THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
HIGHWAY TO THE HEART: ORDERING BEAUTY & ORGANIZING ROME-BOUND PILGRIMS ON SIENA’S VIA FRANCIGENA
ISABEL R. B. BRADY SPRING 2020
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for baccalaureate degrees in History, Art History, and Medieval Studies with interdisciplinary honors in History, Art History, and Medieval Studies
Reviewed and approved* by the following:
Benjamin Hudson Professor of History and Medieval Studies Thesis Supervisor
Amara Solari Associate Professor of Art History and Anthropology Honors Adviser
Cathleen Cahill Associate Professor of History Honors Adviser
Heather McCune Bruhn Associate Teaching Professor of Art History Reader
*Electronic approvals are on file. . i
ABSTRACT
The medieval Italian city-state of Siena’s fortunes rested almost exclusively on the pilgrimage route the Via Francigena, the main thoroughfare from Northern Europe to Rome, which travelled straight through the city. Siena’s portion of the Via Francigena, locally called the Strada Romana, formed the heart of the city’s international political, economic, and social functions. However, the city continually negotiated the fundamentally messy nature of the pilgrimage business with the medieval conception of beauty requiring order, the result is Siena presented a beautiful urban landscape to its international visitors. Siena’s unique urban architecture and plan for the Strada Romana demonstrate its embrace of the pilgrimage business as an essential aspect of its urbanity.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES ...... iii
LIST OF TABLES ...... iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... v
Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1
Chapter 2 The Via Francigena’s History & Pressures of the Pilgrimage Business ..... 11
Chapter 3 Ordering the Disorderly: The Pilgrimage Business Complex ...... 19
3.1 The Journey ...... 22 3.2 Branch Shrines ...... 27 3.3 Accommodation & Ancillary Services ...... 29
Chapter 4 Siena’s Own: Separating the Strada Romana from Outside Influence ...... 40
4.1 Beautifying the City: Ornata della Città...... 42 4.2 Interior Building Campaigns ...... 47 4.3 The Urban Geography of Power ...... 54
Chapter 5 Conclusion ...... 61
Appendix A Recorded Alberghi Within the City of Siena 1318-1474 ...... 64
Table 1: Terzo di Camollia ...... 64 Table 2: Terzo di Città ...... 67 Table 3: Terzo di San Martino ...... 68
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 70
ACADEMIC VITA ...... 74
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1-1, Anonymous, Biccherna 23, Oil on Wooden Panel, 1422, Museo delle Biccherne, Archivio di Stato di Siena. Dama dal Manto Trapunto d’Oro (Lady of the Golden Embroidered Mantle)...... 1
Figure 1-2: Map of Siena, highlighting the Via Francigena (locally called the Strada Romana) and the Croce del Travaglio. “Siena Tourist Map,” Mappery, July 9, 2008...... 9
Figure 2-1: Map showing pilgrimage routes to Rome through Siena, documented in itineraries between 900 and the early 1400s. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 93...... 13
Figure 2-2: Pilgrimage badge from Rome showing Peter and Paul. Pilgrim Badge, Late Medieval, Rome. Photograph. London, n.d. British Museum...... 16
Figure 3-1: Map of gates and walls of Siena by 1480. Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 14...... 32
Figure 3-2: Map of the terzi of Siena. Heywood, William, Palio and Ponte: an account of the sports of Central Italy from the age of Dante to the XXth Century. London (Metheun), 1904.34
Figure 3-3: Cini, Giovanni di Lorenzo, Biccherna 49, La Vittoria di Porta Camollia a Siena nel 1526, Archivio di Stato di Siena, Museo delle Biccherne. Prato di Camollia is illustrated in the left-hand side...... 35
Figure 3-4: The remodeled Palazzo Tolomei. From Grossman, “A Case of Double Identity: The Public and Private Faces of the Palazzo Tolomei in Siena,” 52. Labels by author...... 36
Figure 3-5: Map of the location of castellare within Siena, identified by family each castellare belonged to. From Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 159...... 37
Figure 4-1: Map of the interventions of Maestri sopra all'ornato between 1431-1480. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 101...... 44
Figure 4-2: Picture of the façade of Palazzo di San Galgano, tightly inline with the rest of the Strada Romana's curvature. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 135. 45
