reported to his superior.

The horses were still the anonymous barb horses of previous times, but with a new difference: in the drawing of August 1837 mares were accepted, and in tact males were discarded to avoid “inconvenient anti-aesthetics.” Thus was instituted a custom that endures even today.

In the regulations of 1852, signed by Gonfaloniere Angelo Piccolomini, it was prohibited to give enlivening substances to horses, under the responsibility of the Captain. The legend of the beverone “great beverage,” half magical potion, half herbal tonic, philosophers’ stone of the Contrada stalls, was to last a long time, with its promise of the metamorphosis of a nag into a Pegasus.

In the second half of the century the first hero among horses appeared: Stornino of Belforte, noted for his intelligence and for his attachment to the Palio. Indeed stories were told that as he felt Palio time growing close, he changed personality, turning from the tranquil horse of a country curate into the barb worthy of the fiery ancient race. He won 18 Palios, the last in 1877,when he was 21. Upon his death the Academy of Physio critics embalmed him

With the Risorgimento completed, the Contrade showed their vitality. Yet again, faced with great changes in history, with the enigmas and uncertainties of new times, the Contrada members reassured themselves by huddling closely around their traditions.

Inside the Contrade of Siena, fin-de-siècle “associationism” developed, giving rise to myriad societies whose members rarely numbered more than 50. Several of these were in direct affiliation to the Contrade, others were based on neighborhood or occupation. In the first years, the main aim of such societies was mutual aid: assistance was offered to unfortunates, widows, invalids, and the elderly. These were the goals of the Fan of the Tower, or Romulus and Remus founded in the She-Wolf around 1870, of which Garibaldi was made honorary president. Others included public education and literacy programs among their aims. Among these there was the Society of Mutual Aid, Instruction and Education of the Star in the Wave. Other societies promoted conferences and debates: in 1893 at the Garden, a society arising in the Caterpillar, debates were held on the topic of female emancipation.

The renewed role of the Contrada in the life of the city was evident when a proposed law sought to abolish the University of Siena, one of the oldest Athenea in Europe, as part of a general reordering of the Universities of the Kingdom. In January 1893, representatives of the Contrade called  an assembly and a public demonstration, hanging posters everywhere. They protested invidividually as well: the Tower sent a telegram to Giolitti, the Goose to Crispi, the Shell to the King of Italy. The proposal, “unworthy of a government entrusted with the care of the liberal franchises,” was in the end shelved forever.

The next year the 17 Priors of the Contrade founded the Magistrature of the Contrade, a body set up for direction, discussion, and coordination on all matters of common interest to the Contrade. In 1895 the Magistrature began its activities, ruled by a statute which even today prescribes the annual election of a Rector and of a Deputation of 4 members to assist the Rector.

In 1878, after a century of changes and experiments in the choreography of the Historic Procession, the Piazza costumes were given new life, inspired by the costumes of Siena in the 1300s. Sketches presented to the Contrade and approved by the Municipality were realized then by the Contrade themselves.

The Risorgimento over, the House of Savoy initiated a conscientious policy regarding the festivals and traditions of Italy. The royals made a Grand Tour of their new kingdom, encouraging the revival of ancient festivals. In Italy there was the reinvention of tradition. Legnano, Pontida, Barletta were treated like ancestors of the new state and of the much desired new monarchic and national-popular consciousness. The same, as the studies of George Mosse and of E.J. Hobsbawm show,  happened throughout Europe between 1870 and World War I.

Humbert I and Margherita of Savoy came and returned to Siena, and after the visit of 1887 there appeared in the heraldic symbols of the Contrade the Savoy trouvailles that can still be seen today: Cyprus roses, knots and daisies, initials and collars of the Annunciation. The city expressed even greater affection for Margherita than for the King, making her its nth proctectrix; it dedicated to her a variation on the medieval panpepato, the panforte margherita; it named her in coarse but affectionate popular songs; it sent its most beautiful children to offer daisies (margherite) and mumbled verses of poetry; she was offered the keys to the house of St Catherine.

Siena celebrated in its own way the Unity of Italy and responded to the festive politics of the Savoys: in the last decade of the century, 28 Palios were run. .