At 12:30, the Gruppo Dante met in the piazza for the drawing of the palio horses for the contradas (I finally looked this word up for a spell-check). I took a 360 video of the piazza before it became crowded.
As the sun beat down on us, who had no shade, the contradas marched one at a time into the piazza proudly singing their war songs. We gathered around to watch the officials draw numbers (which represent specific horses) and the contradas name-- pairing them for the race. The drawing was held in front of the palazzo publica (the city building). Each flag represents one of the contrada, the bottom row represent the contradas competing in the race, and the top row, those who are not. Istrice (e- stre- che) the contrada where I live IS competing and ours is the furthest flag to the right. Our colors are black, red, and blue, and our mascot is the porcupine.
Between the time of the video above and the beginning of the ceremony, thousands of men, women, and children gathered in the piazza- most on lunch breaks or with a day off for the events.
The opening of the ceremony:
As the contradas marched in, I was able to record a few seconds of a contrada singing their war song.
The idea of a "war song" sounds violent, but it is said that the contradas are not "enemies" of each other, but "adversaries." Today, that proved to be wrong. As one contrada was leading their horse away from the arena (The horses are led from the arena surrounded by the members of the contrada and no one is allowed to touch them or be near them until after the race. The people live in fear that another contrada will harm their horse, taking them out of the race. It is all taken very seriously here.), members of another contrada (lupa- the wolf- appropriate, don't you think?) snuck in beside them and one man attempted to "touch" their horse. A fight broke out. A real fight. Hundreds of people kind of fight. It was definitely the largest that I've seen and the first one of its kind in over eleven years. I caught some of it on video while recording the contrada leaving with their horse. Look in upper left hand corner; you can see the men pushing and hitting each other.
This afternoon, still hyped up on the energy from the fight, I had a gatorade and Dante class. Ironically, the cantos we studied today were about the hoarders and wasters and the angry and sullen. The punishment in Dante's hell for those who hoard or waste is to push giant boulders/sacks around a circle until they collide with members of the other group-- hoarders v. wasters. The palio fight today reminded me of that. Two groups opposing each other, slamming their bodies into each other. And I would definitely say that many of those participants were also angry and sullen. :)
Tonight, as I right this, I am watching an all-out bird war on the neighbors' roof. It's been a day for physical punishment.
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