The Story of Siena and San Gimignano

But other aids than supernatural were preparing. A number of Sienese gentlemen and artisans alike left the city and their business, staying in their villas or in the contado rather than see this hideous monument of servitude rising higher day by day. Two of these, Girolamo and Lelio Tolomei, died suddenly – men whispered Spanish poison. An extensive conspiracy was concocted – in Rome, Ferrara, and Venice – for the liberation of Siena. A certain Giovanni Maria Benedetti, a man of humble birth in the service of the Cardinal de Tournon, and Amerigo Amerighi, a member of the Balìa, were the connecting links between the Sienese, on the one hand, and the agents of the Most Christian King and the cardinals of the French faction, on the other. But so many persons, Sienese and foreigners, were implicated that it was held a special miracle of the Madonna’s that the plot was not discovered long before the time came to put it into effect.

Don Diego was absent from Siena, and a certain Don Franzese de Avila – a very gracious young man who, alone of his nation, had ingratiated himself with the Sienese by what Sozzini calls his young-lady-like manners, chè veramente era come una donzella, ruled in his place; when, on the evening of July 26th, 1552, a force of French and Italians, led by Enea Piccolomini delle Papesse,118 arrived at a little distance from the Porta Romana. Some warning had reached the Spaniards and some sort of preparation been made; but it was not until the following morning that the alarm was shouted from the Mangia Tower. When evening came, the people rose in mass, shouting for France and Liberty; the very women hurled stones upon the heads of the Spaniards, as they sullenly retreated towards San Domenico and the Citadel, leaving the Campo in the charge of the Florentine soldiers that Duke Cosimo had sent to their aid. Such was the flaming of the torches and the glow of lights in the windows, that “through all the city one walked as though the sun had risen.” While the Sienese within threw open the Porta Tufi, the rest of the French, led by Enea Piccolomini, fired the Porta Romana; “and they entered into Siena with such great impetus and with such great noise, that it was heard many miles away. All that night they fought together; for the Spaniards, with the support of the Florentines, had fortified themselves in San Domenico and in Camollia, having the Citadel at their shoulders. This combat lasted all the night and till the twentieth hour of the following day, which was Thursday the 28th of July; in which hour those of the city, making every effort, captured San Domenico, where the Spaniards thought themselves right strong and safe. And by reason of this loss, the latter abandoned also that part of the city which they held, and they all retreated to the fortress. In which retreat many Spaniards and Florentines were killed; and so, by the grace of God, all the city was free.”119

Two Sienese, Giovanni Andrea Bonizzelli and Giovanni Battista Cappanna, who had served the Spaniards as commissaries, attempted to escape from the city; they were brutally done to death, the one by the contadini into whose hands he had fallen, the other brought back as a prisoner to be hurled out of a window of the Sala di Balìa. At the beginning of August, at the intervention of the Duke of Florence, the Citadel capitulated; the Spaniards and Florentines were allowed to march out with their arms and baggage, and retire unmolested to Florence. The young-lady-like maestro di campo, Don Franzese, shed tears when he found Messer Ottavio Sozzini and a number of young Sienese gentlemen waiting in the Prato di Camollia to bid him farewell. “You brave Sienese,” he said, “have made a most beautiful stroke; but for the future be wise, for you have offended too great a man.”

Lansac, the French representative, at once entered the Citadel and summoned the Signoria. They came in procession with a banner of Our Lady in front of them, with all the other magistrates and officials following, crowned with garlands of olive, while all the clergy and a multitude of people came after, with men bearing spades, pickaxes and the like: “it seemed that each one was going to a wedding.” In the name of the Most Christian King, Lansac formally made over the Citadel to the Republic – the notary of the Concistoro, Ser Luca Salvini, drawing up the instrument in strict legal form. Let Sozzini, who was present, describe the scene: “When the deed had been drawn up in valid form, the Captain of the People first and then the most illustrious Signori, with pickaxes and other instruments began to destroy the said Citadel; and all the people shouted, with tears of joy in their eyes: ‘Liberty, Liberty!’ ‘France, France!’ ‘Victory, Victory!’ Now whoso had seen the great multitude of gentlemen and shopkeepers, who raced to come first to the destruction of the Citadel, certainly would have been astounded; seeing that, in the space of one hour, more was destroyed facing the city than would have been built in four months. When the Signoria and the procession departed to return to the Palace, many gentlemen and shopkeepers remained to continue the destruction, and continually fresh folk arrived there.”120

