Siena in the rain

Today we toured Siena, and it rained most of the day, but what's new? The churches we toured were San Dominico and the Duomo of Siena. St. Catherine's head and finger are preserved in San Dominico, which is a little bit morbid if you ask me, especially the finger, the right hand thumb, to be specific. It is displayed in a monstrance, but it just seems weird to be staring a thumb that is several hundred years old. The Duomo has lots of inlaid marble on the floor, which is really intricate. My favorite part of the whole day was looking at the library in the Duomo, which housed illuminated manuscripts. Last semester I made an illuminated manuscript for my honors class, but seeing these ones put the one I made to shame. I thought mine took a long time, but these were just so intricately done that it must have taken hours just to complete one tiny section. The end product is absolutely gorgeous though, something that you just can't get with modern printing machines. So I lingered in there for a while until Eldon came back and told Lorenzo and I that the rest of the group wanted to move on and that we had to come out. I seriously could have spend hours in there just looking at all those beautiful pages.



Another interesting feature of Siena is horse racing. In their main piazza they hold horse races each summer, with 10 different sections of the city competing against one another for the top place. For those of you who have seen Quantun of Solace, this is where the races in the movie take place. It is extremely competitive and deeply linked with family ties and religion. The races are done in honor of the Virgin Mary, and before the races the horses are brought into chapels into their section of town for prayer. Our guide said if the horse "leaves something behind" in the chapel, it is good luck. The piazza is oval shaped, and the middle is sunken down. About 30,000 people stand in the middle of the piazza and watch the horses race three times around the outer edge. The race is usually done in just a couple minutes, but the results determine which section of the city has the most honor for an entire year. Our guide married a man from a different section of the city than her family, so their horses race against one another. One year his horse lost, and hers won, so he did not speak to her for a few weeks. She said that their marriage is very tense each year around the time of the races. In the Duomo there was a corner devoted to praying for the racers. Prayers of thanksgiving are offered here, and people can hang something on the wall. Along with many dented scooter helmets from people who survived accidents, there are medals from the races and horse shoes and harnesses. The winner of the race gets to design a huge candle that is burnt in thanksgiving to St. Mary for a half hour each day for a year. They sure do take competition to a whole new level here in Italy.