The Story of Siena and San Gimignano

On the pavement of the right transept we have the Seven Ages of Man, a modern copy of what was designed and executed by Antonio Federighi in 1475; the story of Jephthah, by Bastiano di Francesco, between 1481 and 1485; the Death of Absalom, by Pietro del Minella, 1447; and the Emperor Sigismund enthroned, designed by Domenico di Bartolo in 1434. This last is peculiarly interesting as being totally different in character from any other of the series, the work of a singularly striking and certainly the most isolated painter of the Sienese school. We have in all that Domenico does a touch of Florentine science and realism. In the left transept are the Expulsion of Herod, with some spirited fighting in superb Renaissance armour, designed by Benvenuto di Giovanni in 1484 or 1485, with a beautiful frieze of winged lions by Bastiano di Francesco; the Massacre of the Innocents, designed by Matteo di Giovanni in 1481, with a frieze of children, bacchanals, centaurs and amazons, showing how Matteo felt the spirit of the Renaissance more fully than any other Sienese painter of his day; the story of Judith, said to have been designed either by Urbano da Cortona or Matteo di Giovanni, and executed by Federighi in 1473. These three scenes have been completely restored. The raised platform in front of the choir shows some of the earliest of these graffiti, laid down between 1423 and 1426, much damaged and restored; David as the Psalmist and David slaying Goliath are by Domenico di Niccolò del Coro, whose work we have seen in the chapel of the Signoria; the story of Joshua and the victory of Samson are by Paolo di Martino. In the sixteenth century the arrangement of the choir was altered, the high altar being removed from under the cupola to its present position. Beccafumi then set to work to design the graffiti for the pavement in accordance with this new arrangement. His work, roughly speaking, runs from 1518 to 1546. It comprises the story of Elijah in the hexagonal space below the cupola; the story of Moses between this and the platform; and, before the high altar itself, the Sacrifice of Abraham, with Adam and Eve, Abel, Melchizedek and other scenes from the Old Testament, inclosed by a frieze representing the Children of Israel going to seek the Promised Land. In recent years the Elijah series has been completed from designs by Alessandro Franchi. Mr Cust remarks that Beccafumi, save in his earlier scenes, discards the colours that Pinturicchio had used, and “confines himself almost entirely to low tones of colour, which shade from one into the other; and produces his effects by a species of chiaroscuro. Instead of outlining each piece, or figure, in a single colour, he frequently uses, on the same subject, white and two or three different shades of pale-coloured grey marble.”83

Just within the great doorway are the sepulchral stones of two of the Sienese nobles who fell at Montaperti: Giovanni Ugurghieri and Andrea Beccarini. The delicately worked Corinthian columns supporting the tribune, the bas-reliefs (by Urbano da Cortona) round their pedestals representing scenes from the life of the Blessed Virgin, are of 1483. The stained-glass window over the portal, representing the Last Supper, was designed by Raphael’s famous pupil, Perino del Vaga, and executed by Pastorino Pastorini in 1549. The basins for Holy Water – perhaps the most beautiful things of their kind in existence – are by Antonio Federighi; the pedestal of the one on the right is supposed to be a real antique from an altar dedicated to Neptune. Near the side-doors are statues of two of Siena’s seven popes; Paul V. (Camillo Borghesi), who pontificated from 1605 to 1621, noted for his quarrel with Venice and for his extravagant ultramontanism; Marcellus II. (Marcello Cervini), a saintly man who held the papacy for a few weeks in 1555, and to whose memory Palestrina dedicated his famous Mass.