Siena was now under the protection of France, with a French garrison. The people were in a fever of delight. Sonnet after sonnet, abusing the Spaniards and extolling the French, satirising the Catholic Majesty and praising the Most Christian, appeared on the Loggia di Mercanzia. With no thought or talk of war, the Sienese gave themselves up to sport and pleasure. The Balìa was abolished, or rather combined with the Concistoro in one chief magistracy composed of the Signoria and twenty others elected by the Senate; the two councils (the General Council of the Campana, or Senate, and the Council of the People) were reduced to one; the Monti were nominally annulled, or united in one body of the “Cittadini Reggenti della Città di Siena.” In November the Cardinal of Ferrara, Ippolito d’Este the younger, with a goodly guard of Swiss, came as lieutenant of the King of France, received by the government with the utmost honour, and welcomed by the people, says Malavolti, con incredibile allegrezza. Hearing that the Emperor was massing troops in the Kingdom of Naples to come against Siena, the Cardinal had new forts built outside the Porta Camollia. The men of the contrade came to work upon them, “always gladly to the sound of drums and trumpets,” while one of the Cardinal’s guard played on the flute, so sweetly “that every one stayed to listen to it as a thing most rare.” But wiser folk shook their heads, noticing that the forts were being designed in such a way that they would serve equally to bombard the city, “from which thing many took a right sinister impression.”121 And again the strange weird figure of Brandano appeared, wandering up and down the streets, gazing upon the new fortifications, singing in a quaint doggerel of his own: “Little good, O Cardinal, may’st thou bring us! Siena, Siena, the physician will come who will cure thee of thy madness.”122

The first attempt of the powers of Spain and the Empire to avenge their discomfiture failed signally. At the beginning of 1553, a great army of Germans, Spaniards and Italians under Don Garcia de Toledo (the brother-in-law of Duke Cosimo) invaded the dominion of the Republic, occupied the Valdichiana, took Pienza, and captured Monticchiello after a heroic defence in which the garrison of the little castle, commanded by Adriano Baglioni, only surrendered when all the powder for the arquebuses was spent and they were reduced to fighting with stones. In the Maremma, Cornelio Bentivoglio sallied out of Grosseto and routed the imperial reinforcements that had landed at Piombino from Sicily. In the latter part of March the invading army laid siege to Montalcino, which Giordano Orsini at the head of two thousand infantry defended for the Republic, with the utmost valour and heroically supported by the inhabitants, for more than two months. On the night of the 14th of June, the Sienese saw great fires blazing round Montalcino, and on the morning of the 15th heavy clouds of smoke still hung over it. The appearance of the French and Turkish fleets off the shores of Italy had forced Don Garcia to raise the siege; he had burned his lodgings, and was about to hurry southwards for the defence of Naples. “Now,” writes the diarist of Montalcino, “whoso this morning had seen our afflicted city in such great gladness and triumph, would have made the hardest heart grow tender. When the bells had ceased ringing, Masses have been celebrated and there has been a devout procession around the piazza, with such great contrition; all injuries have been forgiven, men have gone to embrace one another and to give the kiss of peace; always thanking God and the Most Holy Virgin, our protectress, that in their pity and mercy they have deigned to deliver us from so great a disaster.”123

In the meanwhile, through the intrigues of Cosimo, who was only biding his time for the Marzocco and the Lupa to be bound together in his golden chain, a conspiracy had been formed in Siena, to admit the Florentines through the Porta Ovile and expel the French. It was discovered; the three principal conspirators, Giulio Salvi, Captain of the People, his brother Ottaviano, Proposto of the Duomo, and the canon Gismondo Vignali, were beheaded in the cortile of the Captain of Justice – the two priests having been degraded in the Sala del Consiglio on the previous day. But the Sienese factions continued, even in the face of the imminent danger. The French agents themselves were divided, Monsieur de Termes taking one side, the Cardinal of Ferrara the other. “And always as many of them as were sent to us from the King, up to the last, behaved in this fashion, as though the discords of the city of Siena were like to a contagious illness, so that whoever came near them was obliged to take part in them.”124

