In the Via Benincasa to the right of the door of the church--over which is a bust of Catherine by Giacomo Cozzarelli, who is said to have designed the loggia--are the rooms belonging to the "Nobile Contrada dell'Oca." In the Sala delle Adunanze, you may see the trophies that their _fantini_, or jockeys, have won in the race for the Palio. The Contrada should be visited on the Sunday after the feast of Santa Caterina. The whole Via Benincasa is decorated--_ammaiata_, as they say in Siena--with bunting, with the flags of their own and the allied contrade, with brackets to hold lights and with white wooden geese in every form of flight or rest, but always combined with a green perch and a red bracket to give the Italian tricolour which is also the _divisa_ of the Contrada. The corners of the streets that lead into the Via Benincasa are guarded by larger wooden geese of this type, set upon the walls of the houses, while at the bottom of the street, at the church, the way is closed by a temporary tabernacle and altar. From earliest morning, Mass is offered up unceasingly in the three oratories, while the _figurino_ (the gaily decked representative of the Contrada) and the _alfieri_, waving their banners and preceded by a band, march through the city, to pay honour in this fashion to the houses of their friends and the headquarters of the allied contrade. All through the day the throng moves unceasingly through the street and the sacred house, until in the evening there is the procession. Starting from the parish church of Sant' Antonio, it makes its way down the steep, densely packed Via Benincasa. Following the band, comes the _figurino_; then a long train of little children dressed as saints and angels--foremost among [Illustration: VIA DELLA GALLUZZA] them being a group of three, a little boy, a little girl, and an elder girl, representing the Sposalizio of Caterina with the divine Bambino under the patronage of the Madonna. The brothers of the Company of St Catherine follow, bearing the silver bust of their patroness, with the priest of the Contrada. The end of the procession is brought up by the picturesque young Ancients, waving and tossing up their banners in the approved Sienese fashion, until all the steep, crowded Via Benincasa seems a whirling mass of colour. And St Catherine's power of healing factions in her native city has not yet ceased. In this present year of grace, 1902, on the day in which the popolani of the Oca celebrated the feast of their glorious patroness, there was a solemn reconciliation between them and the rival Contrada of the Torre, the healing of the famous feud of many years' standing. I am writing too soon after the event to know whether the peace has proved durable!