At the end of the right aisle, over the door of the Campanile, is the tomb of Tommaso Piccolomini, Bishop of Pienza, who died in 1483, by Neroccio; below it, three on each side, are bas-reliefs by Urbano da Cortona, representing scenes from the lives of the Madonna and her parents; that of Joachim among the shepherds is full of pastoral charm. The Cappella del Voto, in the right transept, glowing with lapislazuli and gold, was built in 1661 by Cardinal Fabio Chigi, to enshrine the miraculous Madonna – the Madonna delle Grazie– to which the Sienese had paid their vows in the days of Montaperti, and which is still credited with wonderful powers. The superbly modelled Magdalene and Jerome, by Bernini, the great Roman sculptor of the seventeenth century, are strongly characteristic of that master’s exaggerated and emotional, but undeniably powerful style. Further on in the transept, Siena’s first and latest pope face each other; Alexander III., the Orlando Bandinelli, so frequently mentioned, and Alexander VII., the above-named Fabio Chigi, who reigned from 1665 to 1667, a good, easy man, who loved letters, and of whom the Venetian envoy wrote that “he had merely the name of a pope, not the substantial power of the papacy.” In the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, let into the wall, are reliefs of St Paul and the four Evangelists, by Giovanni da Imola and Giovanni di Turino.

Opposite the Cappella del Voto is the Chapel of the Baptist in the left transept. It contains, in a richly worked reliquary, what is supposed to be one of the arms of the Baptist himself, which Pius II. presented to Siena in 1464. The chapel was built by Giovanni di Stefano, the external marble decorations being by Lorenzo di Mariano. Of the two pedestals that support the marble columns at the entrance, the one on the right is a genuine antique, which Antonio Federighi bought in exchange for a pair of oxen, and the one on the left is his own imitation of it.84 Within, the presiding genius of the place is Donatello’s St John in bronze, one of the master’s latest works, full of dramatic expression and the same spirit of austere prophecy that we found in the Magdalene of the Florentine Baptistery. The marble statues of St Ansanus and St Catherine of Alexandria are by Giovanni di Stefano and Neroccio respectively; the latter, assigned to the sculptor in 1487, was left unfinished at his death. The bas-reliefs of the Font – representing scenes from Genesis, and two of the labours of Hercules – are fine and characteristic works of the school of Giacomo della Quercia, and should perhaps be ascribed to Antonio Federighi. The eight frescoes were originally executed by Pinturicchio and his pupils, between 1501 and 1504, for Alberto Aringhieri. On the left and right of the entrance, by Pinturicchio himself, we see Alberto in youth and age; first as a young knight keeping vigil, then advanced in years, kneeling in prayer, in the dress of a knight of Rhodes; they are full of charm, especially the first, in its harmonies of grey and red, the highest expression of Sienese chivalry: —

“Unfathomable thoughts with him remainOf that great bond he may no more eschew,Nor can he say, ‘I’ll hide me from this chain.’”85

The fresco opposite, representing the Birth of the Precursor, is also from Pinturicchio’s hand. Appropriately placed above the two portraits of Alberto are the Vigil of St John and his Preaching in the Wilderness; they are very naive and charming, with odd formal trees and landscape against the gold background, and are ascribed by Mr Berenson to Baldassare Peruzzi, of whom there is documentary evidence that he worked here in 1501; they would thus be very early works of his, of the same period as they are in the same style as the little Madonna in the Accademia. These four frescoes have been repainted. The three that remain have been entirely replaced by later work; the Baptism of Christ and the Martyrdom of the Baptist, painted by Francesco Rustici at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Saint in Prison, by a modern artist, Cesare Maccari.

High up to the left of this chapel is the tomb of Cardinal Riccardo Petroni, a famous decretalist but a man of great charity (in spite of Dante the two things are not quite incompatible) in the days of Boniface VIII. It is probably by either Tino di Camaino or Gano, and is a good example of these sepulchral monuments of the early Sienese school, though here, as the monument is to a churchman, the religious ideal prevails over the usually more secular style. In the left transept are statues of the two Piccolomini Popes, Pius II. and Pius III., of whom more presently. As far back as the middle of the sixteenth century, it was supposed that the highly-revered wooden Crucifix, near the statue of Pius III., was the one carried by the Sienese at Montaperti. The chapel of St Ansanus, opposite that of the Blessed Sacrament, has an altar-piece by Francesco Vanni, painted in 1596, representing the Saint baptising the people of Siena, which is a decidedly favourable specimen of the later Sienese school. The bronze relief on the pavement, the tomb of a Bishop Giovanni Pecci, who died in 1426, is a signed work of Donatello. The bas-reliefs let into the wall – representing the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Procession and Adoration of the Magi – date from the first half of the thirteenth century; they are specially interesting here as, when compared with the great pulpit, they illustrate the state of sculpture in Tuscany before the advent of Niccolò Pisano, and enable us to realise what Niccolò effected.