The breathing space was but short. With the new year, 1554, the tempest burst upon Siena. Piero Strozzi, the deadliest enemy of the Duke of Florence, came to the city as vicar-general of the Most Christian King – in spite of Orlando Malavolti, then one of the Eight of War, who urged that he should not be received without an express order from France, as it would give an excuse to the Duke to declare war, being a breach of one of the conditions, which stipulated that the Sienese should not shelter Florentine fuorusciti. In his history, Malavolti remarks upon the analogies between this last war of Siena and that ancient one of Montaperti, both begun by the Florentines on the pretext that the Sienese had broken treaties by receiving their exiles; and he declares bitterly that Strozzi, unlike Giordano, “had intentions quite other than the defence and salvation of the city of Siena,” that he had sent away a number of the soldiers, and left unprotected the forts outside Porta Camollia. Similarly, Sozzini declares that Piero’s coming was held to be the ruin of Siena, since it brought the Duke of Florence into the field, without whom the Caesarian Majesty could have done them little harm.125 But these are mere words; Strozzi or no Strozzi, Cosimo and Charles were equally bent upon the subjugation, complete and final, of Siena.

The armies of the Emperor and the Duke of Florence entered the dominions of the Republic, under the command of the last and most formidable of the condottieri, Gian Giacomo de’ Medici, Marchese di Marignano. The sudden capture, on the night of January 26th, 1554, of the forts outside the Porta Camollia began that last tremendous war of the Sienese, that siege – no less heroic and more prolonged than that of Florence twenty-four years before – in which the last great Republic of the Middle Ages died a giant’s death. The war lasted till the April of the following year, both round the city and in the contado, and was most ruthless in its character. For ten miles around, the once smiling country became a desolate, fire-stained and blood-soaked wilderness – a few trees being left standing, merely that the Spaniards might hang the hapless contadini who attempted to bring supplies through their lines to the starving people in the beleaguered city. The earlier engagements mostly resulted in favour of the Sienese with their French allies and German mercenaries. At first they had so many prisoners in their hands that, when the Marchese di Marignano raised a gallows on the captured forts, they raised another on the citadel, and threatened to hang ten of their prisoners for every one that the imperialists executed – a threat averted by the intervention of the Spanish soldiers themselves, who sent a message to Strozzi that they would force their own general to act a buona guerra; which, alas! was held only to apply to combatants, and not always even to them.

At the beginning of June the Cardinal of Ferrara, tardily obeying the summons of the King, left the city, and went home with a safe conduct; French and Swiss reinforcements arrived under the command of Blaise de Montluc, afterwards Marshal of France, who came to take charge of the city that Strozzi might have a free hand elsewhere. There had been some question as to the safety of sending this dashing Gascon to Siena; his enemies assured the king that he was (to use his own phrase) un des plus coleres hommes du monde, et le plus bisarre, and that, “considered the humours of the Sienese, it would be fire against fire.” As it turned out, his dauntless heroism, his never failing high spirits (even when he lay at the point of death), his amazing harangues (for he prided himself upon his Italian, and had got up some Sienese history to serve his need), chimed in precisely with the temper of the people, and the name of the gallant Gascon general is ever to be linked with that of the glorious Italian republic, whose liberties he was to defend. The third book of his Commentaires, taken with the Diario of Alessandro Sozzini, lets us follow every phase of the siege. He found, he tells us, that “the Sienese were stark mad of fighting, and I do believe, fighting for their liberty, would have played the devils.” The heroic devotion of the ladies of the city – to whose prayers he professed to owe his recovery from sickness – especially moved his enthusiasm: —

“It shall never be, you Ladies of Siena, that I will not immortalise your names so long as the Book of Montluc shall live; for in truth you are worthy of immortal praise, if ever women were. At the beginning of the noble resolution these people took to defend their liberty, all the ladies of Siena divided themselves into three squadrons; the first led by Signora Forteguerra, who was herself clad in violet, as also those of her train, her attire being cut in the fashion of a Nymph, short, and discovering her buskins; the second was the Signora Piccolomini, attired in carnation satin, and her troop in the same livery; the third was the Signora Livia Fausta, apparelled all in white, as also her train, with her white ensign. In their ensigns they had very fine devices, which I would give a good deal I could remember. These three squadrons consisted of three thousand ladies, gentlewomen and citizens; their arms were picks, shovels, baskets and bavins; and in this equipage they made their muster, and went to begin the fortifications. Monsieur de Termes, who has often told me this story (for I was not then arrived at Siena), has assured me that in his life he never saw so fine a sight. I have since seen their ensigns, and they had composed a song to the honour of France, for which I wish I had given the best horse I have that I might insert it here.”126

