The Story of Siena and San Gimignano

In spite of the express stipulation in the contract that Pinturicchio “shall be bound to make all the designs of the histories with his own hand, in cartoons and on the walls, and to paint all the heads of the figures in fresco with his own hand,” Vasari declares that the designs and cartoons for all the scenes were drawn by Raphael, then a youth. This view, though once scouted by serious historians of Italian art, is winning ground again in a modified form – at least so far as the first and fifth, the journey to Basle, and the meeting of the Caesar with Leonora, are concerned, for both of which there exist what seem to be authentic drawings from Raphael’s hand at Florence and Perugia respectively.96 The mythological and allegorical devices on the ceiling, the arabesques and grotesques in the pilasters between the histories with the six times repeated twin cherubs supporting the arms of the Piccolomini, are by Matteo Balducci and other pupils and assistants of Pinturicchio. The famous marble group of the Three Graces, one of the first antiques to be worshipped in the days of the Renaissance, was brought hither by the Cardinal Francesco; from it Raphael made his first studies of ancient sculpture. Here, too, are several superb choir books, with miniatures by Sano di Pietro, Girolamo da Cremona, Liberale da Verona, and others. The sculptured woodwork is by Antonio Barili. The Adam and Eve over the door is a meritorious production of the school of Giacomo della Quercia.

Over the door of the right transept, outside the Cathedral, is a very beautiful sculptured medallion of the Madonna and Child with Angels. It is ascribed by M. Reymond to Donatello.

In what would have been a part of the right aisle of the larger Duomo, is the Opera del Duomo, the Cathedral Museum. On the ground floor is a room containing some of the original graffiti from the pavement, where these have been replaced by copies, and some of the statues from the façade. Here, too, in a mutilated condition, are Giacomo della Quercia’s reliefs from the Fonte Gaia: the Madonna and Child; the Virtues; the Creation of Adam and the Expulsion from Paradise (masterpieces which even in their ruin are superb), and less important fragments. There is a striking Moses, from a fountain in the Ghetto, probably by Federighi but scarcely unworthy of Giacomo himself. Also by Federighi are the bas-reliefs from the chapel in the Campo. A St John in terra-cotta by Giacomo Cozzarelli and a Transfiguration by Girolamo Genga of 1510 are also worthy of note. On the first floor, beyond the hall where designs and models are exhibited connected with the restoration of the pavement, is a small room containing original designs. Two, at least, are of first importance; the design for the façade of the Baptistery of Siena, by Giacomo di Mino del Pellicciaio (20); an old drawing said to represent Giotto’s original design for the Campanile of Florence (34), crowned with the steeple that according to Vasari was abandoned “because it was a German thing and of antiquated fashion.” There are also plans connected with the building of the Duomo (e. g. 60), and a curious sketch (33) for the suggested portico to the Campo, said to have been invented for Pandolfo Petrucci by Peruzzi and designed by a certain Pomarelli. On the stairs are the Baptism of Christ, by Andrea del Brescianino and his brother Raffaello, formerly in San Giovanni, and a modern plan of the abandoned enlargement of the Duomo.

In the gallery of the second floor is what may, perhaps, be taken as the supreme picture of the Middle Ages; the famous ancona which Duccio di Buoninsegna painted for the high altar of the Duomo. “It was the most beautiful picture that was ever seen or made,” wrote the contemporary chronicler, Andrea Dei. “It cost more than three thousand golden florins, and Duccio the painter laboured many years in doing it.” Documentary evidence shows that he took less than three years over the work; it was assigned to him on October 9th, 1308, and it was borne in triumph to its place on June 9th, 1311. To place it accurately in the story of mediaeval art, we may remember that Giotto had already painted his earlier works and was probably then engaged upon his frescoes in the Arena at Padua, while it was precisely in these years that Dante was labouring upon his Inferno and hailing with fierce exultation the advent of a political Messiah in the person of Henry of Luxemburg. A public holiday was proclaimed when it was completed. With ringing of bells from churches and palaces, the musicians of the Signoria marching in front with trumpets, drums and tambourines, the picture was solemnly carried in triumph from the painter’s workshop through the Via di Stalloreggi, along the Via di Città, then down and round the Campo, and up again to its place in the Duomo. “On the day that it was carried to the Duomo,” writes an anonymous chronicler who was probably present, “the shops were shut; and the Bishop bade that a goodly and devout company of priests and friars should go in solemn procession, accompanied by the Signori Nove and all the officers of the Commune and all the people; all the most worthy followed close upon the picture, according to their degree, with lights burning in their hands; and then behind them came the women and children, with great devotion. And they accompanied the said picture as far as the Duomo, making procession round the Campo as is the use, all the bells sounding joyously for the devotion of so noble a picture as is this. And all that day they offered up prayers, with great alms to the poor, praying God and His Mother who is our advocate, that He may defend us in His infinite mercy from all adversity and all evil, and that He may keep us from the hands of traitors and enemies of Siena.”97