The famous pulpit, by Niccolò and his pupils, was begun in 1266, the year after Dante’s birth. It marks an epoch in the history of Italian sculpture – even more so than did that earlier one in the Baptistery of Pisa, when, in Carducci’s splendid phrase, the sculptor saw “the new and holy Venus of Italy” rise “from the Greek sepulchre of German bones.”86 The sculptures of the pulpit at Pisa are imitated from Roman bas-reliefs and differ little from the work of Niccolò’s predecessors and contemporaries, save in their superior technical excellence; but here at Siena we recognise the working of a new spirit; side by side with this close study of antiquity, we have a direct return to natural models.87 The pulpit is octagonal, supported by eight pillars at the angles, each second pillar resting upon a lion rending his prey, or a lioness giving suck to her young; a central pillar, resting on the pedestal, being adorned with eight figures representing arts and crafts. The capitals are beautifully worked with birds and foliage, and above them are figures of the Virtues, while above these again are symbolical figures between and uniting the scenes in the bas-reliefs. First comes a Sibyl, as announcing the great mystery among the Gentiles. Then we have the Visitation, Birth of the Baptist, Nativity of Christ, and Adoration of the Shepherds – with Niccolò’s favourite troop of goats, one of them leaping up to look at the Madonna, just as you may see one doing when a herd is driven over the bridge of Spoleto past the shrine. Next is a group of Prophets, followed by the Adoration of the Magi, a scene which contains some obvious and successful attempts at portraiture. At the next angle are the Madonna and Child, a very beautiful work which may rank as the first Italian masterpiece in this kind. After this the Presentation in the Temple, Joseph’s Dream, the Flight into Egypt are united in one history. A group of Angels is next, followed by the Massacre of the Innocents, full of movement and dramatic vigour. Then comes a symbolical representation of Christ as the Redeemer of the World; He is trampling upon two monsters, while a lion crouches at His feet (possibly a reference to Psalm xci. 13); above His head are the Dove, the empty Throne, the hand of the Father. The Crucifixion follows, and, after it, supporting the reading-desk, the symbols of the four Evangelists. Finally comes the Last Judgment in two divisions, Christ as Judge appearing in the midst, surrounded with Angels bearing the emblems and instruments of the Passion. It is the conventional mediaeval representation; the saved to the right of the Judge, with, highest of all, the Madonna in intercession; the lost to the left, with a hideous bestial Satan down in the lowest corner; the dead rising to judgment, the Angels severing the wicked from among the just. We find for the first time that dramatic motive which became traditional – the casting out of the hypocritical monk who had tried to insinuate himself among the just. Though the forms are still stunted, we find unmistakable signs of a new spirit of portraiture, and many of the heads are most admirable, though here and there facial expression degenerates into grimace. At the end of all are three Angels blowing the trumpets, as though to announce the accomplishment of the great mystery of Redemption that the Sibyl had foretold.

The steps and entrance to the pulpit were added in the latter part of the Cinquecento, designed by Bartolommeo Neroni. Against the two last pillars of the nave are the poles of the Carroccio of the Sienese at Montaperti. Beneath the cupola are gilded statues of Siena’s patrons with indifferent late fifteenth century frescoes. Until Baldassare Peruzzi altered the arrangement, the high altar stood here, under the cupola, with Duccio’s great picture – which is now in the Opera del Duomo – upon it. Thence six bronze Angels, by Francesco di Giorgio and Giovanni di Stefano, marshal us to the new high altar – designed by Peruzzi – upon which rests the famous bronze tabernacle, executed between 1465 and 1472, by Vecchietta. The two Angels against the pillars on either side of the altar are by Beccafumi, who practised casting in bronze in the latter part of his life. The frescoes in the niche behind the choir were originally by Beccafumi, painted in 1544, but have been completely repainted and altered; the Assumption is an unimportant Bolognese work. The other frescoes, representing the fall of Manna and the story of Esther, as also the two groups of Saints and Beati of Siena at the sides, were painted by Ventura Salimbeni, between 1608 and 1611. The choir stalls are partly the work of Fra Raffaello da Brescia in 1520, partly from the designs of Bartolommeo Neroni half a century later. The intarsia is the work of Fra Giovanni da Verona of 1503, the organ-loft over the sacristy was executed by the two Barili in 1511. There are several old Sienese paintings in the chapter-house beyond the sacristy, especially two of San Bernardino preaching in the Campo and in front of San Francesco. Above the choir there is a fine circular stained-glass window, representing the Death, Assumption, and Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, with the four Evangelists and four chief early patrons of Siena; it was executed by Giacomo di Castello in 1369, according to a document recently discovered in the Archivio dell’Opera del Duomo.88

