The Palio and its Image. History Culture and Representation of Siena’s festival

The present volume sets forth interesting new ideas on the origin of the Palio and the Contrade and their symbols, as well as on their centuries-long history, now explored mainly from an institutional viewpoint. Other contributions examinet hat particular marian religiosity, so deeply-rooted in Siena that the festival has always been dedicated to the Virgin. The early costumes of the historical pageant are thoroughly and systematically studied for the first time, clearly revealing the wealth of material conserved by both the Contrade and the Commune of Siena. The study presented here therefore constitutes a first fundamental approach to the subject.
The same can be said about the pageant which, in its original celebratory intent, witnesses the realization of important scenic decorations which this volume studies from their origins until the early nineteenth century when they changed from being allegorical to representational. A vast quantity of figurative material, including previously unpublished works, presented in the Iconographic Historic Atlas and in the rest of the book has confirmed the findings of previous studies but also suggests new ideas on how the festival was conducted, and on the floats and figurative production associated with the festival, enabling important discoveries and appropriate modifications.
The underlying theme of the volume is “the Palio and its image”, where the word “image” embraces all those representations produced by the festival in its centuries-long history, in its continual evolution to respect its own unfaltering nature as a ritual involving the entire city. The expert of Palio literature will discover, precisely in the historical/documentary iconographic approach, the novelty of this book’s publishing program, which at the same time does not eschew photographic images, either from the present or from archives.
This approach also presents an up-to-date interpretation of the documentary sources, though without precluding a meaningful synthesis of how myth and reality have conditioned, and continue to condition, the human approach to the Palio, thus providing a unitary picture of all its manifestations.

578 pages, hard cover, illustrated, dim: 24×32,5 cm

Index:

INTRODUCTION
THE EUPHORIA OF FORTUNE
THE CONTRADE: THEIR HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND CONNECTION WITH THE PALIO
THE CONTAGIOUS MYTH: AN EXPLORATION OF THE MYTHOLOGIES OF THE PALIO
THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE MADONNA IN SIENA
LA MADONNA DI PROVENZANO
HERALDRY AND ALLEGORY IN THE “DRAPPELLONE”
A HISTORY OF THE COSTUMES OF THE SIENESE CONTRADE
COMPILATION OF THE MAIN FESTIVALS OF THE CONTRADE FROM THE 16TH TO THE 19TH CENTURY
THREADS OF HISTORY. CONTRADE AND PALIO IN THE DOCUMENTARY SOURCES
ORGANIZATION AND ORIGINS OF THE CONTRADE IN THEIR PARTICIPATION IN GHE BULL HUNTS
ICONOGRAPHIC HISTORIC ATLAS
COMPILATION OF DOCUMENTS ON SIENA’S CONTRADE AND FESTIVALS
MANUSCRIPTS AND GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX OF THE NAMES OF ARTISTS, AUTHORS AND SCHOLARS