Seven Seasons in Siena (eBook)

CATERPILLARS

...

eit takes all of ninety seconds. ten sleek, tautly muscled racehorses tear into the sandy track, hurtling themselves forward at nearly lethal speed. Their jockeys crouch low to minimize resistance, some lash out at each other with their crops, and those hardest hit tumble off their mounts and scramble frantically out of the way of the flurry of surgically sharp hooves. Once around the piazza . . . twice . . . three times, the roar of the crowd escalating to a cosmic howl. Then the horse in the lead sails over the finish line-a cannon sounds, like the pop of a Christmas cracker against the citywide roar of ecstasy- and my friend Dario Castagno looks over his shoulder at me. I meet his eyes and nod to him, mouthing the words Vai, vai via! Go, go on!

He leaps down the length of the bleachers and joins the throng of spectators who are flowing over the railing onto the track, like a wave of human magma, the last I see of him, he's fighting off another man for the honor of pressing his lips to those of the victorious horse.

The bleachers are trembling, quivering beneath the feet of the scores of people who are descending in a kind of rapturous fury. Only Jeffrey and I remain in place, the mass of humanity diverting around us as though we're an outcropping of rock in a river. There's no particular reason for us to stay rooted to our seats, but neither is there any enticement to get up. Where would we go? Everywhere we look, we see only tumult, the Piazza del Campo, the beautiful medieval square at the heart of Siena, is overrun with its citizenry, who are in various stages of agitation, ranging from the merely ecstatic to the kind of violent rapture most Americans ever see only in revival tents.

This, then, is the immediate aftermath of the Palio, Siena's annual bareback horse race around the perimeter of its central piazza. It's an ancient rite, an explosive expression of municipal pride, and both Jeffrey and I find it a head-jarring thrill. Why else would we have ventured to Italy in August? It's the month of the ferragosto holiday, when seaside resorts fill up with refugees from every city in the country, leaving virtual ghost towns behind them, their shops shuttered and their restaurants dark, so that American tourists wander the empty streets brandishing their MasterCards in vain. The sole exception is Siena, which has its ancient, inimitable business to attend to.

The race itself lasts only a matter of heartbeats, but there's a historical procession that precedes it-a gorgeous display of medieval costumes, heraldry, and gasp-inducing flag-tossing competitions-that requires a few solid hours to make its way around the Campo. Hence the bleacher seats, or palchi, which Dario has obtained for us at an exorbitant cost. The seats are small and hard, yet they're far more comfortable than watching the race from the vantage point chosen by most of the populace-which is within the piazza itself, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, buttocks to belt buckle.

'What do we do now?' Jeffrey asks me, and I really ought to have an answer. It's our agreed-on division of labor: I'm responsible for all things cultural, Jeffrey for all things sensual. I'm supposed to know which cathedrals have the gaudiest relics, he, which restaurants the highest Michelin ratings.

I admit I'm not sure. I'd been counting on Dario to shepherd us through this part of the experience, he's the native, after all, the one who actually had a stake in the race today-a winning stake, as it turns out. He's a member of the Bruco, or Caterpillar, contrada, or city quarter, and he warned us earlier that if they won, he'd be leaving us to our own...