Palio of Castelfranco Veneto

Our recent trip to Castelfranco was largely a chance encounter, the result of a search for a new diversion after Treviso proved largely a bore.  I have been to the small, walled town before, to see the Giorgione exhibit which brought together all of the master's known works for the first time (including the town's own, "Castlefranco Madonna," which is housed in the town's cathedral).  This time around, I witnessed an example of one of the country's more typical autumn celebrations: the medieval festival.

Palio di Romano

Every first week of May, the city of Romano d'Ezzelino celebrates the downfall of their most famous son with historical reenactments and a donkey race.  The town was the birthplace of Ezzelino da Romano, a 14th century podesta who managed to unify Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, and Padova before the Venetians, and despite numerous and powerful pressures from the Germanic states in the north, the Lombards, the papacy, the Venetians, and the numerous competing families from each city-state.  Despite his great contribution to Venetian/Italian notion of "statehood"--he was one of the first to really accept the possibility of neighboring Italian city-statesforming a unified nation--he was and still is a reviled historical figure because of his cruelty (but most likely because he was the top dude in a field of eternally competing forces: his negative reputation could be chalked up to the rumors spread by those seeking to replace him).  His death was a cause for celebration, and all four city-states threw a grand palio party before they went back to fighting each other.