In those days, as already remarked, the high altar stood under the cupola, and the picture was painted on both sides. They have been separated and otherwise mutilated; several smaller scenes have disappeared, and the whole has suffered from neglect and from restoration; but still, rich with gold and the bright colours that the sumptuous Sienese loved, it remains a supreme manifestation of the soul of mediaeval faith. In the great central panel is the vision of the immaculate Virgin Mother – Queen of Heaven and Earth – with her Divine Babe, “a beauty that was joy in the eyes of all the other saints,” as Dante has it; while Angels, “each distinct in splendour and in art,” their brows decked with such jewels as the seer of Patmos saw in the New Jerusalem of his revelation, cluster round her throne, bearing the mystical wands that end in the symbol of the Blessed Trinity. The Prince of the Apostles, the two Johns, the virgin martyrs Agnes and Catherine, stand in contemplation, while at their Queen’s feet kneel Siena’s sainted patrons: Crescentius and Victor, Savinus and Ansanus. And their prayer is the painter’s own, that he has inscribed upon the base of the throne: “Holy Mother of God, be Thou the cause of rest to Siena, be life to Duccio because he has painted Thee thus.” The original back of this panel represents the Passion of Christ in twenty-six scenes, from the entry into Jerusalem to the Noli me tangere and the appearing to the two on the way to Emmaus. There are, further, eighteen separate scenes of different shapes and sizes, originally forming part of the whole (including the gradino, back and front), of different episodes from the lives of Christ and the Madonna. No more perfect illustration of these sacred histories, from the point of view of mediaeval tradition, has ever been painted. Duccio anticipates Raphael, in that side of his achievement in which the great master of Urbino, by the illustration that (with his followers) he supplied to religious history and legend, “has given an Hellenic garb to the Hebraic universe.”98 But he is almost untouched by the new spirit that was manifesting itself in Giotto’s panels and frescoes. “Duccio,” says Mr Berenson, “properly regarded, is the last of the great artists of antiquity, in contrast to Giotto, who was the first of the moderns.”99

There are also in this gallery: St Paul enthroned, his conversion and martyrdom being seen in the background, by Beccafumi; St Jerome, by Giovanni di Paolo; the legend of the Finding of the Cross by St Helena and its recovery from the Persians by Heraclius, by Pietro Lorenzetti; four Saints (69, 70, 72, 73) by Ambrogio Lorenzetti; a predella by Matteo di Giovanni; the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (63), an admirable picture by Pietro Lorenzetti, signed and dated 1342; a Madonna and Child with Saints (64), by Matteo di Giovanni; St Antony of Padua (14), by Matteo Balducci; the apparition of St Francis to St Antony (62), by Giovanni di Paolo; nine scenes illustrating the Credo, by Taddeo di Bartolo; a quaint Madonna lactante, with Angel Musicians (59), by Gregorio da Siena, of 1323. Here also is preserved the episcopal ring of Pius II. In the further portion of the hall are embroidered vestments and other articles of church furniture. A door at the end admits you into the unfinished façade. A series of narrow winding stairs leads up to the very top of it, with a superb view of Siena and the country round.

