All 17 contrade critters

Gotta catch ‘em all

I want to tell you about a sort of scavenger hunt-type adventure I’ve long waited to have in Siena. 

Before I tell you about it, I need to tell you about their contrade. 

What is a contrada? Here’s a very layperson explanation: A contrada is like a combination of a neighborhood, a diehard sports team fanbase, and a gang. There’s a mascot and specific colors and everything. Lots of these Italian towns have them. 

They’re a vestige of Medieval times, when small groups banded together and fought with other small groups. Eventually, they found it impractical to fight everyone all the time, and also, like, the Florentines were coming for them, and if any of the small groups was going to survive, they needed to at the very least be in an enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend situation. 

Also, when the Plague ravaged Europe, there were literally just fewer people to populate entire cities, let alone the small contrade within them.

For all the reasons, over time the contrade stopped actually warring with one another. But in the spirit of preserving the social identity and structure of the contrade, they evolved the killing part into sports—specifically, the sport of horse racing. 

These types of horse races are called palios. During the Palio days, all the participating contrade come out and show off their drumming, colors, flag-waving, and overall pride. They sing rude songs about the other contrade, too.  

To emphasize the importance of the contrade in Siena: The contrada you’re born into is your identity for life. And the contrade are still geographically separated within Siena. Each has a fountain where they typically perform baptisms. (That is, baptisms INTO THE CONTRADA itself, not into Catholicism.) Baptized babies are given a bright scarf with the contrada’s mascot and colors, and they wear it for special contrada events for the rest of their lives. 

You must understand that even though palios are run all over Italy, the Siena Palio is an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT event—like, Super Bowl-level important, but only for Siena and its diaspora. (It’s infectious and addictive. I cannot wait to tell you more about the Palio from this July.)

So. Siena has 17 contrade. One of the things a visitor does in Siena is locate all 17 contrada fountains, which are alternately hidden and not hidden all over the city. Four years ago when we were in Siena for several weeks, I failed to find and photograph ‘em all, and since then I’ve low-key regretted it.  

This time, I finally carved out time for myself to do it. (Nobody in my family wanted to join. Something about the extreme heat and all the walking and not having the slightly obsessive need to complete such a neatly defined, arbitrary, and inconsequential task. Go figure.)

It was a sleepy Sunday in Siena when I set about my task. 

I have to admit that I had some internet help. I found a site that had thumbnails of all of the fountains, along with short blurbs describing their respective locations. And there’s a wiki page of some kind with a generic map of Siena with all the contrade colored in. Between that and Google Maps, I could triangulate the fountains. It worked pretty well. I definitely wouldn't have found them all without it. 

Here’s the rundown of each fountain, in the order that I bagged them, with commentary that will surely raise the ire of each contrada should they ever read it.

Tortuca (turtle): It was easy to find, largely because we’d been there the night before, attending the contrada baptism. And it was just around the corner from our flat. The fountain comprises a brass sculpture of a cherubic baby astride a turtle. Nestled into a wall, it’s both easy to find and easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention.

Onda (wave): Theirs is a prototypical contrada fountain in that it’s an actual fountain, with the mascot prominent. In fact, it’s the focal point: a fish spitting water. Perfect. One would expect nothing less from the water people.

Torre (tower, which is actually an elephant with a tower on its back): I knew this one well from our last visit, four years ago. We spent a lot of time saying hello to this guy en route to the little contrada playground, which was super close to the flat we rented. 

This is one of the more elaborate fountains—it takes up the whole little piazza and features both a nice bronze statue and an actual fountain. It’s quite prominent and impossible to miss if you’re walking by. 

Valdimontone (ram): Even though the fountain is relatively large, on the whole this contrada fountain is not spectacular. There is no brass sculpture—just some stone reliefs of lions (which, notably, are not rams). That’s because they just used a pre-existing fountain as their contrada fountain. So, it’s a nice fountain, but on the whole, low effort. Low. Effort. 

