Seven Seasons in Siena (18 page)

There are artworks too: Giuseppe Nicola Nasini's
Saint Bernard
and
Saint Catherine of Siena;
Luca di Tommè's
Madonna and Child;
Dionisio Montorselli's spectacular
Adoration of the Magi
and
Circumcision of Jesus;
but perhaps the canvas that most arrests me is a relatively recent work, a 1967 triptych in tempera by one E. Cesarini,
Barbicone and the Brucaioli in the Uprising of 1371
, whose largest panel shows the Bruco hero hurling a representative of the Council of Twelve out the window of the Torre del Mangia—with the Campo spread out below in almost literally dizzying contrast.

And suddenly I find myself among the drappelloni—the raison d'être for this whole edifice and the centerpiece not only of the collection but of the contrada's sense of self. This long aisle of silken banners is the spine of the Caterpillar's lore and legend, its one constant and irrefutable value; and again it hits me with the force of a revelation that here is a people—not just the brucaioli but all the contradaioli, all the Sienese—
whose history, while marked by war and disorder and occupation and civic strife, isn't defined by any of those things; it's defined by a competition. By a
game
. One that provides them a constant source of renewal and of hope. Is it any wonder they seem to be the happiest, most self-reliant people I've ever met?

The earliest banner I can find is August 1763. It's a little the worse for wear, part of its bottom third having rotted away. The succeeding drappelloni are in better condition: July 1792 … July 1814 … July 1816 … July 1826 … they all look fairly similar, as though there's a set pattern for the design: the Virgin Mary at the summit, suspended in clouds like Mary Poppins and crowned by stars; and three different coats of arms descending beneath her. At the very bottom, there's the date; and around the entirety of the banner, a decorative border. Slight variations occur over the hundred-odd years that follow, but it isn't till 1894 that there's a banner completely at variance with those before it. This one boasts an image of Saint Francis looming like Godzilla over the Basilica di San Francesco, which reopened that year after significant restoration work. It's notable, however, that this was a
Palio straordinario
, raced on August 19, three days after the traditional Palio of the Assumption, so maybe the design was allowed to be
straordinario
as well.

As I glide along the galleries, victories passing by me in mind-numbing profusion, I lose all track of time, until I'm roughly snapped back to the latter by the sudden dousing of the electrical power.

I realize the assembly must have ended and the attendees all gotten up and departed. Whoever's last out the door has simply flicked off the switch. I'm about thirty seconds from
being locked in—and I know, from a steady diet of Hollywood movies, that no good can come of spending a night in a museum. Already, the costumes around me—so vital and present under halogens—seem, in their barely perceptible silhouettes, to be slightly moving.

I fumble my way along the galleries, guiding myself by the railing that is all that stands between me and a significant plummet to the ground floor. I have a rough sense of where I'm going, and when I reach the staircase I launch into a clattering descent that's just a hair too urgent—so that I miscalculate the curve of the structure, turn my ankle, and lurch forward. I'm falling down a flight of fairly unyielding steps, and it occurs to me that the impact will very likely dash the brains from my head—presuming I have any in there, which is beginning to seem arguable.

But as I flail away like a chicken with its wings clipped, I manage to grasp the banister and halt my fall before any damage is done. Having righted myself, I proceed more carefully, and when I reach the bottom of the staircase I grope my way toward the exit, through which the white light of the street beyond spills enticingly. I slow my step, calm my heartbeat, and try not to wince as I walk on my twisted ankle toward the door. I can hear the muted cadences of a conversation just beyond it, and when I arrive I see Dario in the street, having a cigar with a couple of other Caterpillars. I exit as casually as I can, and no one seems to think it at all unusual that I should be swanning out of their clubhouse after everyone else has headed home.

So there's an upside to not being noticed much; you don't register when you've just been an idiot.

…

 
HAVING STUFFED MY HEAD WITH THE ENTIRE CONTENTS
of the Caterpillar museum, I feel a need to digest, mentally. I crave both a space of time and a geographical space that are essentially clear. So this morning I make the decision to walk. Dario has another full day of oil-related errands to run, and I've become aware that my coming along doesn't really do much to help him. And though he offers to drop me in Siena, there's nothing pressing for me to do there; the life of the contrada doesn't percolate on an autumn weekday the way it does on a summer holiday.

Which makes it the perfect day to make good my vow of last year. I will walk from Vagliagli to Siena, from Dario's front door to the door of the Società L'Alba in Via del Comune. I will appease the gods to whom I offered this act in exchange for a Caterpillar victory last August.

Did I say it was a perfect day for a walk? It isn't, entirely. There's a battleship gray cast to the sky that doesn't augur well, but the way the clouds are filtering the sunlight makes the rolling hills of Chianti seem more lushly, deeply green. Even at the worst of times—and I've seen it suffering from heat and drought, when it's been burned to brown straw—
it's a landscape that ravishes; but today it looks positively Edenic.

The only snag is that I don't really know how to get from A to B. I ask Dario to sketch out some directions for me, but he's wrapped up in trying to get himself out the door; he says instead, “It's very simple, you just go to Borgo Scopeto and take a right, and keep walking till you get to—” I'm so busy summoning up a visual of Borgo Scopeto that I miss the rest of the directions, and I don't want to hold him up by asking him to repeat them. And besides, there's a part of me that really doesn't mind just throwing myself out into the open air and riding where the wind will take me.

After Dario's gone I grab an apple and a bottle of water and put them in my backpack, along with an anorak from Old Navy, which cleverly folds into a little zippered pouch. Finally, I knot my fazzoletto around my neck and tuck it under my sweater, like an ascot. I figure it's suitable attire, since my trek is a debt of honor to the contrada. And then I set forth.

