For centuries, each contrada in Siena has relived the same gestures and rituals. They dress their neighborhoods for celebration, swarmed by children who reenact medieval déjà-vus. Each of them wears precise colors: chosen not out of whim, but inherited through lineage and cultural belonging, through family and affection. They will never cease to wear them.

The city pulses. It speaks. Or it simply enchants, peering out from the balconies of Piazza del Campo, where the aristocratic dialogues of Siena’s former nobility and its singular gastronomy still seem to echo. Then as now… the essence of tradition.

Then, the atmosphere begins to boil. The envelope arrives, revealing the order of horses and jockeys. And the track turns into a tangle of alliances, trajectories, scuffles. The wait begins: first for the defeat of others, only secondarily for one’s own victory. A kinetic release. A single-take sequence of controversy and adrenaline. Ecstasy and folklore. Priceless identity and rooted fanaticism.

Third and final lap: the square erupts in slow motion, drums pounding, voices tangled in a whirlwind of shouts and fear. Leocorno attempts the final assault, glued to the tail of Montone. The entrance into the Casato curve is heart-stopping. Final stretch. The giallorosso crowd explodes.

On August 16, 2025, it is the Valdimontone contrada that celebrates, and proudly enters the history of Siena.