Siena Starts Its July Palio Around the Piazza del Campo

Siena established its iconic public contest in the heart of the city through a long transformation of communal games. During the medieval era, the central Piazza del Campo accommodated combative civic entertainments, including fistfights, jousts, and later bullfights. Long-distance horse competitions organized by the urban wards, known as the palio alla lunga, traversed the broader city beginning in the fourteenth century. When the Grand Duke of Tuscany banned bullfighting in 1590, the wards moved their races directly into the central square. Early trials featured races on buffalo and donkeys before horse racing became permanently adapted to the circuit of the piazza. By 1633, the city saw its first modern circular horse race, designated the palio alla tonda.

The emerging tradition became anchored to major religious feast days. The primary race, run on 2 July as a regular fixture from 1656, was named the Palio di Provenzano in honour of the Madonna of Provenzano, a local Marian devotion connected to a sculpture once held by Provenzano Salvani. Later, a second summer race developed around the Feast of the Assumption. Although a long-distance August race was run as early as 1581, when fifteen-year-old jockey Virginia Tacci rode, an official second race on 16 August was added in 1701. Initially funded and organized on an intermittent basis by the victor of the July contest, the August Palio dell'Assunta was formally assumed by the municipal government as an annual responsibility after 1802.