Nicchio (shell): This is another real fountain that’s impossible to miss if you pass by anywhere near it. Little bit of a missed opportunity though, IMHO; it would have been perfect as a vertical shell, or a shell opened 90 degrees, but instead it’s…I guess…an upside-down shell? Or a series of shells? And there’s some shells in relief on the sides? And the egg on top where the water spits out is I guess technically a shell of SOME KIND? (Also, shells are not intimidating. Swing and a miss on this mascot, guys. And I don’t quite understand the fountain.)

Leocorno (unicorn): I love this one, and not just because having a unicorn as a mascot is awesome. This is another pre-existing historic fountain, but the unicorns claimed it for their contrada fountain. In doing so, they went to the trouble of adding nice brass unicorn elements, from which the water pours. Nice work, unicorns. (Also, there are creepy stone hands under the water. Is that…is that a unicorn thing I’ve never heard of?)

 Giraffe (giraffe): Oh, Giraffe, why such a weird fountain? From street level, Giraffe feels like a rich contrada. And their church—every contrada also has a church—is lit. It’s tall, with a striking white facade against which red flags fly, and it has its own small piazza in front. 

The fountain is tucked away in a neighborhood, and it also has its own little piazza. The “fountain” itself is a little confusing, like they didn’t quite understand the assignment. The part with running water is all modern and small, and the sculpture is a flat brass relief that is adjacent to the fountain but not really part of it? And the giraffe on the relief looks like it’s terrified and being mauled. 

Bruco (caterpillar): I had the World’s Hardest Time finding this one. The site I used to cheat gave me instructions like “just south of Basilica San Francesco” but failed to mention that the fountain is basically hidden unless you happen to go down a specific little street. 

I walked alllll around San Francesco and couldn't find it. Finally I spotted it almost by accident, around a hairpin curve. It’s a weird little thing. Neat, but squished and cramped. Bruco’s is another pre-existing fountain that they augmented with some caterpillar themes. And so there’s a small “caterpillar sculpture” made of stone that looks like…well…not a beautiful carving. But there is a bronze guy in the fountain for some reason?

 I am confused by everything pertaining to Bruco’s fountain.

Lupa (she-wolf): After Bruco, I was getting hot and tired but wanted to nab a couple more fountains before I broke for lunch. Next was Lupa, the she-wolf. Not WOLF, but SHE-WOLF. Because the she-wolf of legend saved multiple sets of twins from their murderous uncles, nursing them and protecting them until they were safe to return to human society. Including the guy who founded Rome.

Anyway, the Lupa fountain is tricky to find, depending on which direction you approach from, because there’s a big beautiful historic fountain right near it called Fonte Nuova D’Ovile. It’s too easy to find Fonte Nuova D’Ovile and never find the actual contrada fountain. But I’d accidentally found her the other day, so I knew where to go. 

She looks like every mom of infants. Just so done. But determined. But, like, seriously, just so done.

Istrice (porcupine): (I found a place to eat on my way from Lupa to Istrice. Some good picci and some wine. Yum.) Istrice is way far away from all the other fountains, almost by itself, in the extreme north part of the city. The actual fountain is connected to a church and thus has a nice little piazza around it. Like Giraffe, the fountain was not spitting water, and the sculpture was a stone relief. Cool, but quiet. A nice one, though a bit underwhelming. 

Drago (dragon): I had to walk quite a ways to get from Istrice to Drago, even though Drago is a long walk from our flat. (Man, Istrice is far.) Anyway, this one is surprisingly easy to miss, even though it’s in a big open space where there’s a ton of people. It’s tucked away in a corner, behind a metal gate, between the steps of their contrada church. 

It’s a brass sculpture of a boy (notably, not a dragon) playing with Barberi balls. Barberi balls look like billiard balls, but they’re colored for each of the 17 contrade. Some of the playgrounds in Siena have Barberi tracks, which are like large Marble Madness tracks where you roll the contrade balls down them and see who makes it first. It’s a toy that is a metaphor for the Palio, which of course is a metaphor for war, if you recall from earlier in this essay. Layers, baby.

Anyway, points to Drago for including actual Barberi balls in this sculpture. It’s a nice touch. 