Under the Duomo to the east is the Baptistery, San Giovanni di Siena, a construction of the same epoch as the Cathedral itself. The façade was begun in 1317, modified in 1382 from the design of Giacomo di Mino del Pellicciaio, but left unfinished. On the pavement in front of the three doors are three scenes in graffito representing the birth of a child, the sacrament of Baptism, the administration of Confirmation; they were laid down in the middle of the fifteenth century, the one in the centre (the Baptism) being designed and executed by Antonio Federighi. The interior has been completely restored. The Baptismal Font, which includes a tabernacle for preserving the holy oils, is one of the earliest masterpieces of the sculptural art of the Quattrocento, showing, in its architectural details, the transition from the Gothic to the style of the early Renaissance. The design of the whole is due to Giacomo della Quercia, the marble work being executed by his pupils. On the six sides of the font are six bronze bas-reliefs, representing scenes in the life of the Baptist, separated by six niches enshrining bronze figures of the Virtues. In 1417 the Operaio of the Duomo assigned two of these six bas-reliefs to Giacomo della Quercia, two to Turino di Sano and his son Giovanni, two to the great Florentine Lorenzo Ghiberti – the fame of whose nearly completed bronze door (the first of the two that he cast) was then ringing through Tuscany. Giacomo della Quercia showing himself tardy and preoccupied as usual with other commissions, one of his two histories was assigned to Donatello instead, in 1421. By 1427 the series was complete, and the Signoria forced Giacomo to return from Bologna, at the instance of the authorities of the Duomo, in the following year to bring the whole work to an end, which was done by 1434.100 The histories begin opposite the altar. The Apparition of the Angel to Zaccharias in the Temple is by Giacomo della Quercia, a fine example of the simplicity of means with which the great sculptor of Siena obtains his effects, with no unnecessary figures, disregarding all but what is essential. The Justice and Prudence on either side of it, as also the Birth of the Precursor and the Preaching in the Wilderness, are by the two Turini – the bas-reliefs being excellent works, fully worthy of their place in the series. The Fortitude between them is four years later, having been cast in 1431 by Goro di Neroccio. The following statue, Charity, is by Turino. The Baptism of Christ and John before Herod are both by Lorenzo Ghiberti, finished in 1427. These two admirable reliefs, as M. Reymond observes, represent the transition from the style of Ghiberti’s first bronze door in Florence to that of his second, the disposition of the figures and the absence of perspective in the scene before Herod resembling the style of the first door, while the group of Angels attending upon the Saviour in the Baptism heralds the triumph of that second door which Michelangelo was to declare worthy to be the portal of Paradise. The beautiful, expressive figures of Faith and Hope are Donatello’s. By Donatello, too, is Herod’s Feast, a masterpiece full of energy and dramatic expression. Although both Ghiberti and Donatello dispose their figures on different planes so as to give the bas-relief the appearance of a picture in bronze, their methods show one notable point of contrast; Ghiberti gains depth by detaching his front figures almost in full relief, while Donatello produces a similar effect more by effacing those in the distance.101 The four charming little putti in bronze upon the tabernacle, “certi fanciullini ignudi,” as the record of payment styles them, are also by Donatello. The five marble figures in the niches of the tabernacle are by Pietro del Minella, the bronze Madonna and Child by Giovanni di Turino. The statue of the Baptist surmounting the whole was probably designed by Giacomo and executed by Pietro del Minella.

The frescoes of the Baptistery for the most part belong to the middle of the fifteenth century. The three miracles of St Antony of Padua under the arch to the left of the chief altar, the Articles of the Creed in the vaulting, are by Vecchietta who began to paint here in 1450, and was assisted in 1453 by his young pupil, Benvenuto di Giovanni. The paintings behind the chief altar, representing the Annunciation, the Passion, the Assumption, appear to be by a certain Michele Lambertini of Bologna, a few years earlier. The Christ in the house of Simon, under the arch to the right, was painted in 1489 by Pietro di Francesco degli Oriuoli, a Sienese artist of much reputation in his day, who died in 1496.102

CHAPTER VII

In the Footsteps of St Catherine

“IN the name of God, Amen. To the honour and praise and reverence of God, and of His Mother, Madonna Holy Mary Virgin, and of all the Saints of God, and to the honour and exaltation of the Holy Roman Church, and of the Commune and of the People of the City of Siena, and to the good and pacific state and to the increase of the Spedale of Madonna Holy Mary Virgin of Siena, which is placed in front of the chief church of the said City, and of the Rector and Brothers of the Chapter of the said Spedale, and to the recreation of the sick and poor and foundlings of the said Spedale.”