Figure 4-3: Illustration of Eurialus and Lucrezia, from the 1864 publication of Storia di Due Amanti (Milan), Courting in the streets of Siena. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 41...... 47
Figure 4-4: Drawing of Palazzetto di S. Marta, attributed to Vincenzo Ferrati. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 38...... 50
Figure 4-5: Map of the lodgings of Pope Pius and the Papal Court in Siena, 1460. Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 66...... 57 iv
Figure 5-1: Pinturicchio, Frederick III and Eleanor of Portugal Meet Outside Porta Camollia, from the cycle in Libreria Piccolomini. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 160...... 61
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: The range and number of Italian sumptuary concerns. From Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy, 1200-1500, 38...... 5
Table 2: Restored property in Siena, 1460, for the Papal Court. Nevola, Ritual Geography: Housing the Papal Court of Pius II Piccolomini in Siena (1459-1460), 206...... 58
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have many people to thank for guiding and encouraging me on my journey to write this
thesis. First and foremost, a great thanks to the Archivio di Stato di Siena and the Museo delle
Biccherne for allowing me to research in their archives and Dr. Giovanni Mazzini, for assisting me in Italy. Pennsylvania State University, the Schreyer Honors College, and the Pattee and
Paterno Library have been of invaluable help. I must equally thank my thesis supervisors, Dr.
Benjamin Hudson and Dr. Amara Solari, for their instruction and patience with me. Thank you to
Dr. Cathleen Cahill, Dr. Heather McCune Bruhn, and Dr. Heather Hoge for their help. Thank you to Alex, Cecilia, and Peter for walking part of the Via Francigena with me; thanks to Eva and Lauryn for your encouragement all across Italy; and thank you to Kandice for your late-night help. Most importantly, thank you to my mom, dad, and brother for much more than I can say. It took three years, but I did it! Thanks for sticking with me.
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1
Chapter 1 Introduction
Figure 1-1, Anonymous, Biccherna 23, Oil on Wooden Panel, 1422, Museo delle Biccherne, Archivio di Stato di Siena. Dama dal Manto Trapunto d’Oro (Lady of the Golden Embroidered Mantle).
2
“I will outshine you,” the lady seems to vow in the biccherna cover featured above, chin jutting out challengingly as her gaze locks on the radiant sun. The lady is draped in a golden mantle with detailed embroidery, the white lining of her dagged sleeves falling in perfectly orchestrated waves from her clasped hands. The visual contrast between the pure white and the carefully detailed black-on-gold embroidery frames the vivid turquoise of her dress. The dress does not pleat to illustrate her body: instead, its manicured tucks demonstrate the artist’s modeling of the blue from a darker azure to visible strokes of a lighter shade, a shift in color hinting at the bright light source. The dress’s tail, dragging out along the elaborate rug to the right, creates an axis between the rich gathering of fabric and the brilliant star in the upper left- hand corner.
The star itself is an explosion of gold out from the dark background, which surrounds the lone lady. The linear hatching traces its way out from the dark center to overlap with the border, which is done in the same gold leaf, stamped with quatrefoils and a minuscule vegetal border.
The star completely overwhelms the delicate border, blasting out of the frame in a supernova at odds with the deliberate details of the rest of the painting.
But the lady, with a golden tiara, attempts to outshine the star. She stands nearly as tall as it, with the tip of her tiara just brushing equal height, and with her head and body turned towards it. Her face is solemn and unflinching: as the Museo delle Biccherne writes, “[l]a dama […] rivolge lo sguardo verso un solo raggiante posto sull’angolo superiore sinistro della scena, gesto simbolico di ambiziosa sfida con l’astro” (“The lady […] directs her gaze towards one 3 radiating place in the upper left corner of the scene, a symbolic gesture of ambitious dare with the star.”)1
The lady stands boldly defiant of the heavens she challenges: the eye is immediately drawn to her brilliant blue and splendorous gold, standing out against her dank surroundings, creating a visual competition for the eye between her and the star. However, the inscription on
Biccherna 23, Dama dal Manto Trapunto d’Oro (Lady of the Golden Embroidered Mantle), demands equal recognition as an integral part of the composition.
