Sep 062011
 

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At the Duomo with the Giraffes

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Siena’s Palio: A Medieval Horserace Turns Viral

Text and Photographs by Natalia Sarkissian

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Twice a year, on July 2nd and August 16th, after a three-hour parade in Renaissance costume has unfolded, jockeys representing ten of Siena’s seventeen factions challenge each other in the Piazza del Campo. They race for a handmade banner—a palio—and for the honor its possession confers. This is the Palio, Siena’s famous horserace, dating from the Middle Ages.

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Rai Television films the event

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Piazza del Campo, August 2011

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At each bi-annual showing, a hundred thousand bystanders from around the globe jam bleachers, balconies, rooftops, windows and the center of the shell-shaped piazza, cheering one faction or another.
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Behind the 400 Euro Seats on the Piazza del Campo

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Watching from the Piazza

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Jockeys line their skittish horses between two ropes stretched across the track. When the rincorsa–the last horse–enters, the rope drops the racers tear away.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvGMFLEaMsA

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The jockeys careen around the Piazza perimeter three times at break-neck speed. Frequently horses crash into mattress-covered barriers at the right-hand curves of San Martino or the Casato.

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