The Story of Siena and San Gimignano

Vittorio Lusini, Storia della Basilica di San Francesco in Siena. Siena, 1894.

Vittorio Lusini, Il San Giovanni di Siena. Florence, 1901.

Antonio Canestrelli, L’Abbazia di San Galgano; monografia storico-artistica. Florence, 1896.

Bartolommeo Aquarone, Dante in Siena: ovvero accenni nella Divina Commedia a cose senesi. Siena, 1865.

Alessandro d’Ancona, Cecco Angiolieri da Siena. In Studi di Critica e Storia Letteraria. Bologna, 1880.

Giosuè Carducci, Rime di M. Cino da Pistoia e d’altri del secolo XIV. Florence, 1862.

Le Rime di Folgore da San Gimignano e di Cene da la Chitarra d’Arezzo, nuovamente pubblicate da Giulio Navone. Bologna, 1880.

Giuseppe Errico, Folgore da San Gimignano e la Brigata Spenaereccia. Naples, 1895.

John Addington Symonds, Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece. Third volume contains studies on Siena, Folgore, Monte Oliveto, and Montepulciano. London, 1898.

Ambrogio Landucci, Sacra Leccetana Selva, cioè origine e progressi dell’ antico e venerabile Eremo e Congregatione di Lecceto in Toscana. Rome, 1657.

Fra Filippo Agazzari, Gli Assempri, testo di lingua inedito pubblicato per cura di F. C. Carpellini. Siena, 1864.

William Heywood, Our Lady of August and the Palio of Siena. Siena, 1899.

Antonio Marenduzzo, Veglie e Trattenimenti Senesi nella seconda metà del secolo XVI. Trani, 1901.

Montgomery Carmichael, In Tuscany. Contains chapter on the Spanish Praesidia. London, 1901.

Luciano Banchi, I porti della Maremma Senese durante la Repubblica. In the Archivio Storico Italiano, series iii., vols. x., xi., xii. Florence, 1869-1871.

E. – SAN GIMIGNANO

Giovanni Francesco Coppi, Annali, memorie ed huomini illustri ai San Gimignano. Florence, 1695.

Luigi Pecori, Storia della Terra di San Gimignano. Florence, 1853.

Matteo Villani, Istorie Fiorentine (in continuation of those of his brother Giovanni). In Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Vol. xiv. Milan, 1729; and elsewhere.

Cronachetta di San Gimignano composta da Fra Matteo Ciaccheri Fiorentino, l’anno MCCCLV. Bologna, 1865. Fra Matteo was a native of San Gimignano; he calls himself a Florentine because, when he wrote, all his fellow-townsmen had become Florentine citizens.

Gino Capponi, Storia della Repubblica di Firenze. Appendix to vol. i. Florence, 1878.

Ugo Nomi V. Pesciolini, Le Glorie della Terra di San Gimignano. Siena, 1900.

Natale Baldoria, Monumenti Artistici in San Gimignano. Article in the Archivio Storico dell’ Arte for 1890. Rome, 1890.

Bernhard Berenson, The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance. Second Edition. New York, 1900.

Alfredo Tognetti, Guida di San Gimignano. Florence, 1899.

1

Rondoni (Sena vetus, p. 53) notes that, in contrast to Florence, there was no distinction between the Greater and Lesser Arts in Siena.

2

Printed in the Archivio Storico Italiano, series III. vol. xxii.

3

Siena is still divided into terzi or thirds; the Terzo di Città, the Terzo di San Martino, the Terzo di Camollia.

4

Rondoni, op. cit. p. 60.

5

Letter of August 11th, 1259, still preserved in the Archivio di Stato of Siena, quoted by Paoli, La Battaglia di Montaperti, p. 13.

6

The documents cited by Paoli prove conclusively that the story, told by Giovanni Villani, of Farinata contriving that the Germans should be annihilated at Santa Petronilla and the royal standard lost, in order that Manfred might be induced to send a larger force, has no historical foundation. Neither is it a fact that the Sienese were forced to induce the Florentines to resume hostilities because the Germans had been hired for only three months.