PROVISIONI CONTRA LE DONNE DEL PORTARE VESTIMENTI DI SETA [FIN]E E VELLUTI, DRAPPI, PANNI RACHAMATI O VERAMENTE PROFILATI D’ORO O D’ARIENTO
PROVISIONS AGAINST WOMEN FOR THE BRINGING OF GARMENTS OF REFINED SILK AND VELVET, CLOTHS, FABRICS EMBROIDERED OR TRULY DELINEATED IN GOLD OR IN SILVER
The above inscription refers to a series of sumptuary legislation passed by the government of the Ten Priors of Siena in 1422. The declared purpose of sumptuary laws was to regulate luxuries and imports to protect the local economy.2 The sumptuary laws referred to in
Dama dal Manto Trapunto d’Oro are called “Marcatura della vesti” (“the marking of the clothes”), which declared the illegality of certain styles of women’s dress: specifically, dresses of
“refined” silk and velvet or embroidered in gold or silver. The dama of the biccherna is conspicuously violating these rules, with her dark mantle, perhaps of velvet, embroidered heavily with gold. Additionally, the blue of her dress suggests the similarly outlawed silk.
1 Anonymous, Biccherna 23, Oil on Wooden Panel, 1422, Museo delle Biccherne, Archivio di Stato di Siena. Archivio di Stato di Siena, abbreviated “ASS.” All translations are by the author unless otherwise noted. 2 Muzzarelli, “Sumptuary Law in Italy: Financial Resource and Instrument of Rules,” in The Right to Dress: Sumptuary Laws in a Global Perspective, c. 1200-1800, 167. 4
Sumptuary laws were instituted throughout Europe across the Middle Ages. Sumptuary
legislation concerned a wide range of luxury topics: weddings, funerals, feasts, gifts,
christenings; and clothing for men, women, peasants, minors, and servants, but it focused heavily
on women’s clothes.3 In the Italian Peninsula, legislation peaked between 1400-1500 when
upwards of sixty legislative acts restricting women’s dress were issued. While governments cited
moral reasons for passing sumptuary laws, specifically to combat greed and overindulgence,
sumptuary legislation were preservationist measures.4 As Cosimo de’ Medici said, “Come due canne di pano rosato facevono uno uomo da bene,” (“[How] two lengths of pink cloth can make a gentleman”).5 It attempted to protect the social hierarchy by restricting outward indicators of
upward mobility such as dress, and women’s clothing was a choice target for this expression of
legislation due to the perception of women’s clothing as an expression of her husband or father’s
wealth. Luxury clothing and conspicuous consumption at events such as weddings or funerals
were status symbols previously restricted to the upper, noble class by nature of the wealth
concentrated with that same class.6 Sumptuary legislation was used to enforce that hierarchy and
restrict the displays of wealth by non-nobles.
3 Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy, 1200-1500, 38. Data shown in Table 1. 4 Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy, 61. 5 Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy, 61. From Machiavelli. 6 Muzzarelli, The Right to Dress, 167. 5
Notably, the Republic of Siena issued twenty-one sets of sumptuary laws within three centuries (1200-1500), tied for third with Bologna (21), against Florence (61) and Venice (43).7
The pace and volume of sumptuary legislation is a clear reactionary measure. These measures
were taken against the growing wealth of the non-noble upper classes, upper-middle classes, and
merchant classes in Siena. The growing wealth of these classes was all building off the back of
the Via Francigena, locally called
the Strada Romana. The Via
Francigena was the trans-European
pilgrimage route beginning in
France and winding through the
Alps to Rome; it also served as a
highway for goods and trade. Table 1: The range and number of Italian sumptuary concerns. From Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy, 1200-1500, 38. Siena’s main trade, which allowed for
the rapid growth and the accumulation of wealth by its citizenry, was the pilgrimage business.