Thus open the Statutes of 1305 of the famous Spedale of Siena, the united hospitals of Santa Maria della Scala. The buildings occupy the whole side of the Piazza del Duomo opposite the façade. According to the legends, the Spedale was founded at the end of the ninth century by a cobbler named Sorore, who began by lodging pilgrims who passed through Siena on their way to Rome, and mending their shoes, then nursing those of their number who fell sick by the way, and ended by founding a sort of order or company of men – the “Frati Ospitalieri” – to carry on his work. Thus began the hospital for the sick; while a dream of a devout woman, who saw upon this spot a ladder reaching up to Heaven, and little children passing up it into the arms of the Blessed Virgin, caused a home for foundlings to be united to it. Modern writers, however, question the existence of the Beato Sorore, and assign the foundation of the Spedale to the eleventh century.103 Be that as it may, throughout the whole course of Sienese history the Spedale has a sublime record of devotion and charity, especially in those terrible epochs – that recurred again and again at intervals – when the pestilence and black death devastated Siena. Its revenues were largely increased by donations from the Bishops, by papal commutations of vows, and by bequests from victims of the pestilence who, having lost their natural heirs, bequeathed all that they had to the institution. The order of the “Frati Ospitalieri” was reformed in the thirteenth, and lasted on till the end of the sixteenth century. The Rector of the Spedale, in the days of the Republic, had the right of sitting in the Consistory with the Signoria.

Beyond the entrance-hall is a large room known as the Pellegrinaio, because originally intended for the reception of pilgrims, with a pleasant view from the window at the end. The walls and ceiling are covered with frescoes – those on the walls being practically unique in the story of Sienese art. They represent scenes from the history and illustrate the work of the Spedale. On the right are three by Domenico di Bartolo. They represent the marrying of the maidens, with the Baptism of the children and their nursing (1440); the giving of alms (1443); the care of the sick and diseased (1440). We are struck at once by their realism, which we shall find nowhere else in Sienese painting; some of the heads are powerful, there is excellent grouping and a study of Sienese costumes in the Quattrocento which is of no small value to the student. But withal there is a certain uncouthness, at times exaggerated to the verge of grotesqueness. The painter is following the Florentine methods, but is not fully equipped with Florentine science; the nude figure which we see in the foreground of the second fresco is a striking innovation in a Sienese picture, but it will not stand the comparison – which it inevitably invites – with the naked youths in Masaccio’s famous scene of St Peter baptising in the Carmine of Florence. The two frescoes on either side of the window are unimportant. Then, on the left wall, is another by Domenico di Bartolo (1443), fairly well preserved, representing the granting of privileges to the Spedale, in the person of its Rector, by Celestine III.; a magnificent young Sienese gentleman in the costume of the fifteenth century stands in the centre of the picture. The next fresco, the entry into the Spedale and a lady of Siena taking the robe of the order, is by Priamo di Pietro della Quercia, the brother of the more famous Giacomo; it is somewhat in the style of Domenico, but with more than his uncouthness and falling a long way below his excellence. Following that, by Domenico di Bartolo, badly preserved, is the increase of the buildings of the Spedale with alms given by the Bishop, the group of horsemen approaching, and nearly riding down the builder, being presumably fresh benefactors inspired by the episcopal example. The fresco over the door on the left is by Vecchietta and represents the “Scala del Paradiso,” the dream of the devout woman, in which the little deserted children are seen mounting up the ladder to be received into the arms of the Mother of God.

There are other frescoes of less importance in other parts of the Spedale. In the room on the left of the entrance is a fresco by Beccafumi, one of his early works, painted in 1512, representing the meeting of Joachim and Anne. The Infirmary of San Pietro has unimportant frescoes by Vecchietta, and (inclosed in a tabernacle) the “Madonna of Mercy,” by Domenico di Bartolo. In the Infirmary of San Pio a “Beato Sorore” is likewise ascribed to Domenico, and in the Infirmary of San Galgano is a Crucifixion by Taddeo di Bartolo. The church of the Spedale, dedicated to the Madonna of the Annunciation, was built in the fifteenth century. The bronze Christ over the high altar is by Vecchietta; the organ is said to have been designed by Peruzzi.

