Xander Brett takes in the Palio di Siena, reportedly the oldest continually running horse race in the world

To step into an Italian summer is to step into an oven. It’s an unrelenting furnace, under whose sky, an event is staged twice annually that discards the daily routine of the city of Siena. That is, of course, if Siena has a routine for the rest of the year.
In the days leading up to the Palio dell’Assunta (the Palio di Siena’s August edition), it’s hard to imagine this city ever recovers an equilibrium. So fierce is the rivalry, I will meet a resident whose mother, having married in...