The Via Francigena put Siena in the ideal position to reap the benefits of trans-European pilgrimage, trade, and travel after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Via Cassia and Via
Aurelia, built by the Romans, were the primary roads used for trade and travel heading north from Rome. Both gradually fell into disrepair: the Aurelia, a seaside route, was under threat by pirates while the Cassia suffered from brigandry as well as a lack of maintenance.8 The two
roads diverged around Siena, plowing instead straight onto Roman Pisa and Florence,
respectively, and the Via Francigena was an alternate route established formally under the
7 Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy, 34. 8 Schevill, Siena, the History of a Medieval Commune, 10. 6
9 Lombards as the “Iter Francorum” (the Frankish Way). The Lombard kings paid for the upkeep
of the route within their territory, establishing a monastery every eighteen miles along the path to
control the route as well as the surrounding territory. 10
The Via Francigena shaped Siena but brought with it the pressures of the pilgrimage business: a fundamentally messy, disorderly business filled with unruly humans who could be sick or die or disruptive on the streets. The great wealth of the Via Francigena and the pilgrimage complex formed the heart of the city’s international political, economic, and social functions, but brought with it the disorganized nature of pilgrimage, a fundamental embarrassment to the medieval conception of beauty requiring order. Siena’s continued negotiation with beauty and order resulted in the unique urban architecture and urban plan for the Strada Romana that demonstrate the city’s embrace of the pilgrimage business as an essential aspect of its urbanity.
The pilgrimage business brought three distinct problems of disorder to the city: the safety of pilgrims along the journey through Siena’s territory; the security of pilgrims’ wealth during their travel; and the accommodation and ancillary service for pilgrims within the city. Siena shaped its city to solve each of these novel problems and create an orderly, inviting journey for the pilgrim throughout their walk through the city.
The urban organization of the Strada Romana to accommodate pilgrims was necessary in order to present the Strada as a point of civic pride for Siena, especially as an expression of
Siena’s moral uprightness. Order was intrinsically tied to beauty. Medieval thought transposed celestial geography and moral topography atop one another to create a city-cosmos model that
9 Schevill, Medieval Commune, 10; Brownlow, Iternarium sancti Willibaldi, 725. 10 Schevill, Medieval Commune, 156; Francovich, “The Hinterlands of Early Medieval Towns: The Transformation of the Countryside in Tuscany,” in Post-Roman Towns, Trade, and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium: the Heirs of the Roman West, 142. 7
posited the city being closer to God, with those in the citadel of the city being closest of all.11 As
Keith Lilley writes in City and Cosmos: the Medieval World in Urban Form, “Cosmic hierarchy
takes on a urban form, spatializing through the arrangement of constituent parts just as
corresponding ‘members’ of the human body are […] the city was not simply seen as a set of
buildings and people, but rather a ‘map’ of Christian beliefs about the wider world, about
cosmology and cosmogony.”12 The morality of a city, therefore, could be assessed by its orderliness, as the city’s physical state was the moral topography of the city made physical.
Thus, order is not only an essential aesthetic consideration, but an essential civic duty. Only from order could beauty be built.
Siena’s urban plan does not appear immediately as “orderly” as that of their neighbors,
Florence and Pisa, with Roman gridded plans. Urban plans with straight lines and ninety-degree corners, immediately readable on a map, present the beauty understood by Latin Christian thinkers, which understood beauty as perfection, due proportions, and symmetry: as Lilley sums up, “This beauty derived from order, an order that God himself had created and which was made manifest in harmony and proportion.”13 A single glance at a map of Siena shows an almost-
11 Lilley, City and Cosmos: The Medieval World in Urban Form, 11. A reformation of Plato’s Timean city- cosmos model by Alan of Lille and William of Conches. 12 Lilley, City and Cosmos, 12. 13 Lilley, City and Cosmos, 62, 71. 8 triangle riddled with wriggling alleys and streets: order is not immediately apparent, nor is there 9 an understanding of beauty, if beauty is understood as orderly proportions.
Figure 1-2: Map of Siena, highlighting the Via Francigena (locally called the Strada Romana) and the Croce del Travaglio. “Siena Tourist Map,” Mappery, July 9, 2008. 10
However, Siena built itself a particular order on its winding streets. Siena instituted sophisticated urban zoning and planning to maintain peace as well as aesthetic considerations on the Strada Romana while also promoting Sienese business. Additionally, Siena carefully arranged the pilgrims that were a part of the pilgrimage complex along the Strada Romana, both within and outside of the walls, in order to separate civilians from visitors.