Borgo Scopeto is an expansive Tuscan vineyard and estate. Several years ago, when the American economy was booming, Jeffrey and I stayed at its hotel, the Relais Borgo Scopeto, along with two of my sisters and their husbands; they're all wine aficionados who the year before had invited us to join them in Napa, and we returned the favor by escorting them to
our
favorite wine country. The Borgo was so exquisite a location—like something from a Merchant-Ivory movie or a better-than-average season of
The Bachelor
—that for the first two days we didn't leave it. We even dined there (the restaurant is sensational).

Walking past the property now, I can't help marking the irony: the economy—not just America's, the world's—has
taken a severe clobbering, and accordingly, rather than motoring up Borgo Scopeto's majestic drive in a rented Alfa Romeo, I'm hiking past it on foot, in my grubby jeans and dirty boots.

Yet I'm equally happy, possibly a bit more so. There's something about crossing a terrain under your own power that's like claiming ownership of it. The air is crisp, the breeze gentle; the sun, when it chances to spill through a temporary opening in the clouds, warm and buttery. There's a heaviness to the air that feels a bit threatening, but there's no telling when, or whether, it might give way to anything, so I choose to ignore it.

I pass through Pievasciata, a sleepy little community nestled in the hills and olive groves, and am accordingly enchanted. So much so that I end up missing a turn and walk about three miles out of my way before I realize it; trudging back is a little dispiriting (and in fact I introduce the Tuscan countryside to a whole spate of American expletives it's unlikely to have heard before), so I look for a place to sit and eat my apple. There are lots of picturesque nooks along the side of the road, outcroppings of rock beneath the shade of patchwork-colored trees; spots where songbirds might flutter down and sit happily on your finger, Disney movie style. But I'm looking for something not quite so Hallmark card—something a bit harder-edged. Someplace that reflects not only the splendor of the Chianti hills but the hardscrabble life those hills demand of those who work them.

I find such a spot some twenty minutes later: a gravel patch by the side of the road where somebody's ancient lorry has limped to die. Perhaps the owner is coming back to fetch its carcass, I don't know, but in the meantime, it calls to me. I
prop myself on the flatbed, hook my heels on the rusted bumper, and dig my apple from my backpack as all around me the trees stir and hiss.

While I snack, I read a small, battered paperback I bought a few years back, an abbreviated history of Siena by Giuliano Catoni. The cover and title page have long since fallen off, but it's traveled with me every time I've come back here. I've probably read the entire thing several times by now, but never in order and not all at once; I just like to dip into a section or chapter and go from there.

This time I end up reading about Violante of Bavaria, a German princess who married the heir to the Tuscan throne in 1689 only to find herself both widowed and childless in 1713. She considered returning to her own country, especially when she heard that her sister-in-law, the Electress Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici (the name is a mouthful, the woman a handful), was returning to court and would have precedence over her. The two ladies weren't exactly gal pals, it seems.

But Violante's father-in-law, Grand Duke Cosimo III, persuaded her to stay and appointed her governor of Siena in 1717. And that's when she surprised everyone by displaying a genuine flair for administration. In fact, she became an instrumental figure in the history of the city, codifying the rites of the Palio and officially defining the number, names, and boundaries of the contrade—pronouncements that remain in effect to this day.

When Cosimo III died five years later, his son Gian Gastone succeeded to the throne. This new grand duke sent his bitchy sister, the electress, packing, and called his former sister-in-law Violante back to Florence. And since he preferred to spend most of his days in bed (as really, given the
choice, who wouldn't?), Violante became his proxy and was at the center of a glittering court life, making her one of the most active and influential women in all of Europe.

How was Violante greeted by the people of Siena, I wonder. Did they accept her at once, or did she have to earn their respect? Did they grow to love her? Did they ever completely trust her? She was, after all, not Sienese—not even Italian—and was moreover a woman, put in a place of supreme authority over this most masculine of cities. As an American man, just trying in the humblest way possible to make a few friends among a small subgroup of this very proud and self-contained people and enjoying only incremental gains, I have to wonder what it was like for a Teutonic female to come riding up to the Palazzo Pubblico, drop all eight hundred and six trunks of her wardrobe, and then turn to the populace and say, “Hiya, I'm the new boss of you.” Unless the Sienese have changed very much over the centuries (which I personally have to doubt), that must have gone over like the most leaden of lead balloons.

Speaking of lead balloons, that's what the clouds are now beginning to resemble. I've finished my apple, so I toss the core aside, return the book to the backpack and the backpack to my shoulders, and head out again. There's a low rumble in the distance, but not distant enough to reassure me, so I pick up my pace.

I'm still thinking about Siena in the eighteenth century when the first spatterings of rain snap me back to the present; then I stop under a tree to don my anorak. And that's when I look up and realize I've done it again; instead of retracing my steps to the path I shouldn't have left in the first place, I've made another wrong turn somewhere and am now hopelessly
lost in the Chianti countryside. In a momentary panic, I pull out my phone to call Dario; but what's he supposed to do, come and get me? I don't even know where I am.

I decide to forge ahead—and why not? Turning back doesn't ever seem to work for me—and so I plunge into the open air as the rain increases in force, incrementally but noticeably.

Soon it's coming down in sheets—not so much cats and dogs as antelope and wolverines—and my anorak is clinging to me like a second skin. My body heat rises, and despite the coolness of the day I start perspiring. Sweat runs down my forehead, along the crook of my nose, and collects in my mustache. Before long I'm as drenched as if I weren't wearing the anorak at all. I come to a full stop and just stand there by the side of the road, the rain pounding on my head, my clothes sticking damply to my skin, my boots now twice as heavy for the load of mud they've accrued along the way. My ankle, which I twisted last night at the museum, begins to ache from the added weight.