OrderingFamilies,Neighborhoods,andCities 173
placed last in the horse race. The last contestant in the foot race got a hen
as consolation prize, which he had to carry through the city to general
amusement.^207 Imola ran a palio to honor their patron, Saint Cassian—with
prizes of a scarlet cloth (the palio), a piglet, a falcon, and a pair of falconer’s
gloves. The city provided £ 25 for the prizes and commissioned a trustworthy
agent to buy the cloth at the Bologna markets.^208 In contrast, the Bolognese
ran one of their palios on 29 June, the feast of their cathedral’s titular, Saint
Peter. The race recalled the Bolognese defeat of Imola on that date in 1153
and may have been a survival of chivalric games of an early date. After
Bologna later subjugated Imola, that city had to supply the palio cloth as a
sign of its subordination.^209 The palio of Saint Peter was open to any rider
who registered within three days of the race, and its prize was a scarlet cloth
worth £ 20 bon. and a chicken. The prize and date may be stereotypical and
have no symbolic meaning. At Mantua, on the same feast of Saint Peter,
contestants raced below the city walls, also for a scarlet cloth and a
chicken.^210 Before 1250 , when Bologna passed laws to keep spectators off the
course, the Saint Peter’s palio was run along the road to San Giovanni in
Persiceto. In the 1260 s, the city moved it to a better location and expanded
it to three races, thescarlatus,thespaverius,and theroncinus. The last two they
later transferred to the feast of Saint Bartholomew ( 24 August).^211
The chronicler Girolamo de’ Borselli recounted the supposed 1281 origin
of the Saint Bartholomew palio. Tibaldello de’ Zambracci of Faenza had a
grudge against seven members of the exiled Bolognese Lambertazzi faction
then living in his city. They had killed one of his pigs and then threatened
his life when he demanded reparation. In revenge, he sent the key of Faen-
za’s city gates to Bologna so that the Lambertazzi’s enemies, the Geremei,
could make a copy. That faction used the duplicate to enter Faenza by night.
They killed the Lambertazzi while they were at morning Mass in the church
of San Francesco. After this Tibaldello fled to Bologna and was made a
Bolognese citizen by public decree. In memory of this they instituted on the
feast of Saint Bartholomew at the gate of Strada Maggiore the ‘‘race of the
horse, falcon, two dogs, and the cooked pigs.’’^212 The prizes for first place
- Verona Stat.ii( 1276 ), 1. 47 , pp. 61 – 62. Such prizes were common in other cities: see, e.g., Ferrara
Stat. ( 1287 ), 2. 116 – 17 ,p. 93 , on the feast of Saint George; Modena Stat. ( 1327 ), 2. 27 – 28 , pp. 246 – 47 , which
offered a scarlet cloth, a pig, and a chicken for the palio; and Lucca Stat. ( 1308 ), 1. 41 ,p. 35 , for two palios
on the feast of Saint Regulus. - Imola,Statuti di Imola del secoloxiv i( 1334 ), 4. 52 ,p. 303. By the time of this enactment, the palio
was already traditional. - Orselli, ‘‘Spirito,’’ 291 n. 7 , citing the 1153 document edited in Ludovico Savioli,Annali Bolognesi
(Bassano, 1784 ), 1 : 2 : 228. - Mantua Stat. ( 1303 ), 5. 1 , 3. 93.
- Bologna Stat.i, 7. 118 , 2 : 128 – 29.
- Girolamo de’ Borselli,Cronica Gestorum( 1281 ), 32. On these palios at Bologna, see Frati,Vita
privata, 148 – 49 , 162 – 64.