Building upon the order in their streets, Siena launched several beautification campaigns that transformed the civic space, beginning with the outdoor civic space of the Strada Romana and shifting into interior renewal campaigns of palazzi as expressions of civic space when hosting foreign dignitaries. Siena negotiated the encroachment of foreign influence and outside power centers during extended imperial and papal stays with masterful zoning that created a second set of power axes pivoted away from interior Sienese power centers.
The relationship between Siena and its section of the Via Francigena, the Strada Romana, is that of sculptor and its marble. Siena sculpted the Strada Romana as equally as the rough material of the Strada Romana formed the image Siena was making, the image it still is today.
As the ultimate expression of civic pride and a showcase for Siena’s wealth and self-conception to both the pilgrim and the prince, what began as an organization of unruly pilgrims on the street transformed the Strada Romana into the highway and the heart of Siena. 11
Chapter 2 The Via Francigena’s History & Pressures of the Pilgrimage Business
Siena’s position along the Via Francigena spurred its incredible growth after the Fall of
the Western Roman Empire. The Via Francigena goes straight through the city’s heart,
transforming into what the accurately Sienese titled “Strada Romana,” as it enters in the Porta
Camollia and leaves out the Porta Romana, making Siena the last major stop before Rome.14 It
sweeps around the Piazza del Campo, the centrally-located shell-shaped square that would later seat the Palazzo Pubblico, and branches off, creating a corridor to the Duomo di Siena and the
Università degli Studi di Siena, both of which were attractions unto themselves.15 The Via
Francigena and its rise both in the material importance of trade-goods as well as the spiritual
importance of a road leading to the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul in Rome shaped the entire
self-image of Siena as it molded its own image along their section of the Via Francigena, the
Strada Romana.
The city of Siena perched upon a cluster of hills; a common characteristic of Etruscan
settled hill fortifications. After Roman domination, Siena maintained its classical Etruscan
characteristics: hilltop settlement and underground water access. Siena never took up Florence’s
Roman cardo-decumanus system, which places the main roads of the town on north-south/east-
west access and builds a gridded plan around the cardo (north-south street) and decumanus (east-
14 Nevola, “‘Per Ornato Della Città’: Siena’s Strada Romana and Fifteenth-Century Urban Renewal,” 29.
12
west street). Instead, the Via Francigena itself winds, unheeded and “unstraightened,” throughout
Siena.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the establishment of the Via Francigena
under the Lombards, Tuscany was eventually controlled by the Franks. Under Frankish control,
the road was continually kept up as Siena was incorporated into the March of Tuscany in 774
and Frankish control, specifically under the control of the Canossa family, lasted until 1115.16
While the power of local nobles was waning, distracted with the Investiture Controversy between
the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire, the feudal power in Siena dissolved into a city-state.
The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were marked by the control of the Noveschi (a party made of noble families and many Sienese oligarchs), who greatly expanded the military power of Siena by capitalizing on its economic profits. The Sienese maintained their nominal subservience to the
Holy Roman Empire but were in fact completely independent in the ruling of the city-state.
However, Siena allied with the Holy Roman Empire in the empire’s duel with the papacy over the primacy of the Italian Peninsula, through a series of proxy wars between the parties of the
Guelphs (papacy-aligned) and Ghibellines (imperially-aligned).17
The tension between Ghibelline and Guelph factions in Siena and the ensuing violence
and coups18 heralded the beginning of Siena’s “golden age” (1260-1355) under the government
of the Nine Governors and Defenders of the Commune and People of Siena.19 Under the IX,
16 Schevill, Medieval Commune, 186. 17 Schevill, Medieval Commune, 190. The conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and papacy that took the form of the Guelphs versus the Ghibellines was also part of the wider Investiture Controversy. 18Schevill, Medieval Commune, 191. Up until 1269, the Guelphs had held the predominant position in Siena, winning the Battle of Montaperti against Ghibelline Florence in 1260. However, after a reversal of military fortunes with the Battle of Colle Val d’Elsa in June 1269, Ghibellines took control of Siena and ousted the Government of the Twenty-Four and instituted the Consigliere Generale, which preceded the famed IX. 19 Abbreviated “the IX.” 13
Palazzo Pubblico was built,
including the famous Buon Governo
frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti,
the transepts of San Domenico and
San Francesco constructed, the choir
and baptistery of the Duomo was
completed, and the Nuovo Duomo
was begun.20 Infrastructure was also
rebuilt, with new defensive city
walls erected, roads reconstructed
and improved, both inside the city
and out in the contado,21 and new
public fountains built.22 Siena’s
golden age, which was both because
and the cause of increased
prominence and fortune,
corresponded directly with the great
influx of pilgrims on the Via
Francigena dating back to the Siege Figure 2-1: Map showing pilgrimage routes to Rome through Siena, documented in itineraries between 900 and the early 1400s. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the of Jerusalem of 1099. Renaissance City, 93.