This first comparatively bright and hopeful phase of the struggle ended with the summer. Piero Strozzi with the flower of the French army retreated from the city, hoping to make a diversion, to unite with reinforcements that he expected, to carry the war into Florentine territory. At the beginning of August he came to a pitched battle with Marignano’s forces, on the hills of Scannagalli near Marciano in the Valdichiana. Over his army, together with the golden lilies of France, there floated a green banner with the Dantesque text: Libertà vo cercando, “I go seeking Liberty.” Under a blazing sun, Swiss and Frenchmen, Spaniards, Germans and Italians, dashed together in a terrible melée; but the victory on the part of Spain and the Empire was complete and crushing. Four thousand men of Strozzi’s army are said to have been killed. The hospitals of Siena were filled to overflowing with the wounded, who made their way in from the scene of disaster; while the rest limped slowly along the streets or lay about in the squares, utterly broken in spirit, wailing for aid. No one who beheld this piteous spectacle, says Sozzini, “could have possibly kept back his tears, even if he had had a heart of hardest stone.” It was said that the defeat had been caused by the treachery of a French ancient – though Montluc will not assert this – and Strozzi, while he lay helpless with his wounds at Montalcino, got the man into his hands, extorted a confession by torture, and executed him together with one of his own officers to whom he ascribed his overthrow.

The doom of Siena was now sealed. The imperialists drew their lines closer and closer round the city, while the heroism of Montluc and of the Sienese themselves prolonged the resistance for eight months. There were the usual attempts to storm Heaven on behalf of the Republic. The “Madonna delle Grazie” was carried through the city preceded by three hundred little girls, white-robed and barefooted, crying: Christe audi nos! And then procession was made with the wooden Crucifix of the Duomo, said to have been that carried by the victors of Montaperti, with all the children of the Spedale and a thousand young maidens of the city walking in front, followed by the Disciplinati of Our Lady, all the friars and clergy, and, after the Crucifix, a great multitude of men and women. Then it was decreed that the “useless mouths,” le bocche disutili, should be expelled from the city; and these sweet voices of the children grew silent. Four officials specially appointed, the Quattro sopra le bocche disutili, on September 22nd at nightfall, drove out more than a thousand men, women and children, weeping with sorrow and terror. Then Piero Strozzi, who had temporarily returned to Siena with the Archbishop and others, bade the Rector of the Spedale expel 700 more, in order that the soldiers might make use of the supply of grain that the Spedale possessed, an escort being promised to guard them out of danger. On October 5th, 250 little children, from six to ten years old, mostly in litters, with a number of men and women, passed out of the Porta Fontebranda, escorted by four companies of soldiers. They fell into an ambuscade, a number of them were slaughtered and the rest driven back towards the city. “And next morning they were all outside Porta Fontebranda (at the place where the annual market of the pigs is held), all lying on the ground with the greatest cries and lamentations. It was the most pitiful sight to see these little despoiled children, wounded and beaten, lying on the ground, and would have made a Nero weep. And I would have payed twenty-five scudi not to have seen them; for, for three days, I could neither eat nor drink anything that did me good.”127 The Rector of the Spedale resigned his post, rather than be a party to any further cruelty of this kind. A few weeks later, a number of the elder children, from ten to fifteen years old, were sent out openly in the daytime without any escort, under the impression that the enemy would let them pass. They went out by the Porta Pispini, tutti piangendo, and came back at midday, stripped to their shirts, “and returning to the Spedale two and two, as in procession, they moved the folk to such compassion that many wept.”128 Presently they were reduced to wandering through the city, knocking at the doors of those who had been wealthy, begging for a morsel of bread. But all this was mercy itself, compared to the fate of the bocche disutili later, and compared to what was done elsewhere. At Turrita, in the contado, a band of Germans in the Florentine pay crucified an old woman, under circumstances of appalling atrocity, for cursing the Duke of Florence and for crying Lupa, Lupa, when they bade her shout Duca.