The left aisle is mainly devoted to the honour and glory of the House of the Piccolomini. Enea Silvio Piccolomini held the bishopric from 1449 to 1458. After his elevation to the papacy he raised the See to an archbishopric, and until 1597 it was always in the hands of one of his own family. We have, in fact, a continuous series of Piccolomini Archbishops of Siena; Antonio Piccolomini, 1458 to 1459; Francesco di Nanni Todeschini, 1460 to 1501 (when he resigned), afterwards Pius III.; the two nephews of Pius III., Giovanni di Andrea Todeschini Piccolomini, 1501 to 1529, and Francesco di Salustio Bandini, 1529 to 1588; Ascanio di Enea Piccolomini, 1588 to 1597. After the third altar (from the entrance), over which is an Epiphany by Pietro Sorri which is almost Venetian in colour, is the monument of Alessandro Piccolomini, Archbishop of Patras and afterwards coadjutor to Archbishop Bandini; philosopher, poet, and dramatist, Alessandro is, unfortunately for his moral reputation, best known by his early Dialogo della Bella Creanza delle Donne, which in later life he retracted. The next altar, that of the Piccolomini, was ordered by the Cardinal Francesco di Nanni Todeschini, who, never contemplating the possibility of being destined to sit in the papal chair, and therefore to rest in the Eternal City, intended to be buried here, as the inscription on the steps states: “Francesco, Cardinal of Siena, whilst still living had this sepulchre made for himself”; and over the arch, as his sole title to fame, he has “Francesco Piccolomini, Cardinal of Siena, nephew of the Supreme Pontiff Pius II.” He was a good and learned man, who, as we have seen, played a pacific and moderating part in the turbulent politics of his native city; he was prematurely aged and utterly broken down in health when, on the death of the infamous Alexander VI., he was elected Pope in September 1503 (much to his own dismay) by a sort of compromise between the rival factions in the conclave, none of whom could secure the elevation of its own candidate, but all hoping that there was no prospect of him surviving the election very long. “God be thanked,” wrote the General of the Camaldolese, “that the government of the Church has been intrusted to such a man, who is so manifestly a storehouse of all virtues, and the abode of the Holy Spirit of God. Under his care the Lord’s vineyard will no more bring forth thorns and thistles, but will stretch out its fruitful branches to the ends of the earth.”89 He took the name of Pius III., in memory of his uncle, and declared his intention of reforming the Church, beginning with the Pope and the Cardinals, and of restoring peace to Christendom. But the weight of the great mantle of popedom crushed him, and he died in the following month, “not deceiving,” writes Guicciardini cynically, “the hopes that had been formed at his election.” The altar is in the main the work of Andrea Fusina of Milan, and was begun in 1485. In 1501 Michelangelo undertook to make fifteen statues for the Cardinal, sua manu et opere. On the death of the Pope in 1503, he consigned four of these fifteen to his heirs – his brothers Giacomo and Andrea Todeschini Piccolomini – to the mutual satisfaction of both parties, and undertook to finish the eleven that remained to do within two years, unless prevented by accident or illness, or by the war concerning Pisa hindering the transport of marble from the mountains of Carrara to Florence. These four statues are apparently the four Saints in the niches on the outer framework of the altar, fine figures somewhat in the style of Donatello’s saints outside Or San Michele. Of the remaining eleven, the only one that Michelangelo ever executed is that placed on the top to the left – which is more in his later style. He was somewhat troubled in his mind on the subject in his old age. “Lionardo,” he wrote to his nephew, on September 20th, 1561, “I should like you to search among the papers of your father Lodovico, for the copy of a contract in forma camerae made concerning certain figures that I promised to continue for Pope Pius II. [sic] after his death; and because the said work, owing to certain differences, remained suspended about fifty years ago, and because I am old, I should like to settle the matter, in order that you may not be troubled about it unjustly after I am gone.” In another letter from Rome, on the last day of November, he tells him that the Archbishop of Siena has volunteered to put the thing right for him, “and because he is an excellent and skilful man, I believe that it will end satisfactorily.”90 To the right of the altar is a Risen Christ, with two adoring Angels, over the monument to the Bandini raised by this Archbishop, Francesco Bandini Piccolomini; these figures are also, with some plausibility, ascribed to Michelangelo.