20 Bowsky, “The Buon Governo of Siena (1287-1355): A Mediaeval Italian Oligarchy,” 369. The Nuovo Duomo’s construction was ultimately abandoned at the onset of the Plague. 21 “Contado” refers to the surrounding countryside and towns within the Republic’s domain. Contado boundaries were frequently contested with neighbors and rivals such as Florence and Pisa. 22 Bowsky, “A Medieaval Italian Oligarchy,” 377. 14
After Jerusalem was opened up to Western Europe in the 1099 Siege of Jerusalem, new goods flowed into Europe, including luxury goods from the Far East and India, as well as locally produced goods from the Middle East such as cotton, flax, and sugar.23 The Italian Peninsula was the nexus of trade flowing from the Mediterranean into Northern Europe and vice versa;
European goods, cash, arms, and slaves from north of the Black Sea were sought in exchange.24
The Crusader state and various Western powers fought to keep open new trade routes as well as the spiritual center of Jerusalem to Christian pilgrims. Additionally, a new crusade was being launched in the Iberian Peninsula against the southern Muslim kingdoms, and the legend of St.
James was used to bolster support in northern Spain.25 The building campaign of Santiago de
Compostela began in 1075 under the direction of Archbishop Diego Gelmírez and patronage of
Alfonso IV of Castile.26
The papacy faced the prospect of Rome’s prestige being eclipsed when confronted with the rising stars of Jerusalem and Compostela, which were quickly becoming the preferred long- haul pilgrimage destinations.27 When presented with a choice between Jerusalem, Compostela, or Rome for an extensive journey, pilgrims from distant lands frequently chose one of the former two: Jerusalem, for its preeminence as the place of Jesus Christ’s death, or Compostela, for easy travel thanks to the well-documented El Camino and its position next to the sea for. While Rome was theoretically on the way to Jerusalem, Rome was not a necessary stop: Richard I of England famously bypassed Rome in favor of a quicker journey to Jerusalem in 1190, despite landing in
23 Constable, Housing the stranger in the Mediterranean world: lodging, trade, and travel in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, 279. 24 Constable, Housing the stranger in the Mediterranean world, 279. 25 Marilyn Stokstad, Santiago de Compostela in the Age of the Great Pilgrimages, 6. 26 Davidson Gitlitz, The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook, 415. 27 Brenda Bolton, “Pilgrimage with Added Benefits: Pilgrims and Politics in the Rome of Innocent III,” Pilgrims and Politics: Rediscovering the Power of Pilgrimage, 77. 15
Rome’s port of Ostia and being invited by the Bishop of Ostia to greet the pope. Instead, Richard
I castigated the bishop for “Roman abuses of simony, concupiscence and many other evils” and
turned right around to sail for Puglia.28 This slight did not escape a sub-deacon of St. Peter’s,
Lotario of Segni: the future Pope Innocent III.
In order to reassert Rome’s position as both the paramount destination for pilgrims and the political center of the Western Church, upon his election in 1198, Innocent III took
immediate action with administrative and religious changes. One area of concern were the
pilgrim churches.
The two pilgrimage attractions in Rome were the two basilicas: St. Paul Outside the
Walls and St. Peter’s in the Vatican for which pilgrims came ad limina apostolorum.29 However,
St. Peter’s maintained a fierce, scandalous rivalry with St. John Lateran, which held the Holy
Skulls of Peter and Paul as well as the Veronica, an image of Christ allegedly painted by St.