In the vaults under the Spedale are the meeting-places of several devout confraternities, which are said to trace their origin from the first Sienese Christians, the converts of St Ansanus, who met in secret on this spot in the days of the Roman persecutions. You enter by the last door in the Piazza. The chapel of Santa Maria sotto le Volte dello Spedale, now sometimes called Santa Caterina delle Notti, was the oratory of the “Disciplinati of the Virgin Mary of the Spedale.” St Catherine was intimately associated with this confraternity, which was conspicuous for its active works of charity, and to which a number of her disciples belonged. One of her latest letters was written from Rome to the Prior and Brothers of the Company.104 It was whilst praying here in 1380 that Stefano Maconi heard a voice in his heart telling him that Catherine was dying, and he at once hastened to Rome to receive her last injunctions. In a little cell, adjoining the oratory, St Catherine passed long hours in prayer, and from it she assisted at the offices of the Disciplinati. Here is still shown the hard bed of stone upon which she slept, in the intervals of tending the sick at the hospital. In a room beyond, belonging to the confraternity of St Catherine, are some pictures; a Madonna and Child with Saints by Taddeo di Bartolo, and four small paintings, much restored, in the manner of Girolamo del Pacchia. One of the latter represents the members of the confraternity dressed as you may still see them at the door of St Catherine’s house on the day of her festa. Before reaching the oratory, another flight of steps to the left leads down to the meeting-place of the Confraternity of the Madonna. Here are a number of pictures, including a Holy Family by Bazzi; St Catherine leading Pope Gregory back to Rome (though, as a matter of fact, she was present only in spirit) by Benvenuto di Giovanni; a Madonna and Child with Saints by Sano di Pietro. Hung very high up are two small triptychs – the one representing the Crucifixion, Flagellation, Entombment – the other the Blessed Virgin with the two Catherines and other Saints. Mr Berenson ascribes them to Duccio and Fungai respectively. Beyond is the chapel of the confraternity, with remains of frescoes by some pupil of Ambrogio Lorenzetti.

San Bernardino commenced his religious life as a member of this confraternity of Our Lady’s Disciplinati. When the pestilence broke out anew in 1400, and the Spedale was overwhelmed with the sick and the dying, Bernardino collected a band of young men to aid the Rector in his task, and devoted himself to the plague-stricken for four months, while his cousin, Tobia, attended to the women.

From the back of the Spedale the Via di Valle Piatta leads to the little church of San Sebastiano, the oratory of the Contrada della Selva. Its interior is in the form of a Greek cross. It was built by Girolamo di Domenico Ponsi, at the end of the fifteenth century, and its sacristy contains Madonnas by Matteo di Giovanni and Benvenuto. The adjoining convent, originally of the Gesuate, has since 1818 been the Foundling Hospital – Ospizio dei Gettatelli.

From the Via di Valle Piatta the steep Via del Costone winds down the side of the hill upon which the Duomo and Spedale stand, to the Fontebranda. Let us take this way into the valley – for we shall be treading in the steps of St Catherine. Here, in her sixth year, she was returning with her brother from a visit to their sister Bonaventura, whose husband had a house near the Tower of St Ansanus, and had reached the turning at which the great red brick mass of San Domenico first becomes fully visible – rising up grandly on the brow of the opposite hill, over the humble valley of the tanners and dyers. A shrine and a faded fresco on the left at the corner still mark the spot of her first vision. “She saw in the air, above the church of the Friars Preachers of Siena, our Saviour seated on a wondrous throne, robed as Sovereign Pontiff, accompanied by the Holy Apostles. He gazed lovingly and smilingly upon her, and with His holy hand making the sign towards her of the most holy Cross, He blessed her.”105

At the foot of the hill is the famous Fontebranda, with its colonnade of three arches and its four lions’ heads. Although the first certain mention of it is in a document of 1081, and in its present form it only dates from the middle of the thirteenth century, the fountain has been famous throughout Tuscany from time immemorial. Possibly, when Siena was the Roman colony of the Sena Julia, the soldiery of the legions drank from its waters; before them, the fair-haired Senonian Gauls – if we accept that form of the legend of the foundation of the city – may have lingered a moment by it as they followed Brennus in his march to Rome. It hardly needs the adventitious fame that has accrued to it from the supposition – stated as a fact by the earliest commentators, but at present generally rejected by scholars – that it is the Fonte Branda recorded by Dante in the thirtieth canto of the Inferno, for whose waters, even to cool the burning thirst of Hell’s foulest circle, Maestro Adamo would not have given the sight of his aristocratic seducers sharing his agony. There is a curious tradition that certain streets of Siena were – or possibly still are – infested by were-wolves, who rush through the city at night, and throw themselves into Fontebranda to recover human form.106 Be that as it may, Fontebranda gives its name to the whole of the picturesque district – “il Rione di Fontebranda” – below the two hills upon which the Duomo and San Domenico respectively stand. The valley is still, as in St Catherine’s days, the haunt of the tanners and the dyers, and redolent of that peculiar odour of the curing of hides that ever after haunts the lover of Siena.