Oca (goose): For their fountain, the goose contrade uses Fontebranda, which is a large and super famous (locally, anyway) historic fountain. It was first used by pre-Etruscans some 3,000 years ago, pre-dating the founding of Siena by like 2,200 years or so. 

Pro: The fountain is cool as hell. Con: There are no goose sculptures anywhere, so there’s kind of nothing to take a picture of. Another con: It’s at a geographically low point in the city, so the only direction to walk from there is up, up, or up. 

Selva (tree, or forest, but there’s a rhino wandering around in it): After a long slow climb up the long steep hill, I arrived at Selva. You gotta like this guy: The mascot is a rhino with a tree growing out of his back. Why? I dunno. But it’s cute and cool and weird all at the same time. The fountain is set perfectly in a corner, with a small brass rhino and an actual tree. Well done, Selva. Extra points for cleverness.

Aquila (eagle) - The eagle. We passed by this guy every day on our way to everything because it was just down the street from our flat. It’s a good one: an eagle-sized eagle sculpture, on a cool pedestal, in a little piazza. A good place to hang. And he’s got some Thoughts and Feelings, you can tell.

Aquila is currently the “nonna,” or “grandma,” because they’re the contrada that has gone the longest without a Palio win. It also has the least total number of Palio wins, by a longshot. Sad. Maybe that’s what the eagle sculpture’s face is all about.

Civetta (owl): At this point in the adventure, I made a miscalculation. See, the contrade form almost a circle, with the Piazza del Campo (the actual city center) in the middle. And Civetta is right next to the Campo, kind of landlocked inside other contrade. So I figured I would pop over and hit it whenever I was kinda close to the Campo, which I was after I hit Aquila. 

But it’s actually pretty far. Dang. And it was hard to find! I walked around and around the Piazza Tolomei, which is the nearest landmark, and down a couple of wrong streets, before finding it tucked away in a nondescript, tiny, quiet, residential nook. 

Mm, how to describe this. One time in high school, each class was supposed to make a spirit day poster to hang in the cafeteria. Our class…I don’t know, we forgot to do it, or forgot when to do it, or nobody volunteered, I don’t remember. This was typical of our spiritless, cynical class. 

But it was time to hang a poster, and we didn’t have anything. Thinking on my feet, I grabbed a sheet of notebook paper—the kind with the torn edges dangling, you remember—stomped on it to get it dirty, wrinkled it a bit, and in pencil (not even pen!) wrote “Less is more.” And we hung it slightly askew on the wall with a single piece of scotch tape. To this day I think that’s some of my funniest and best work, but the school administration did not agree. 

Anyway, that’s what Civetta’s “fountain” reminded me of. We gotta have a fountain and stuff? Fine. Here’s a tiny owl on a stick. Because that’s literally all it is: a tall semi-fancy stick—no fountain of any kind—with a tiny owl sculpture atop it.

 I like to imagine that they commissioned the sculpture, and when it was revealed, they were shocked at the size. “Why…is it so small??!” they implored. “Hey, bronze is expensive!” the artist probably snapped back. “If you cared so much about the size, maybe you should have specified.” 

Less is more, I guess.

Pantera (panther) - Not the band. This is the fountain of the contrada in which we stayed this time, so we walk past her constantly. Another solid effort. An actual fountain, in a little piazza, with a nearly full-size bronze animal atop it. It is a little hard to read her expression, but like Lupa, she comes across to me like a tired mom.

Chiocciola (snail) - Another hard-shelled slowpoke. This was my final stop, past the Pantera one and past our flat, to the south. He wasn’t too hard to find—if you pay any attention at all, you’ll notice this lush and gated courtyard as you walk past it. 

What’s funny is that chiocciola is the enemy of tortuca (all the contrade have certain enemies and allies), and both fountains are a cherub on a shell, which means one of them stole the idea from the other, and now it just sits there as a permanent troll. 

As for the statue itself, the little fella’s expression is a bit inscrutable, but he seems alarmed and confused to find his naked self astride a giant snail. I would be too, buddy. Especially if I was naked. 

This was my final contrada fountain. Mission accomplished. It took me like four hours, including lunch, getting a little lost a couple of times, and miscalculating a couple of routes. And now I can tell the internet about it.