As early as 1238, a Palio was being run during the month of August, as shown by a curious document that tells of a fine levied on a jockey who arrived last, guilty of not picking up his prize, a pig. This demonstrates that the Palio must have already been in existence for some time, perhaps even before the twelfth century, since by that time precise rules had been worked out to govern it. Since that time, a unique case in Italy, the tradition has never been interrupted except for a few years during the world wars. Starting in the Middle Ages, the three zones into which Siena is divided, known as the Terzi (“thirds”) of Città, San Martino, and Camollia, have challenged each other in numerous games, some of them quite violent, such as “Pugna,” in which the Terzi fought each other by boxing bare-handed, or the “Pallonata,” in which a ball was thrown from the top of the Torre del Mangia and the teams were allowed to trip and shove. Starting in the sixteenth century the people of Siena, divided into contradas, participated in competitions with animals, such as donkey or buffalo races and bull hunts. The contradas, or city districts, rose up around the twelfth century with military, administrative, and police functions. In the fourteenth century there were almost sixty of them. The current number of seventeen was established in 1729 by a decree issued by Violante of . . .