Luke and angels.30 Notably, St. Peter’s gained the Veronica, an image of Christ that appeared on
the veil used to wipe sweat from his face; the relic was in clear competition with the Lateran for
its origin was Christ himself, not simply Peter and Paul.31 Innocent sought to make St. Peter’s and the Lateran equals: March 13th, 1198, three weeks after his consecration, he granted a quarter of all the alms received at the high altar of St. Peter’s during all services to the Chapter and canons of St. Peter’s. In January 1199, Innocent III conferred on St. Peter’s two grants that radically revitalized Rome’s pilgrim flow. Firstly, he granted St. Peter’s papal revenue.
28 Bolton, Pilgrims and Politics, 78. Quote from the chronicle of Roger of Wendover, as quoted and translated by Bolton. 29 Bolton, Pilgrims and Politics, 80. “To stand where the Apostles stood.” 30 Bolton, Pilgrims and Politics, 80; Adrian Bell, Richard Dale, “The Medieval Pilgrimage Business,” 614. 31 Bell, Dale, “The Medieval Pilgrimage Business,” 614. 16
Secondly, he granted St. Peter’s the right to strike lead or tin pilgrimage badges and, furthermore, the right to grant rights to strike.
The grant of pilgrimage badges reflects
Rome’s need to compete not only with pilgrimage churches but in the entire pilgrimage business complex. Competition from Jerusalem,
Compostela, and also Canterbury, were augmented with a formalized pilgrimage complex that catered to daily needs of pilgrims as well as celebrating their achievement in the form of souvenirs. Canterbury and Compostela were not only famous for their souvenirs––vials Figure 2-2: Pilgrimage badge from Rome showing Peter and Paul. Pilgrim Badge, Late Medieval, Rome. Photograph. of St. Thomas à Becket’s “blood” and St. London, n.d. British Museum.
James’s scallop shell––but also for their accommodation of pilgrims, which included hospitals, hostels, and special protections under canon law. Meanwhile, violence in Rome and on the
Roman pilgrimage route was endemic, and the state of hostels within Rome was atrocious. A letter from the Cardinal Deacon of Sant’Eustachio claimed that in the English hostel in Rome not a single person could be found to look after pilgrims.32
Innocent III’s campaign to revitalize Rome’s flailing pilgrimage business encompassed all of the complaints above, including Richard I’s railing against the Roman clergy. Innocent III sent strict statutes and orders to St. Peter’s clergy community for the use of alms in 1205, and
32 Bolton, Pilgrims and Politics, 80. 17
later in 1212 wrote an open letter to pilgrims discussing how a quarter of the alms from St.
Peter’s High Altar were used to help the poor and maintain the basilica.33 He encouraged
pilgrims to place their best alms on the High Altar for full remission of sins; in 1198, Innocent
had extended a remotissimi indulgence to travellers coming a long way as another incentive to travel to Rome. Swedes received three years indulgence from Purgatory; English two years; and
Continentals from places like southern France one year. The pilgrimage badge was crucial in the remission of sins: after purchasing badges, pilgrims would take them into the basilica where St.
Peter’s virtue would be transferred into the badges. For the journey back and forth, Innocent granted special rights to the Romipete (Roman-bound pilgrims) in 1208 that, in the event of death, the Church had the right to claim and protect their worldly goods. Furthermore, should any pilgrims, of any class or status, die between Sutri in the north of Rome or Albano in the south of Rome, they would receive a proper burial in San Salvatore da Terroine, near St. Peter’s.
All of these reforms created the basis for a pilgrimage complex that addressed every possible
need that pilgrims had. The additional draw to Rome, in the form of the hospitable pilgrimage
complex, additionally spurred reformation across the cities and towns linked to Rome on the Via
Francigena, the trans-European route to Rome.
Innocent III’s reinvigoration of Rome’s pilgrimage business had ramifications across the
pilgrimage complex: the complex being an intricate web of hostels and foodstuffs, clothing and
care, and wine and wills that grew up in every city, town, and hamlet connected on the
pilgrimage route to Rome. Here is where Siena again enters the picture, the last major stop on the
Via Francigena. While Italy was the perfect nexus of trade from the Mediterranean into Europe,
33 Bolton, Pilgrims and Politics, 83. 18
Siena’s most lucrative trade was the pilgrimage business, which boomed from Innocent’s reforms onward for centuries, keeping the city afloat even in dire straits such as the Black Death.
