Seven Seasons in Siena (5 page)

Of course, getting to that corner ain't easy. I've mentioned the steep grade of Via del Comune, and with a vineyard full of wine
and
a transatlantic flight under your belt, it feels even steeper. You'd think they'd provide some kind of assistance for overserved visitors here, like, say, a military airlift.

As I fall into bed, I assess my initial successes: a dinner party, a couple of hugs, and a bit of Bruco gossip. Not bad for one day.

And then I'm asleep.

…

 
I DON'T AWAKEN TILL 10:30 A.M. THE NEXT DAY, WHICH
is the exact time I'm supposed to rendezvous with Dario at a bar just up the street. I scramble out of bed and into whatever clothes are closest at hand, and zoom out the door.

Bar Macario is a favorite hangout for the Caterpillar, despite being officially in the Giraffe district—an anomaly made considerably odder by the fact that until recently, the Caterpillar and the Giraffe were bitter antagonists. (Even now many brucaioli call the Giraffe “the invisible enemy.”) Most of the contrade have rivals, with enmity going back centuries. This can erupt into violence, especially at Palio time, but the mayhem seems almost to have a social function. There's no gang activity within Siena's ancient walls, no juvenile delinquency, nary a trace of hoodlumism or vandalism; why would there be, when all the aggression and acting out that drives such activities are already accorded a fixed place in the culture? In that way, the contrade system comes with its own built-in safety valve.

Bar Macario is swarming with brucaioli. Or should I say, since the bar itself is such a small place, that its entire vicinity
is overrun. Men of the contrada—and it does seem principally to be men—are milling about everywhere, all wired and itchy with energy; and almost all of them have their fazzoletti knotted around their necks, as I have remembered to do myself. They've assembled here for the purpose of marching into the Piazza del Campo as a unified front, to witness the extraction. Because, you see, this is Italy, and theater is in the blood; you don't just go to the Campo for the event, goddammit, you make an
entrance
.

Eventually, I find Dario inside the bar sipping a prosecco. Despite the earliness of the hour and no breakfast, I allow him to buy me one as well. I barely have time to slug the drink down before the crowd, as if having received some telepathic green light, begins all at once to march. Dario and I hurry from the bar and take our places, and I feel for the first time the exhilarating—and slightly frightening—rush of being one of a … well, a mob, is the only word for it. A completely benevolent and peaceful mob, to be sure, but you can feel, as the kinetic charge of its movement, its sinewy strength, crackles among the crowd like the firing of neural synapses, how easy it would be, in another place, among another people, for this raw power to be turned within seconds toward no good at all.

The most exciting element is the singing: all those tenor and bass and baritone voices raised in defiant song—led by a particularly resounding brucaiolo named Federico or, in the vernacular, Ghigo:

This is timed so that the final chorus occurs under the vaulted arch at the end of Via dei Rossi, where its power can make your head want to jump off your shoulders and go shooting into the sky like a bottle rocket. It's one thing to hear this from the sidelines, something else entirely to have it envelop you like Sensurround.

We snake our way through the winding streets. I have only a rough idea of where I am but am perfectly content to lose both my way and myself in this fiercely proud assemblage. Eventually we come up against another contrada, similarly marching—and if I listen I can hear the songs of still others, farther off—and then we turn sharply, and here we are: the Piazza del Campo is spread out before us, like a meadow of roseate stone. Ringed by ancient buildings whose windows overlook it as though it were an amphitheater (which in a sense it is) and anchored by the grand edifice of the Palazzo Pubblico and the sky-tweaking Torre del Mangia, this is, to me, one of the most beautiful urban settings in the Western world. It's suitably imposing, but its scale is human; people feel comfortable here. The Campo itself is shell-shaped, ostensibly because in the Middle Ages the shell was a symbol of prosperity; but the gently scalloped declension of the pavement also means that from anywhere you stand on it, you can
see what's going on at the perimeter—a technically ingenious means of ascertaining that no one who comes here on race day will miss a moment of the action. Yet the contours of the pavement also serve the function of making it suitable for a bit of sun basking; it's like a stone hammock.

As we wait for the main event, we mill about anxiously on the sandy turf that has been laid out around the perimeter of the piazza to form a track. This is the indelible sign that the days of the Palio have begun: one day the Campo is a carpet of stone. Then, the next morning, you arrive to find this ring of golden earth, set down as if by magic (but really by a team of trucks and laborers working diligently through the night).

There's a long table set on the platform before the palazzo, behind which a row of city officials sit, buttoned up despite the heat in suits and ties and dignity. To their left, the horses are tethered; they're numbered both on their ears and on their flanks; those on the flank are not consecutive and are no longer valid (they mark the numbers used in the pretrials), while those on the ears run from 1 to 10 and are assigned for the purposes of the extraction.