7

The Sienese accounts of the battle by Domenico Aldobrandini and Niccolò di Giovanni Ventura (in which, says Prof. d’Ancona, the narrative has “una grandezza veramente epica”) are in Porri’s Miscellanea Storica Senese; for the Florentine version see Villani, vi. 75-79, and Leonardo Bruni, Istoria Fiorentina II. (vol. i. pp. 215-225 in the edition of 1855). Cf. Villari, I primi due secoli della Storia di Firenze, ch. iv., and especially C. Paoli, La Battaglia di Montaperti, already referred to. Il Libro di Montaperti, edited by Prof. Paoli (Florence, 1889), is “the only official document of Florentine source which remains to us of that war.”

8

Purg. xiii. 115-123.

9

Inf. xiii. 120; Purg. xiii. 128.

10

J. A. Symonds.

11

Assempro II.

12

Agnolo di Tura, Cronica Senese, 122-124.

13

Malavolti, ii. 7. p. 132.

14

Neri di Donato, Cronica Senese, 202-206.

15

In the continuation (wrongly ascribed to Agnolo di Tura) of the Cronica Senese.

16

Op. cit. 294.

17

Leggenda minore, i. 12.

18

Augusta Drane, vol. i. p. 83. I think that this author unquestionably deserves to be called the best of Catherine’s modern biographers; but the reader must be warned against her historical inaccuracies and her treatment of some of the Saint’s political letters.

19

Raimondo da Capua, Leggenda, p. 226.

20

I.e., since his first Communion – that at least seems the more obvious meaning of la quale mai più aveva ricevuta.

21

Letter 273.

22

Letter 272.

23

Letter 11.

24

Letter 28.

25

Letter 29.

26

Letter 109.

27

Letter 140.

28

Letter 168.

29

Letters 185, 196, 206, 209, 218, 229. She has no thought of the Pope’s return as a temporal sovereign. (Cf. letter 370.)

30

Letter 207.

31

Letter 240.

32

Letter 247.

33

Letter 252.

34

Letters 270, 267. These have obviously been transposed in chronological order.

35

Letter 285.

36

Letter 291.

37

Letter 295.

38

Letter 303.

39

The Dialogue, Il Dialogo della Serafica Santa Caterina da Siena, will be found in Gigli, vol. iv., and has been translated (somewhat freely) into English by Mr Algar Thorold. To the Dialogue and the Letters, we should add the Trattato della Consumata Perfezione and a short collection of prayers, also printed in Gigli, L’opere, etc., vol. iv.

40

Letter 306.

41

Letter 310.

42

Letter 317.

43

Letter 349.

44

Letters 350, 362, 357, 372.

45

Letter 370.

46

Letter 373.

47

Barduccio’s letter to a nun at Florence, describing every detail of Catherine’s death, will be found in the Appendix to the Leggenda.

48

See pp. 144, 145.

49

Pastor, II., p. 147.

50

Armstrong, Lorenzo de’ Medici, p. 178.

51

Diari Senesi, 836, 837.

52

Zdekauer, Lo Studio di Siena nel Rinascimento, pp. 119-124.

53

Letter of August 18th, 1500, published by F. Donati in Miscellanea Storica Senese, i. 7.

54

Letters of January 6th, 8th, 10th, and 13th from Machiavelli to the Signoria. In the Legazione al Duca Valentino (vol. vi. of edition cited).

55

In Lisini, Relazioni tra Cesare Borgia e la Repubblica Senese, and elsewhere. It is dated January 27th, and had probably been delivered (though this has been questioned) before Pandolfo left.

56

In Mondolfo, Pandolfo Petrucci, p. 99.

57

Niccolò Machiavelli e i suoi Tempi, i. pp. 502, 503.

58

The letters of this Legation in vol. vii. of edition cited.

59

By a decree of the Balìa on September 14th, 1509; but this was not quite such a recognition of his dynasty as might appear, because a similar exception was made in 1518 (though only in their own homes) for some of the Piccolomini.

60

La Sculpture Florentine, i. p. 134.

61

M. Reymond, op. cit., ii. p. 46.

62

Duccio is last referred to as alive in a document of June, 1313, and in 1318 his widow Taviana is described as uxor olim Duccii pictoris. See A. Lisini, Notizie di Duccio Pittore, p. 33. On Duccio’s characteristics as a painter, the best thing is written by Mr Berenson, Central Italian Painters, pp. 18-42.

63

i. e. The officials of the Gabella; see Chapter IX.

64

The text of the Bull and Enea Silvio’s letter in L. Banchi, Il Piccinino nello Stato di Siena e la Lega Italica (1455-56), in the Archivio Storico Italiano, Series IV., vol. iv., pp. 56-58. See also next chapter, pp. 144-147.

65

Berenson, op. cit. p. 56.

66

Italian Painters, i. p. 158.

67

Berenson, op. cit. p. 56.

68

That is to say, if the Matteo Balducci who is mentioned as Pinturicchio’s pupil in a document of January 1509 is the same as the Matteo Balducci who in 1517 became Bazzi’s pupil for six years. Frizzoni (L’Arte Italiana del Rinascimento, p. 183) holds that they are two different persons.

69

Miscellanea Storica Senese, v. 11, 12.

70

See V. Lusini, Storia della Basilica di San Francesco, pp. 99-101.

71

Diari, 809. The Cardinal mentioned is Francesco Piccolomini.

72

See A. Lisini, Misc. Stor. Senese, iv., 5, 6. Mr Heywood’s admirable little book, Our Lady of August and the Palio of Siena, deals exhaustively with this aspect of the past history and present life of the Sienese. The horse races of the Campo had originally nothing to do with the contrade, but were run by the Republic. Foreign nobles, even reigning sovereigns, entered horses, no less than did Sienese notabilities. On August 15th, 1492, the palio was won by a horse belonging to Cesare Borgia; but because his jockey (fantino) had won by a trick of questionable legality, the Signoria made some difficulty about giving him the prize – apparently at the appeal of the representative of the Marquis of Mantua whose horse had come in second. (See Cesare’s letter in Lisini, Relazioni tra C. Borgia e la Repubblica Senese, pp. 11, 12.)

73

See A. Lisini, Chi fu l’architetto della Torre del Mangia, in the Misc. Stor. Senese, II., 9, 10.

74

The fullest account of these frescoes is contained in Milanesi, Commentario alla Vita di Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Vasari I. pp. 527-535. Apart from the great beauty of the individual figures, the spiritual power and imaginative insight of the whole conception are surely worthy of the century of Dante and Petrarch. But for a very different appreciation, see Mr Berenson, op. cit., pp. 50, 51.

75

L. Banchi, Il Piccinino nello Stato di Siena, etc., loc. cit., pp. 226-230; Malavolti, iii. 3, pp. 51b, 52.

76

Documenti per la Storia dell’ Arte Senese, i. p. 188.

77

Not to be confused with the more famous Gregorio da Spoleto, Ariosto’s master, who held a chair here in the latter part of the fifteenth century.

78

Purg. xii 10-93.

79

Nuovi Documenti per la Storia dell’Arte Senese, p. 389.

80

Mr R. H. Hobart Cust (to whose excellent Pavement Masters of Siena I am indebted for many of these dates and authorships of the pavement designs) points out that the Cimmerian Sibyl is the one intended.

81

The Lupa and Marzocco shaking hands in front of the tablet refers to the alliance between Siena and Florence concluded in the year 1483, in which this Sibyl was laid down. In Allegretto’s Diari Senesi, under June 16th, 1483, we read: “The League was proclaimed on a chariot between the Signoria of Siena and the Florentines, with honourable conditions, according to what Giovan Francesco called Il Moro, the trumpeter of the Signoria, said. God grant it be true; for I cannot believe it!” (Diari, 815).

82

We can measure the proportionate value attached to the designing and executing of these works from the fact that in the case of the painter Matteo, who only designed and did not execute, the remuneration was four lire, whereas Federighi, who both designed and executed his Erythraean Sibyl, received nearly 650 lire. See Cust op. cit. pp. 41, 47.

83

Op. cit. p. 152.

84

See Pietro Rossi, L’Arte Senese nel Quattrocento, p. 38.

85

Folgore, translated by J. A. Symonds.

86

See the fine sonnet sequence entitled Niccola Pisano in Rime e Ritmi. The sculptor is said to have copied his Madonna from the Phaedra on the antique sarcophagus used as a tomb for the Countess Beatrice.

87

There is an eloquent appreciation of the pulpit in Mr F. M. Perkins’ Giotto, pp. 8-13.

88

V. Lusini, Il San Giovanni di Siena, p. 23 (note). Giacomo was paid 52 golden florins and 34 soldi for his work.

89

Pastor, vi. p. 201. There appears to be absolutely no foundation for the aspersions made by Gregorovius and other writers upon the moral character of this really admirable personage. Cf. op. cit., p. 199 (note).

90

Nuovi Documenti, pp. 362, 364-368, 560.

91

The bas-relief of St John Evangelist, over the altar to the right of the entrance, is the mediocre work of some sculptor of the Quattrocento, possibly Urbano da Cortona.

92

See the document in Milanesi, Vasari III., pp. 519-522.

93

Cf. G. W. Kitchin, Pope Pius II., p. 36.

94

Historia Friderici III. Imp., p. 73.

95

See Misc. Storica Senese, iv. 7-8.

96

The question is well discussed in Miss E. March Phillipps’ monograph on Pinturicchio, pp. 116-123.

97

Anonymous Chronicle existing in the Archivio di Stato and the Biblioteca Comunale, quoted by Lisini, Notizie di Duccio, p. 5.

98

Berenson, Central Italian Painters, p. 117.

99

Op. cit., p. 41 (note).

100

In the Appendix to V. Lusini, Il San Giovanni di Siena, there are a number of interesting letters about the progress, etc., of the work, from Ghiberti to the Operaio del Duomo and Giovanni di Turino, and from Giacomo to the Signoria.

101

Cf. M. Reymond, op. cit., II. p. 98.

102

Cf. Documents concerning the authorship of this fresco in Lusini, op. cit. p. 60 (note).

103

See Alessio, Storia di San Bernardino, p. 60 (and note).

104

Letter 321.

105

Leggenda minore, i. 2.

106

Rondoni, Tradizioni popolari e leggende, etc., p. 150.

107

Nuovi Documenti, pp. 240, 241.

108

Documenti, II. pp. 326, 339; Nuovi Documenti, p. 239.

109

Leggenda, pp. 205, 206.

110

See pp. 48-50.

111

This does not refer to Bazzi’s fresco, but to an earlier picture figured in Gigli, I. p. 24; possibly Andrea di Vanni is meant, as it closely resembles his work.

112

See the Deliberations of the Balìa and the Concistoro for July 21st and 22nd, in Pecci, Memorie, etc., II. pp. 211-213.

113

Letter of August 5th, 1526, in Machiavelli, Lettere familiari (Opere, edition cited, vol. viii. p. 208). In answer to Machiavelli, Vettori gives further details in a letter of August 7th (loc. cit. pp. 210-214); “I believe,” he says, “that on other occasions it has happened that an army fled at shouts, but that it should fly for ten miles, without anyone pursuing it – this I do not believe has been ever read nor seen.” According to the Sienese accounts the papal army numbered some 18,000 men and lost more than 1000, while 150 Sienese were killed. Vettori says that 400 foot soldiers and 50 light cavalry issued out of Siena and put to flight 5000 infantry and 300 horsemen; but he evidently refers only to the sally from the Porta Fontebranda.

