The Story of Siena and San Gimignano

V. Lusini, Il San Giovanni di Siena, p. 14.

140

“That vain folk which hopes in Talamone, and will lose more hope there than in finding the Diana,” Purg. xiii. 151-153. The Diana was a subterranean stream supposed to exist under Siena for which, in 1295, the General Council of the Campana decreed that the search should be undertaken.

141

Documenti, ii. p. 337; cf. Allegretto, Diari, 773. Notice the title Spectabilità; in a less democratic city than Siena, they would have been Magnificence. Incidentally, we may observe (a point frequently missed by English writers, especially of fiction dealing with the Italian Renaissance) that Magnificence was a much less pretentious title at the end of the Quattrocento than it sounds to us now, being little more than the equivalent of “Your Worship” or “Your Honour” (though also applied to ambassadors); while Excellence was, until the middle of the sixteenth century, reserved for quasi-independent potentates, such as the Duke of Ferrara or the Marquis of Mantua, ruling fiefs of the Church or Empire.

142

See pp. 88, 89. In reading these documents, it should be borne in mind that the Sienese and Florentine year (but not the Roman) began on March 25th. The same rule applies to the dates on the Tavolette of the Biccherna and Gabella.

143

Rondoni, Sena Vetus, p. 37. For further information upon the Tavolette the reader may be referred to Mr W. Heywood’s charming little book, A Pictorial Chronicle of Siena, to which I am indebted.

144

Cf. Heywood, op. cit. p. 69.

145

“The fury of arms having cooled down on every side, the Pope [Paul II.] easily found means to conclude an universal peace between the powers of Italy, wherein was named the Republic of Siena, in the name of which it was accepted and ratified by Messer Niccolò Severini, Sienese orator in Rome, in the month of May 1468.” Malavolti, iii. 4, p. 70 b.

146

Diari Senesi, 813. The Cardinal Malfetta is G. B. Cibo, afterwards Innocent VIII., cf. p. 76.

147

Diari, 815, 816. The Lorenzo di Antonio mentioned is the Venturini who was executed in 1486 (see p. 78).

148

Cf. Sozzini, Diario, pp. 23, 24 (where, however, Gabella is confused with Biccherna), and Heywood, op. cit. pp. 87, 88.

149

For various documents touching these votive pictures after the Battle of Camollia, see Nuovi Documenti, pp. 434, 435.

150

Nuovi Documenti, p. 245.

151

Dante, Purg. xi. 109-111.

152

See Gigli, La città diletta di Maria, pp. 29-35. The houses of Provenzano Salvani’s family were in this part of the city – hence the name.

153

See the Deliberation of the Concistoro for July 2nd, 1460, pro porta Sancti Francisci, in Lusini, Storia della Basilica di San Francesco, p. 123 (note).

154

Nuovi Documenti, pp. 222-224. The Ufficiali sopra l’Ornato della Città are proposing to make a fountain on the Poggio de’ Malavolti.

155

The imposing tower at the back of the Palazzo Tolomei, at the beginning of the Via dei Termini, is the Torre Miganelli or Castelli, in which the public bells were hung.

156

See the Miscellanea Storica Senese, iii. 4, p. 59.

157

The story of Anselmo and Angelica is inserted in the Annali Senesi under 1395, and is told by Sermini and Ilcino. That of Ippolito and Cangenova (which from the mention of Messer Reame should, if historical, be referred to the same epoch) is related by Olinda in Bargagli’s Trattenimenti.

158

The sole value – and that is not much – of Fortini’s work lies in such little transcripts from Sienese life in the Cinquecento. The rest is sheer pornography, and the man’s life was as vile as his novels are filthy.

159

Cf. Alessio, op. cit. pp. 103, 104.

160

Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, iii. p. 68.

161

Landucci, Sacra Leccetana Selva, pp. 76-79.

162

Assempro xl. It was this Frate Bandino who founded the convent of Sant’ Agostino in Siena.

163

Assempro xli. is the life of Niccolò Tini.

164

Letter 326, written from Rome, December 15th, 1378.

165

Mr Heywood, in his account of these frescoes (The Ensamples of Fra Filippo, pp. 227, 228), appears to have missed this, the essential point of the allegory.

166

Assempro xxiv.

167

Nuovi Documenti, pp. 202, 203.

168

For further details, see Antonio Canestrelli’s admirable monograph, L’Abbazia di San Galgano.

169

Oraffi (Vita del B. Bernardo Tolomei, pp. 44-72) gives what is said to be the text of this homily. It may, possibly, be a genuine work of the Saint, but as it speaks of “the schism arisen in the Sacred Empire, now many years ago, between Frederick of Austria and Ludwig of Bavaria,” it could not have been delivered on this occasion.

170

Frizzoni, op. cit. p. 115.

171

Cf. Frizzoni, op. cit. p 117.

172

Commentarii, x. pp. 482-484.

173

Storia della Repubblica di Firenze, i. pp. 389, 390.

174

A. C. Swinburne, Relics.

175

There are two hotels in San Gimignano: the Albergo Centrale and the Leone Bianco. The present writer’s experience has been confined to the Albergo Centrale, which is pleasantly situated and excellent for so small a town.

176

Pecori, Storia della Terra di San Gimignano, p. 41.

177

Coppi, Annali, memorie, etc., pp. 108-114. I have spared my readers some of the details of “cette existence d’expiation.” Not many of us can look upon these things with the eyes of M. J. – K. Huysmans, in his Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam: “Elle fut, en somme, un fruit de souffrance,” he writes of Lydwine, whose life was very like a prolonged version of Fina’s, “que Dieu écrasa et pressura jusqu’à ce qu’il en eût exprimé le dernier suc; l’écale était vide lorsqu’elle mourut; Dieu allait confier à d’autres de ses filles le terrible fardeau qu’elle avait laissé; elle avait pris, elle-même, la succession d’autres saintes et d’autres saintes allaient, à leur tour, hériter d’elle” (p. 291).

178

Pecori, p. 113.

179

In May 1899, San Gimignano kept the sixth centenary of Dante’s embassy, and it was on this occasion that the real date 1300 (instead of 1299, as hitherto supposed) was discovered.

180

Rossetti’s translation.

181

Sonnet 33 in Navone’s edition.

182

Cronachetta di San Gimignano, 163-171.

183

Matteo Villani, iii. 22, 46, 55, 69: Pecori, pp. 168-171.

184

Cronachetta, 8-21.

185

iii. 73.

186

The conditions of this final submission are given in full in Pecori, pp. 174-179.

187

With the exception of the churches of Cellole and San Pietro, San Gimignano is in the diocese of the Bishop of Colle. The chief ecclesiastical dignitary of the town, the head of the Collegiata, is the Proposto or Provost – at present the learned Don Ugo Nomi-Pesciolini, whose invariable kindness and courtesy to visitors are well known to English travellers.

188

See the list given by Mr Berenson, Florentine Painters, pp. 132-134.

189

“The bones of a virgin lie hidden in the tomb which thou beholdest, stranger; she is the glory, the example, the guardian of her fellow-citizens. Her name was Fina; this her native land. Dost thou seek miracles? Scan what the wall and life-like statues teach.”

190

It has been argued that the last line of the epitaph proves that the frescoes were painted not later than 1475; but this is not by any means conclusive, as the subjects had probably been settled from the beginning.

191

So I gather from Fra Matteo and Pecori; other writers call it the Palazzo Ardinghelli.

192

See the Confessions, i. 9.

193

Confessions, viii. 12.

194

Ibid. ix. 10, 11.

195

See above, p. 330 (and note).

196

iii. 96.