There are two lottery drums, one containing the names of the ten racing contrade, the other the names of the ten horses that have, from a field of many contenders, now been selected as the most suitable. Even among these ten there are favorites, based on such criteria as age, ancestry, and previous performance—for example, a previous Palio victory can enhance a horse's desirability, but not always. Equally critical is the horse's demeanor in a series of trials that takes place on this very course, which begins almost as soon as the piazza's perimeter is layered with earth—the famed
terra in piazza
.

The Palio is different from most other horse races in the
Western world, in that it's run clockwise, rather than the reverse; and a horse can (and occasionally does) win riderless (called
scosso
). The course itself is a real doozy—the most harrowing juncture being the “pass of San Martino,” a hairpin turn near the Cappella di Piazza at which it's not unusual to see a rider thrown right off his mount. How a horse accustoms himself to these phenomena during the trials greatly influences whether or not he'll be included in the final ten.

In short, when you take in all the considerations that are weighed and debated, it's amazing that any horses are chosen at all. Yet ten valiant mounts are invariably selected. The Sienese call a desired horse a
bombolone
(its opposite is a
brenna
), and the top name on everyone's list today is indeed Già del Menhir. There's a hush of breathless expectation as each horse's name is read, after which the name of a corresponding contrada is announced from the second drum. (I'm reminded of the line from Oscar Wilde's
The Importance of Being Earnest:
“The suspense is terrible; I hope it will last.”)

Each time one of the most desired horses is assigned to a contrada, its members erupt into unfeigned ecstasy (or its rivals into groans of dismay). The contrada's representative—who, in medieval dress, stands before the officials' bench awaiting the decree—is then buffeted by embraces from his fellow contradaioli, as if he's actually done something to bring on this good fortune. The horse is then led from the piazza by the contrada's barbaresco while the
popolo
follow behind, bellowing their anthems at the top of their lungs. It's incredibly stirring, but also a tad perilous. The press of the crowd can be so formidable that there's no room to back away when the horse passes, and the animals are occasionally skittish;
at one point during this morning's event, I come very close to being kicked.

In the end, Già del Menhir is awarded to the Torre (Tower) contrada, and I'm prepared for the most explosive outburst of ecstasy yet; but astonishingly, the barbaresco leads the prized mount from the piazza with quiet sobriety, followed by the
popolo del Torre
, all completely silent. Even Dario is perplexed. (Later we'll learn that this was a contradawide gesture of respect for the family of a young man who was killed in an auto accident just hours before.)

The Caterpillar exits the extraction with a horse named Elisir di Logudoro (very much a brenna), and the brucaioli are underwhelmed, if not a little depressed. Elisir is an older horse; you can tell by his name. Each generation is given denominations beginning with a new letter of the alphabet, and E is more than a little senior to the youngest horses in this current crop, whose names begin with I—Ilon, Istriceddu. There's also, I learn, a similar lack of enthusiasm for the Caterpillar's
fantino
(jockey), Giuseppe Zedde. Also known as “Gingillo,” which means “toy” or “knickknack,” Zedde has raced several previous Palii without ever achieving a victory. “With a better horse,” Dario explains, “we might have been been able to lure back Trecciolino”—i.e., Gigi Bruschelli, the famous fantino who won for the Caterpillar in both 2003 and 2005. “But there's no hope of that now.” He's too much a gentleman to say that the contrada is now
stuck
with Gingillo, but that's the implication. Instead, he reminds me that the Caterpillar's own captain, Gianni Falciani, believes in the boy, having hired him to race in his very first Palio and even furnishing his fantino nickname. If we can't quite whip up excitement
for him, we should at least not openly disrespect the captain's opinion of him.

“And also,” Dario adds, brightening, “Elisir is the blood brother of Berio, who won for us in 2003 and 2005. We mustn't overlook that.” He's like someone desperately turning to Norman Vincent Peale to thwart male-pattern baldness.

The combination of both a horse and a fantino with long but unspectacular résumés puts a pall over the Caterpillar. Some of the diehards follow the barbaresco back to the contrada, where Elisir will be zealously and jealously looked after until the day of the race. But mainly the crowd disperses like mist. Dario and I depart as well, in need of some spiritual uplift.

Which, in Italy, can only mean lunch.

…

 
DARIO AND I MEET RACHEL AT ENOTECA I TERZI, SO NAMED
because it sits at the point where the three districts of Siena intersect. “I thought there were seventeen districts,” I say. He corrects me: “There are seventeen contrade. Those are divided among three districts: the Terzo di Camollia, the Terzo di Città, and the Terzo di San Martino.” Apparently this is the consequence of Siena's originally having been built on three hills. It's been a long, hot morning, and my brain is starting to throb.

With Rachel is an American couple, Lou and Colleen, former clients of Dario. Over lunch (a light repast of antipasti and
vino locale
) Dario regales them with his patented Palio primer, which I've heard many times but never tire of. Some of the more interesting points he covers are these: