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Siena's centuries-old holy war played out on horseback: neighborhoods' fierce rivalry culminates in summer Palio races.

Article Excerpt
On a balmy Sunday morning in Siena, Italy, hundreds of townspeople gathered before pools of water under a massive gothic archway. A line of mothers cradling infants had formed, and the crowd watched intently as each parent approached the waters and offered her child to the master of ceremonies. With a silk scarf ceremoniously draped over his shoulders, the emcee dipped his fingers into the waters and dabbed the infant's forehead in a solemn gesture that marked the child for life.

Among Sienese the scene is commonly known as a "baptismal," even though the scarf-wearing baptist was neither a priest nor did his ceremony cleanse anyone of sin. Once the water dries, the infant instead becomes a spiritual soldier, drafted into one of Siena's 17 contrade, or "districts," whose fiercely territorial residents converge on the city's main square every summer to race horses. The race, called the Palio, may appear benign, even quaint, to outsiders.

But to the Sienese, it represents the principal battleground of a centuries-long cold war between neighborhoods. Anyone visiting Rome over the summer might consider a day trip to Siena to take in the scene, because you'll never see anything like it anywhere else.

The Palio itself is a brief but intense affair: Twice every summer, jockeys mount barebacked horses and make three laps around a dirt track temporarily laid around Piazza del Campo's fan-shaped center, which floods with bodies hours before race time. In all, the event typically lasts less than two minutes, but the fervor surrounding the race is perpetual. When horses aren't ripping around the piazza, the contradaioli--the soldiers--are locked in a year-round contest of chest thumping. This traditionally involves mobilizing the hundreds of men, women and children that populate any given contrada to march through the city, singing in unison to the beat of war drums.

On occasion, Palio enthusiasts have been known to get violent and vandalize rival turfs. But usually the 363 days that precede Palio are a time of prayer. The districts pray for unity...