Yes, Siena was awaking from her slumber. I even fancied that there was a glint of suppressed laughter in the eye (he had only one eye, the other was filled with lichen) of my Comacine friend across the street. Already the city was like a hive, and the sound of a distant crowd was like the humming of many insects. Every inn had been full for days, and the people were still pouring in from all directions.
At nine o'clock we went to see the last of the prove from the balcony which we had hired from that very agreeable haberdasher, Signor Tizzi, who has a shop almost opposite the Palazzo Comunale. It was hot, and the people down in the piazza were crowded together in the shade of the Torre del Mangia, which lay across the square like the shadow on a sundial. The whole scene was more like a dream than a real happening. In the dark cortile of the Palazzo Pubblico we could see the jockeys in fantastic parti-coloured suits, waiting for gun-fire; and the fierce white sunlight beat on the piazza, empty except for the chattering, gesticulating belt of humanity in the shadow of the Mangia.
Bang! went the gun. And with a rattle of drums the fantini (jockeys) came out to run their mad race, to the accompaniment of the thunder of iron hoofs on baked sand, and the ceaseless shouting of the good Sienese.
After the excitement had subsided somewhat we pushed our way through the crowded streets to the cathedral. It was empty to-day, although yesterday, on the Festival of the Assumption, it had been full of glorious living colour. Then the Palio was hanging from the arch of the transept, and a great throng filled the aisle. Then, too, the miraculous Madonna delle Grazie, she to whom the distracted Sienese dedicated their city on the eve of Monte Aperto, was shown to the people; and the peasants, ever the last to lose faith, knelt at her shrine all day. As a rule I do not love the cathedral of Siena, notwithstanding its glorious pavement, and rich carving, and the Pisani's exquisite pulpit whose equal is not to be found in Italy. The great church's black and white stripings within and without make the eyes ache, and the over-elaborated façade is only beautiful by moonlight. But when High Mass is being celebrated with mediaeval splendour within its walls, and a great press throngs the aisles, it is bewilderingly rich. And we found it easy to forgive even the zebra stripings when we saw the poor people of the campagna praying to their miraculous Madonna behind the veil of sunlight which poured down from the clerestory and made a Holy of Holies of the Cappella del Voto.
That morning we paid another visit to the famous Library of the Duomo, which Francesco Piccolomini commissioned Pinturicchio to paint in honour of his uncle Aeneas Sylvius, for we could think of no better preparation for the Palio than studying this Quattrocento pageantry. We are told that in his contract Cardinal Francesco inserted a special clause, insisting that the Umbrian artist should use a certain quantity of gold and ultramarine and crimson in his decorations. And truly Pinturicchio has lavished colour on this splendid monument to the glories of the Humanist Pope, who was a typical expression of his age in everything, except in his great revival of the Middle Ages, when he tried to lead a crusade against the Turks. The room is full of sunlight and the sheen of gold and precious stones, and Pinturicchio seems to have caught the world in its morning, with gay youths and maidens walking on the flower-starred grass, and swift wild-geese high on the wing through the clear blue heavens. But except in the exquisite panel where the young Emperor meets his beautiful betrothed outside the Porta Camollia, he is not such a poet here as he is in the Appartamenti Borgia at Rome, though he is much gayer. All the more suited to Siena, whose art was summed up by Lanzi as 'lieta scuola fra lieto popolo'; forgetting, so it seems, the many Massacres of the Infants scattered by Matteo di Giovanni through the Sienese churches, which are revolting in their cruelty and ugliness!
By noon-time Siena was in a state of wild excitement. We had been warned that the Porcupine had a good chance of winning the race because its contrada had drawn the horse which won the July Palio. So after lunch we drove down to Santa Maria dell'Istrice, which is a tiny church with a picturesque Renaissance belfry in the Via Camollia. There were flags in the Via Cavour, and the great Palazzo Salimbeni was hung with banners, and had velvet cloths embroidered with the crest of the Montone hanging from its Gothic windows. The torch-rests and banner-holders in the public squares each carried the proud silken banners of their contrade, and the whole city masqueraded under their different emblems—now the Giraffe, scarlet and white; further on the Caterpillar, green and yellow and blue; then the Dragon and the Wolf; and, at last, the Porcupine.
SIENESE YOUTHS IN PALIO DRESS.