The Collegiate Church of Santa Maria in Provenzano

The Palio of Provenzano

In the early years of the seventeenth century, besides the ‘long’ Palios through streets of the city, they began occasionally to run some races around the Piazza del Campo, but only on 2 July 1656 was it established as a custom.
As early as 1620 the organizer of the Palio had decided to institute on 2 July a race in honor of the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary which was kept in the new church at Provenzano, consecrated in 1611. The church had been given the title of the Visitation, the feast day of which was celebrated at the time on 2 July instead of 31 May as it is today. The desire to arrange a Palio was the highest expression of affection the city could show to the Madonna of Provenzano, whose fame as a fount of miracles had been spreading for years. But the people had to wait until 1656 to see the first Palio in Piazza del Campo dedicated to Our Lady of Provenzano. This race was a great success, so that three years later, in 1659, a public notice was issued to guarantee the continuity of the July Palio. The new race ‘in the round’ consisted, then as now, in three turns around the Piazza del Campo, where ten of the seventeen contradas, with their horses and jockeys, fought to win the silk banner.
Despite the introduction of this ‘round’ race, the ‘long’ Palio on 15 August in honor of Our Lady of the Assumption lasted until the nineteenth century, when it was abolished, but from the late seventeenth century until 1774 it was flanked by another Palio run on 16 August in Piazza del Campo, in the same manner as the July one.
While the ‘long’ races and the other medieval games that were considered too violent have been abolished in the course of the centuries, the two Palios of 2 July and 16 August have survived to our day, perhaps because of their location in a spectacular setting like Piazza del Campo, where it is possible to watch both the start and the finish, but above all because they are both dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.