114

Sozzini, Diario, p. 24.

115

Sozzini, op. cit. pp. 26, 27.

116

In the sonnet written in the name of the Mangia of the Tower of the Campo (the figure, removed in 1780, that sounded the hours, a kind of Sienese Pasquino) to the painter Riccio. Appendix to Sozzini, Document xiv.

117

I have given this in full as a specimen of these donations of which we hear so often in the story of Siena. No less characteristic is the reply of the officiating canon, Antonio Benzi: “Your great and profound humility, Most Illustrious Lords, is manifestly founded on Faith, Hope and Charity. Faith is shown by the desire of uniting yourselves with our most just Saviour, receiving into your souls His most holy Body; Hope is shown by the consigning and restitution of the keys of your City to the most glorious Queen of the Heavens; Charity, by the vow of marrying the maidens in perpetuity by your free Republic. We, albeit unworthy of so great an office, in the name of Blessed Christ and of His Immaculate Mother, accept your vows and oblations. We remind you that Faith without works is said to be dead; that whoso trusteth in God with pure heart, will be immovable as Mount Sion; and that Charity unites us with God. Therefore have living Faith, firm Hope and ardent Charity; to the end that you may obtain your desire and that your City may be preserved in true liberty to the honour of God and of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, our Advocate and of all the faithful Christian people.” (Appendix to Sozzini, Diario, Documents vi. and vii.)

118

See the Genealogical Table of the Family of Pius II.

119

La Cacciata della Guardia Spagnola da Siena, pp. 522, 523. The “twentieth hour” means four hours before sunset, or about four o’clock in the afternoon.

120

Diario, pp. 89, 90.

121

Sozzini, p. 93.

122

Cardinale, Cardinale, Tu ci rechi poco sale; Siena, Siena, verrà il medico, E ti guarirà dal farnetico.

Quoted in Rondoni, Siena nel secolo xvi. p. 250. For other prophetic doggerel of the same kind ascribed to Brandano, see Olmi, I Senesi d’una volta, p. 270. Brandano died in Siena during the siege, in May 1554.

123

Giornale dell’ Assedio della Città di Montalcino printed in the Archivio Storico Italiano, Appendix, vol. viii.

124

Malavolti, iii. 10, p. 160b.

125

Ibid. p. 161; Sozzini, pp. 157, 158.

126

In this and subsequent quotations from Montluc I have availed myself of Cotton’s translation of the Commentaries.

127

Sozzini, Diario, p. 307.

128

Op. cit. p. 317.

129

Trattenimenti, i. pp. 8-10. He adds hideous details of their mutilation at the hands of the Spaniards, which have too frequently been quoted; Sozzini (who tells us that on one occasion the Spaniards succoured the fugitives, p. 376) mentions once that some contadini had their noses and ears cut off, but neither he nor Montluc gives any other hint of the peculiar hideousness and atrocity of Bargagli’s version.

130

See Mr Montgomery Carmichael’s excellent and picturesque account of the Spanish Praesidia, in In Tuscany, pp. 283-314.

131

Nuovi Documenti, p. 76.

132

Nuovi Documenti, p. 75. These officers were first appointed in 1413.

133

Nuovi Documenti, p. 201. She says that she has had the house designed by uno valentissimo maestro; but does not name him. See also P. Rossi,L’Arte Senese nel Quattrocento, pp. 27-29.

134

Bargagli quoted by A. Marenduzzo, Veglie e Trattenimenti Senesi, p. 14.

135

The Captain of War – afterwards the Senator – will not be confused with the Captain of the People. The one was an alien noble, the other a Sienese burgher.

136

Diari Senesi, 775, 776.

137

Purg. v. 133-136.

138

Vasari.

139