Our group was unable to watch either of the practice races yesterday due to Dante class in the morning and terrible weather in the afternoon.
As we began class, fifty steps or so from the track where the horses run, we heard a terrible scream (and a few cheers) from the piazza. We later were told of a tragic event that occurred during the practice laps around the track. One horse, Messi- an experienced Palio horse, took a corner badly, hit the fence, and was injured; the poor horse died yesterday afternoon. Interestingly, this hasn't been spoken of in the city; I read it on the news online.
Another rider fell from his horse and was nearly trampled by the others, but he walked away.
According to the Sienese, these events during practices are rare-- most jockeys take it easy on the practices to avoid injury. Once a horse is out of the race, that contrada is out of the race as well-- The Chiocciola contrada, who lost Messi, will not be racing today.
After Dante class yesterday morning, my roommates and I rushed back to our apartment for lunch-- which turned out to be a wise idea. The heavens opened up and we had a booming thunderstorm, complete with penny-sized hail. Ironically, our reading yesterday in class involved the levels where the characters are punished with fiery rain. Hmmm... I am beginning to see a few parallels between our reading assignments and the happenings here in Siena.
The two birds on the roof next door, whom I have named Dante and Beatrice, hid in this small alcove and made distressing noises the entire storm. I wonder if there is a parallel there as well? After the storm was over, the continued their day as usual.
The Gruppo Dante was invited to attend the pre-Palio feast with the Montone (ram) contrada last night. Since Onda Contrada is not racing, our professors spoke to one of their friends (Victorio Montemaggi) in Montone and scored us invites. Montemaggi happens to be the author of a great Dante guide called: Dante's Commedia: Theology as Poetry. I'm excited to order this when I get back home.
The dinner is 40 euros per person, which is around $60 American. We are very lucky in that the president of Geneseo (the college our program is affiliated with) paid for all our NEH participants!
The Montone colors are pink/red and yellow and here is a few pictures of the gorgeous set up for the feast. You can see in the first picture that the tables and chairs are lined up to the top of this hill (I wish the perspective was better so that you could get a sense of just how many people were eating with us.)
For Jen and Carol-- my foodie friends-- here are pics of the food.
This is the wine we drank...yummy! This was my bottle (okay, I shared a little)
Our appetizer: red pepper (pepperoni) with a tuna mush (this is not the technical term, but it had the texture of fois gras), a slice of focaccia, a cooked artichoke, and a pear/apple/spicy sausage/tuna/heart of palm salad.
The next course was a small pasta that looked like rice with mushrooms (it's underneath my fork).
The next course was the BEST lasagna that I've ever had in my entire life. It was delicious!
I forgot to take pics of:
The bread course
The chicken and green beans course
And here is the final course, a desert ( like a cream puff but better!) in the montone colors.
From what I can gather, this feast is the biggest of the Palio dinners, and ours lasted three hours and consisted of around six courses! I finished eating around midnight. We had a wonderful time at dinner, laughing and bonding over the delicious food-- still, I must ask: "Who can eat that much at once?"
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