By Laura Bonelli

From that moment on, for twenty years, the Municipality decided to entrust the task to any painter living in the territory of Siena for the Palio of July and to an internationally acclaimed Master for the Palio of August. So in 1970, Carlo Semplici and Mino Maccari were chosen for the drappelloni. They realized two works in harmony with one another, that is to say not too distant as an emotional interpretation. Perhaps because of the second one, who even though he was an internationally known artist he came from Siena. Different choices were made, sometimes in a discordant way, showing an opening to the expressive freedom of authors, and an undoubted inventive acceleration and a clear qualitative turn. The “diagonal” Palio by Emilio Montagnani (1971), interpreted with a dreamlike and imaginative sensibility, anticipated the Palio of August entrusted to Renato Gattuso who proposed for his drappellone a realistic view of the Square in a riot of neckerchiefs and flags, while the following year after Oscar Staccioli and Carlo Cagli they move on an abstract geometric field of great scenic impact. The front dimension of the unique Palio of July, embellished with silver and copper, anticipates the intense and essential composition of the drappelone done for the Palio of August: a tapestry formed by the flags of the Contrade, which are the real protagonist of this Feast, where the figure of the Assumption gracefully flies. For The Extraordinary Palio of that year you returned to a traditional commission entrusted to the painter Dino Decca from Brescia, who created a work that sublimates the equine animal. The inventive realization by Gianni Dove for the Palio of August 1973 won by the Contrada of Aquila, is surprising. The painter, follower of a post-cubist geometric abstractionism, proposes a nocturnal, spectral setting, with the symbols of the Contrade relegated in chimneys, or in arrows that tend to the image of warrior Virgin. It undoubtedly represents one of the most interesting experiments of the theme of Palio. Later Ugo Attardi, in 1974, proposed instead a subject of sharp break with the traditional iconography, by painting a beautiful black Virgin who lowers his gaze on a playful wooden horse on which a steed with a Luciferian look shakes the backbone. Colorful drapes descend on the field in 1975: in July the Japanese painter Sho Shiba paints an anomalous cencio: on a flat orange background stands out a "paradisea" that watches over the Virgin from the extreme eastern features while in August Aligi Sassu proposes an almost heraldic and extremely synthetic solution: to celebrate the holy year he uses yellow, Vatican color and a central and dominant white cross accompanied by four horses that twist. Through the cartoon development of a medieval narrative, Antonio Bueno interprets the August 1976 Palio, while Ernesto Treccani solves the mandate with a tenuous lyric of gestures and chromatic modules (1977). And then Alberto Sughi (1978), Domenico Purificato (1979), Bruno Saetti (1980) who sought new interpretative solutions and not always appreciated by the public while the Sienese masters authors of beautiful palios like Enzo Cesarini (1973), Enzo Bianciardi (1974) Pier Luigi Olla (1976 and 1977), Marco Antonio Tanganelli (1978), Marco Salerni (1979) received the applause of the Sienese community. The decade is certainly the most interesting if seen as a contemporary artistic expression in line with the Italian figurative avant-gardes of the time. In the following twenty years we continue with this inclination by the administration that will invite the most famous painters of the moment in Italy who, with the Siena masters, will fill the museums of the Contrade with works of art that from those years will begin to expand, restructure and open these places with a sense of pride and proper belonging. It is of the early eighties the custom, on the part of the City, to take care in a more precise and elegant image of the Palio as a rite. It began then, also for the presence of artists accompanied by famous critics, to organize the presentation of the banner in a more emphatic and punctual interpreting it as a cultural moment of the city lived with the "people". The commitment on the part of the municipal administration towards the artist’s research began to become tight and careful. The paradox is that the most traditional cenci have always been those that have received the greatest support from the public. This is because basically people do not care so much about the stylistic and gender innovation with respect to the care and sense of respect towards the symbol of the festival. For the artist, however, it represents a hard comparison with a traditional iconography somewhat binding. The invitation to participate basically wants to be a provocation to compete with an object of very deep cultural anthropological value. In 1980, next to the July Palio, in naive style, by Aldo Minucci there is the bestiary of Antonio Possenti who first released the coats of arms of the Contrade from the usual and rigid heraldic constraints. For the September Palio there is an iconic frontal solution by Bruno Saetti; The following year here is the elegant narration of Mario Ghezzi while the August Palio was entrusted to the abstract painter Valerio Adami who painted the work in Paris using the silks of Pierre Cardin and creating one of the most significant banners of the period. While Cesare Olmastroni (1982) with his hyperrealist style evokes Garibaldi as in an old photo, in the August Palio Arturo Carmassi proposes a gigantic Assunta, with monastic features, of undoubted visual effect. And then Giuliano Vanni (1983), the infiorata by Renzo Vespignani (1983), the silk drapes evoked by Vita Di Benedetto (1984). Bruno Caruso (1984) imagines the banner as a gigantic votive offering: the Madonna on the clouds observes the completely naked child riding on horseback who is obviously waiting for the nod to leave. With Fabio Mazzieri (1985) we return to the abstract painting that the painter solves with a work dominated by the rhythm of signs and colors. Leonardo Cremonini (1985) inaugurates the horizontal view cut of the horses at the mossa that will be resumed in the years to come, Carlo Cerasoli recalls the medieval Russian icons (1986) and Riccardo Tommasi Ferroni (1986) celebrates the Virgin Assumed with features of infinite beauty. For the extraordinary Palio of 1986 Salvatore Fiume was invited to create a work of great emotional and visual, theatrical and archaic impact, where the absolute protagonist is undoubtedly the horse. This is followed by the homage to Sienese purism by Otello Chiti (1987), the excitement of Ennio Calabria (1987), the Sienese Palio by Gino Giusti (1988). The Palio discussed by Bruno Cassinari (1988), has had many criticisms for the almost total absence of the heraldic symbols of Siena and for the attempt to duplicate the Virgin that is presented, for an iconographic error, with the Child and not assumed into heaven.
While a traditional palio had been painted in July 1989 by the Sienese Giuseppe Ciani for August it was entrusted to the French master Gerard Fromanger who painted a Madonna Assunta with carriage, a fact that aroused evident disapproval by the Sienese episcopal curia. The nineties are still surrounded by great artistic and cultural ferment and here is Alison Roux (1990), Luca Alinari (1990), Carlo Pizzichini (1991), Eduardo Arroyo (1991), Enzo Santini (1992), Mimmo Paladino (1992), Massimo Lippi (1993), Ruggero Savinio (1993), Leo Lionni (1994)Sandro Chia (1994), Giovanni Ticci (1995), Alberto Inglesi (1995), Luciano Schifano (1996), Joe Tilson (1996), Emilio Tadini (1997), Marco Borgianni (1997), Salvatore Mangione (1998), Claudio Maccari (1998), the Belgian painter and illustrator Jean Michel Folon (1999)while the last palio of the century is painted by the Sienese Paolo Scheggi (1999).