The great work in Siena of Pius III. is the famous Libreria, which he built as Cardinal for the books and MSS. that his uncle had left him. Probably realising that he had little time left him to live, he wished to erect this monument to his uncle’s memory, and indirectly to his own. Above the entrance at the end of the aisle is a fresco of his own elevation to the papacy, painted after his death and after the subsequent completion of the work, by Bernardino Pinturicchio. The Pope’s own figure is partly in relief; on either side of him are the Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, who has taken off his mitre, and the Cardinal Giovanni Antonio di San Giorgio, who is placing the papal tiara upon his head. The whole lacks composition, and there is little, if any, attempt at portraiture; but the crowd in the piazza includes some beautiful figures and well rendered motives. A youth in the foreground is evidently Raphael. Under the fresco are Francesco’s arms as Cardinal and as Pope. The marble work is by Lorenzo di Mariano, the admirable bronze doors were executed by Antonio Ormanni.91

On entering we are at once struck by the dazzling profusion of gold and colour, the splendid and opulent decorative effect of the whole. In the contract between “the most reverend Lord Cardinal of Siena” and “Messer Bernardino called Il Pinturicchio, painter of Perugia,” dated June 29th, 1502, “to paint a Library placed in the Duomo of Siena,” almost as much stress is laid upon the “gold, azure, ultramarine, enamel-blue, azure-greens and other pleasing colours” as upon the ten histories in which he has to paint “the life of the Holy Memory of Pope Pius.”92 Francesco was probably led to intrust the work to Pinturicchio, rather than to a Sienese, because of the splendid work that he had just completed in the Vatican for the reigning Pontiff (who was hardly destined to leave a santa memoria), Alexander VI. The frescoes were begun in 1503, interrupted by the death of Francesco as Pius III. (he probably saw none of them), and resumed about the beginning of 1506.