Piero Strozzi now left Siena to its fate, in a vain hope of collecting reinforcements elsewhere. The Archbishop Francesco Bandini, Enea Piccolomini and others broke through the Spanish lines, and escaped to Montalcino. Montluc was made Dictator. Too long would it take to tell here in full detail the whole story of protracted heroism; the incessant bombardment; the assaults repulsed time after time; the gallant sallies of the besieged; the games that they still played at intervals in the Campo – interrupted by the sudden call to arms – at one of which, a vigorous giuoco delle pugna, Montluc wept for mingled joy and pity at their valour. The ladies of Siena – now laying aside the sportive spirit and gay dresses in which they had at first worked – laboured again on the fortifications, and in destroying the buildings, where these encumbered the movements of the soldiers; especially at the Porta Ovile, which had become the most dangerous place in the city, since the Marchese had planted artillery upon the hill between it and the Osservanza. At last the brave German mercenaries of France grew impatient at the lack of bread and wine, and Montluc sent them out of the city, to join the flying army that Strozzi was supposed to be raising. Once more all the bocche disutili were expelled – but this time there was no mercy shown them by friend or foe.

“The list of these useless mouths,” writes Montluc, “I do assure you amounted to four thousand and four hundred people, or more, which of all the miseries and desolations that I have ever seen was the greatest my eyes ever yet beheld, or that I believe I shall ever see again; for the master was thereby necessitated to part with his servant, who had served him long, the mistress with her maid, besides an infinite number of poor people, who only lived by the sweat of their brows; which weeping and desolation continued for three days together; and these poor wretches were to go through the Enemy, who still beat them back again towards the City, the whole camp continuing night and day in arms to that only end; so that they drove them up to the very foot of the walls, that they might the sooner consume the little bread we had left, and to see if the City out of compassion to those miserable creatures would revolt. But that prevailed nothing, though they lay eight days in this condition, where they had nothing to eat but herbs and grass, and above the one half of them perished, for the Enemy killed them, and very few escaped away. There were a great many maids and handsome women, indeed, who found means to escape, the Spaniards by night stealing them into their quarters, for their own provision; but it was unknown to the Marquis, for it had otherwise been death; and some strong and vigorous men also forced their way, and escaped by night. But all those did not amount to the fourth part, and all the rest miserably perished.”

Even more horrible is the description given by Scipione Bargagli of the fate of these hapless victims, inclosed between the walls of their countrymen and the trenches of the foe, their bodies devoured by the birds and starving dogs, who frequently returned to the city with the skulls or bones.129

Treachery failed to induce a surrender, but the agony of the city had become unendurable. When March came, there was not a drop of wine left in Siena; all the horses but two, all the mules and asses and rats, had been eaten; it was necessary to make costly sallies in order that the women and children might pick grass and herbs outside the walls. The ladies could no longer be recognised by their features. People fell dead in the streets, and the trenches were brought up to the very gates. But the imperial army had begun to suffer too, and there was nothing on the ground for the horses to eat, from Montalcino to Siena and from Siena to Florence.

An appeal to the Pope failed. Although Julius III. was Sienese on his mother’s side, he coldly recommended an unconditional surrender to the Caesarian Majesty. Once more the city was solemnly offered up to the Madonna; there were wild, useless appeals to Venice and the Duke of Ferrara to interpose. Then, no help being forthcoming from heaven or earth, the starving Sienese capitulated to the Emperor through the Duke of Florence, in April 1555. On April 21st the French marched out of the Porta Romana, Montluc receiving a well-deserved ovation from the enemy. With them went a number of Florentine exiles and others, “exiles and rebels to the State of the Emperor, the King of England (who was King Philip) and the Duke of Florence”; for Montluc had insisted upon a clause in their favour being inserted into the capitulation, and the Marchese di Marignano himself had no desire of glutting the Medicean headsman with more blood. With them went a number of Sienese headed by Mario Bandini (the last Captain of the People in free Siena), Fabio Spannocchi, who was one of the Priors, and Giulio Vieri, one of the three Gonfalonieri. These were about 800 in all, men, women and children; the old women and some of the children went on carriage mules, which Marignano had provided at Montluc’s request, the rest tramping wearily on foot. The Spaniards had some pity, and succoured them with food on the way. “I had seen a sad parting,” writes Montluc, “at the turning out the useless mouths; but I saw as sad a one at the separation of those who went out with us and those who remained behind. In my life I never saw so sad a farewell; so that although our soldiers had in their own persons suffered to the last extremes, yet did they infinitely regret this woful parting, and that they had not the power to defend the liberty of these people, and I more than all the rest, who could not without tears behold this misery and desolation of a people, who had manifested themselves so devout for the conservation of their liberty and honour.”