Siena

My visit to Siena included a lovely lunch & wine tasting near the Palazzo Comunale. The city square actually looks like a sink – it has a square around it, but a circular bowl in the middle. Then we went on a tour with a guide that did a superb job of educating us about the history of Siena. We walked to the cathedral to see a gorgeous interior that was gothic on the bottom and had Renaissance features on the top. The tour guide said this was because there was a plague that made them stop production on the church, then when they finally had enough funding the Renaissance had been born so those features took over.
After this we went to Cappella di Santa Caterina where St. Catherine of Siena took her vows.

The two things that interested me most about Siena were the Palio and Cappella di Santa Caterina. The Palio is a horse race held two times each year in the city center; July 2 is named Palio di Provenzano, in honor of Madonna di Provenzano, who has a church in Siena and August 16 is named Palio dell’Assunta, in honor of the Assumption of Mary. 10 of the 17 contrade or districts in Siena have jockeys ride bareback horses around the city center three times. No money is given to the winning jockey – it is the HORSE that wins the honor for the district it represents.

As I said earlier, the Cappella di Santa Caterina is where St. Catherine of Siena took her vows. Siena holds this saint dear because she is said to have talked the pope into coming back to Rome. She must have been quite a persuasive lady! I was surprised to see the relics of her head and her thumb. The guide said St. Catherine died in Rome and was buried there, but the people of Siena wanted to claim her body, so as a compromise the people from Rome gave the Sienese parts of her body to display in their church.