Francesco De Grandi’s Drappellone unveiled

There was a prolonged applause for the drappellone created by Sicilian painter Francesco De Grandi for the 2025 Palio dell’Assunta. The work was unveiled last night, August 10th, in the crowded courtyard of the Palazzo Publicco, and presented by art critic Helga Marsala. Mayor Nicoletta Fabio described it as a “majestic and refined” drappellone.

The composition follows a regular pattern, following a series of windows, abandoning the narrative unity and referencing polyptychs in panels, the predellas of altarpieces, and diptychs and triptychs on wood. The choice to connect the different sections with a precious gold border and then to close the lower border with a gold-colored damask fabric is an expression of fidelity to tradition, reminiscent of ancient textile art and its extraordinary application in both civil and religious contexts.

Likewise, the symbols and animals identifying the Contrade are faithfully reproduced in the perfectly reproduced coats of arms: the artist has even added the names, written in her own hand. At the top, the figure of Mary dominates the scene, her realistic rendering drawing on sacred iconography and classical figuration, simultaneously adapting and projecting them elsewhere, in a refined process of both modernization and dreamlike projection. Mary’s cloak transforms into a star-embroidered strip of heaven, which she barely opens to create a shower of stars. And it is precisely from this cloak that the flying swarm of horses and riders seems to emerge, diving toward the Sienese ground, which appears in the background on the left, a golden mirage in the distance.