The ten histories on the wall make up an ideal representation of the career of a hero of the Renaissance. We see Enea Silvio in the first scene, a youth riding a white horse, starting for Basle to seek his fortunes in the great world away from the petty turmoils of his little Italian republic, as secretary to the Cardinal Domenico Capranica, the dignified ecclesiastic who heads the cortège mounted upon a mule. In the background is the western side of the bay of Genoa, from which they made the journey by land to Basle. In the second, riper in years and in worldly wisdom (but less successfully realised by the painter) he is at Edinburgh before King James I. of Scotland, to whom he had been sent by his new employer, the powerful and influential Cardinal of Santa Croce, Niccolò d’Albergata, to persuade him to threaten the Border and so prevent our Henry VI. from interfering with the continental peace that had been concluded at Arras. This was in 1435. In the third, Enea Silvio has mounted a step higher in the social scale, being crowned poet laureate by the Emperor-elect, Frederick III., who made him one of his imperial secretaries in 1442. Hitherto there had been an antipapal tendency in the poet’s movements; he had been involved in the more or less schismatical Council, had been friendly with and on the point of entering the service of the Savoyard antipope Felix. But Frederick professed neutrality, and the next fresco, the fourth, shows us his astute secretary’s conversion to the papal side. We see him in Rome, in 1445, at the feet of Eugenius IV., to whom he had been sent as envoy by the Emperor or, as it would be more accurate to call him at this epoch, the King of the Romans. The two Cardinals in the foreground are said to be his two friends in the Sacred College, the Cardinal of Amiens and the Cardinal of Como, while the bearded prelate, the third on our left, is the famous platonist, Johannes Bessarion of Trebizond. This marks a turning point in Piccolomini’s career; he turned away from his pagan, licentious life to the study of theology, definitely entered the Church, and set before his eyes two great objects: the unity of Roman Catholicism, the rolling back of the tide of Turkish invasion.93 There can be little question that hope of advancement was his chief motive in this conversion, but his after life as an ecclesiastic seems to show that the nobler spiritual impulse was not altogether lacking. “To him,” writes Dean Kitchin, “more than to any man is due the successful healing of the schism of the West.” In the next, the fifth fresco, which after the first is the most beautiful of the series, he is Bishop of Siena, presiding at the meeting of the Emperor and his bride Leonora of Portugal outside the Porta Camollia, on February 24th, 1452. Behind the Emperor stand Duke Albert of Austria and the young King Ladislaus of Hungary and Bohemia. We read that the Emperor showed considerable nervousness as he waited for his bride, whom he had never seen before. “At first,” writes Enea Silvio himself in his History of Frederick, “the Caesar turned pale, when he saw his bride coming in the distance. But when she drew near, and he beheld more and more her beautiful face and her royal bearing, he became himself again and his colour returned, and he waxed merry, for he found his lovely bride was even more lovely than report had made her, and he perceived that he had not been deceived by words, as often happens to princes who contract marriages by procurators.”94 The fall of Constantinople in 1453 gave Bishop Enea the opportunity of coming forward as the champion of the cause of Christendom against the Moslem, the eloquent advocate of a new crusade. In the sixth history, he receives the Cardinal’s hat from Calixtus III. in 1456; two Greek prelates stand conspicuously in the foreground, while Bessarion appears again on our right; though not very like his authentic portrait by Pinturicchio in the Vatican, the Cardinal standing at the Pope’s right hand is probably intended for his abominable nephew Roderigo Borgia, afterwards Alexander VI., with whom Enea at this time was on friendly terms. Then, in the seventh, the hero has reached the goal of his earthly ambition, and becomes Pope Pius II. on September 3rd, 1458. He is being carried in procession to give his benediction to the City and the World, while the Master of the Ceremonies burns a piece of tow before him, with the traditional warning: Sancte Pater, sic transit gloria mundi. Two Orientals are there to represent the Eastern Question, that the new Pontiff had made his own. The eighth fresco represents the opening of Congress of Mantua, in 1459, where Pius in vain strove to rouse the powers of Christendom to concerted action; as the fresco appropriately lets us perceive, the Pope himself and the suppliant Christians of the East are the only people in earnest in the matter. Then, in the ninth, he gratifies alike his national pride for the glory of Siena and his own heart by the canonisation of St Catherine, whose crusading zeal had anticipated his own. There is an interesting group of portraits below on our left, the two most conspicuous figures being Raphael and Pinturicchio himself, holding lighted tapers, while the two beyond Pinturicchio, with their backs turned to us, are probably his assistants, Eusebio di San Giorgio and Bembo Romano. Last of all, in the tenth fresco, Pius is at Ancona, come to head the crusade. He was dying, kept alive only by his indomitable enthusiasm, when he reached the city in July 1464, only to find that there were none to support him. In August the fleet of Venice appeared upon the scene. The Pope was then on his death-bed; but the painter, departing from historical fact, has represented him carried down to the harbour to meet the Doge, Cristofero Moro, who is shown kneeling before him, but who in reality never landed until the Pope had passed away. So faded a heroic dream. “It has pleased God,” wrote the Senator of Rome, Guido di Carlo Piccolomini, to the Signoria of Siena, on August 15th, “this night, at the third hour, to call to Himself the blessed soul of the happy memory of Pope Pius. It is a little consolation to us in so great a loss that, being mortal like other men, he has died the most glorious Pontiff that for a very long time has sat in that seat.”95