Canon in D (english): Popular Religiosity and Secular Festivity

Siena has gone nuts this week. One must forget about Italian classes or any regular activity you pretend to do here. The town is shut down. Monday the 15th of August was a national holiday and Tuesday the 16th a Siena’s extension of it. There was impossible to have any human interaction outside the context of the events. People’s minds were in the piazza; the solution, to join them. So, I have witnessed the festivities of il Palio, which are a combination of Super Bowl, Mardi Gras, and World War III. It was a glimpse on a medieval spectacle, with all of the pageantry and the generally harmless chaos.

Contrary to what many people think, the palio is actually a banner cherished by the winner of a competition. In this case, it is a horserace which is run to celebrate the apparition of the Virgin Mary in Siena. It was first run on August 16, 1656 and then in 1701 in honor of the “Madonna dell’ Assunta” the patroness and advocate of Siena.

"Piazza del Campo" is still used today for the horse race. The whole square is amazingly fit for such manifestation because its shape is that of a medieval Roman amphitheater closed at the base by the straight line of the Palazzo Pubblico. Besides being semi-circular this peculiar square is also funnel-shaped like the theatres of the imperial age. The preparations for the parades and the race itself are slow and methodic like a liturgical procedure. Four days before the day of the Palio trials take place in the "Campo." Along with the preparations, there were neighborhood’s street parties which are a welcoming blend of street fair, frat party, and Fellini movie. There one finds free-flowing wine mixing with rock bands, gossiping elders, carnival booths and family parties. Rumors of drugged horses, mugged riders, and general thuggish behavior colored the events.
On Sunday 14th, I saw in a poster the invitation to pray in the evening the first vespers in the Cathedral. Additionally, prior to the prayer, there was a procession with the Palio, (the trophy for the winner of the race) which featured an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So I thought it was going to be a good thing to see as well. I went to the procession which obviously was crowed. Each neighborhood had a group of children bringing candle offerings to Mary. What I did not know was that the procession was a closed local event. If you are not part of a neighborhood, you don’t have anything to do there. This confirmed the fact that somehow this 700-year-old horse race is both the most touristy and the most local event in Italy.

I was trying to get a good picture of the procession until I was interrupted by an Italian mama who asked me something I couldn’t understand. The only word that sounded familiar was genitore. In the 2 seconds that this interaction lasted, I had to figure out the question and of course my answer. The first thing I thought, judging by the word I understood, was a reference to Thomas Aquinas Eucharistic hymn Pange Lingua where the last verse starts with the words Genitori Genitoque … (To the everlasting Father and the Son). Judging by the context, a procession, and the reference, I only could think on the Eucharist. My easy and fast answer was Si certamente (Yes, indeed). Then, this lady pushed me into the procession!
Suddenly, I wasn’t a spectator anymore, but part of the procession leading to the Duomo.

Only the idea of getting inside the Doumo was very thrilling. After a while, I finally figured out what that lady asked me. She said: are you one of the children’s parent (genitore) in the procession? I got embarrassed, and tried to get out of there. But it was too late. The procession already had reached its destination and nobody could get in or out. But my sense of guilt for an innocent incorrect answer, which I did not mean, was overcome by the splendor of the cathedral inside. I never had felt beauty in that way before. It was what Dr Dennis McNamara, in Mundelein seminary, means about a church building: a true attempt to represent heaven on earth! The sense of transcendence and flotation that gothic architecture gives us is so powerful in this place. I forgot for some time what I was doing there, what was going on. The cacophony of drums sounds, people talking among themselves, children screaming and the archbishop giving a speech nobody seemed to care were secondary in the scene. My whole being only could marvel on the beauty of the place, which brought up my nothingness and my need to worship.

When I came back to my senses, I saw the people around me making the sign of cross. The archbishop gave a final blessing. Then I remembered that the point for the people to come in procession was prayer and to make the candle offerings. But what kind of prayer was it? Silence was only obvious by its total absence. The dilemma of popular religiosity and right worship came up in my analytical mind.
It is a fact that the festivities were to honor the Assumption of Mary to heaven. However, the formal liturgical celebration is so out of people’s priorities. After everybody left the cathedral, I stayed for a little longer and then I witnessed the archbishop presiding on solemn vespers over a small group of faithful. Was not everybody else aware of the Mystery they were celebrating? I should be careful this time to answer that question. Il Palio of Siena is a secular feast with religious connotations. That is a fairer way to say it. It is almost close to what Christmas is becoming in America. Again, does it mean people neglect the Mystery? I would say no, it does not.

People in a secular society, even here in Italy I would say it is a secular society, are very much aware of the existence of the transcendent, the reality of God and the mystery that God is. The gospel is so in our midst. The majority, a great majority of us, just chooses not to confront our individual existences with the mystery of God. Because to acknowledge it formally is compelling and demands accountability to Him and to what we really are. It seems like it is better and easy to live in denial. The gospel, certainly, calls us out of the world and set us up apart in the liturgy where we face and take the deepest and most honest true of our existence: children of God destined to worship Him in heaven. This is what Mary is doing right now. The solemnity of her Assumption into heaven in body and soul is the mirroring of the mystery of Christ resurrection and the assurance of our hope to get into the same state. It is the solemnity of the restoration and elevation of the material.

All of what happened before the horserace is but a prelude, a time of anxiety and expectation. When at last the horses appeared and the race started, the crowd became delirious. The jockeys goaded their horses round the square three times and the people shout as if the town were about to fall. It only lasted 90 seconds. Then the winners run to the cathedral with the jockey on their shoulders to give thanks to their Lord and their Madonna. They celebrated the solemnity of the elevation of the material and with their hearts enhanced somehow acknowledged their final destiny. Simply they just resist embracing it once and for all.

Ceremony of the assignation of horses.

in the assignation of the horses, conspiracy theories are common

In order to get a place on the bleacher seats, one must have the time, money and negotiating skills

So, because I lacked of the above requirements I joined the masses in the center of the square for the race. From the center of the square, the race does not make much sense. It is over in less than 2 minutes, but who cares? I was part of the scene!