The city prospered with a growing merchant class capitalizing on every aspect of the pilgrimage business, as seen the Dama dal Manto Trapunto d’Oro and the sumptuary laws, which reflect the growing fortunes of merchants and lower classes, who could now afford status markers in competition with their noble counterparts. 19
Chapter 3 Ordering the Disorderly: The Pilgrimage Business Complex
The medieval pilgrimage business complex can be divided into three economic aspects, as determined by Adrian Bell and Richard Dale in their synthesis of both published and unpublished work about pilgrimage business management.34 The three categories discussed are
(1) the journey, (2) shrine franchises operating under the umbrella of the Catholic Church, and
(3) ancillary pilgrimage services: accommodation, foodstuffs, wine, banking, transport, and pilgrimage badges.35 These three categories formed the underlying foundation of Siena’s economic potential in the pilgrimage business and were, therefore, in the local government’s interest to both protect and promote.
In the Sienese context, “the journey” (category one) would refer to travel along the Via
Francigena and the safety of those travelers. The shrine franchise (category two) in Siena changed drastically with Saint Catherine of Siena: local saint Caterina di Siena attracted a huge cult following both while alive and after her death in 1380.36 However, shrines existing within
Siena prior to her canonization in 1461 also benefited from the Via Francigena. Finally, ancillary pilgrimage services (category three) were run, maintained, and invested in by all levels of
Sienese society and provided great economic profit to the population. However, the pilgrimage business also brought significant pressure to local governments: while the three economic
34 Bell, Dale, “The Medieval Pilgrimage Business,” 2011. 35 Bell, Dale, “The Medieval Pilgrimage Business,” 602. 36 Richard Cavendish, “St Catherine Canonised.” 20
categories were rife with opportunities for towns, they were equally easy targets for criminal
activity and exploitation of pilgrims. These problems were furthermore exacerbated by the
massive volume of pilgrims that travelled the Via Francigena and through Siena.
Due to Siena’s position relative to Rome on the pilgrimage trails, Jubilee years
consequently marked high watermarks for Siena’s economic success and prestige: sixteenth-
century chronicler Sigismondo Tizio reported that over 4,000 pilgrims stayed in the city every
night over the Jubilee year of 1450.37 While Sigismondo Tizio’s number is undoubtedly
exaggerated, Jubilee years were all marked in the Sienese chronicles as landmark years for the
number of pilgrims coming through the town. In the Jubilee year 1350, Agnolo di Tura wrote in
his Cronaca Senese, “diventò rico chi tene albergo, o chi traficò, o usò le strade” (“[during the
Jubilee] one who kept a hotel, or who trafficked, or who used the streets became rich”).38
However, Agnolo di Tura’s remark depended entirely on the success of the Sienese
government maintaining control over these three economic aspects of the pilgrimage business
that the Via Francigena brought to Siena. The potential for exploitations of foreign pilgrims,
coupled with high volume of pilgrims, was always a concern for both guests and hosts. Siena had
a duty to its pilgrims, not only out of economic opportunity, but public morality. The relationship
between the ospitato-ospitanto (hosted-host) was considered of paramount importance.39 It
involved a strict relationship of protection and trust of assistance. The ospitato-ospitanto relationship grew out of the economic growth of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, becoming a widespread custom that was seen as an expression of Christian charity. The tie between ospitato-
37 Fabrizio Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 124. 38 Maurizio Tuliani, Osti, avventori e malandrini: Luoghi di sosta e di ritrovo nella Siena del Trecento, 24. From Agnolo di Tura, Cronaca Senese, pg 561. Agnolo di Tura was a famous Sienese chronicler who also chronicled the Black Death. 39 Tuliani, Osti, 23. 21 ospitanto, and this guarantee of protection, was something that the community as well as the
Sienese government further sought to protect.
The Sienese government had additional worries beyond local governance for the Via
Francigena, as well: the Strada Romana was the international face of the city, and order on the street was a paramount task as it formed the foundation of the Strada Romana––and, therefore, the city’s––beauty. This chapter examines these problems in detail, as well as Siena’s methods of combating them, in order to create an orderly and organized city that beauty could flourish in.
22
3.1 The Journey
Brigands were a constant nuisance and danger to pilgrims along the Via Francigena.
Stories about brigandry and banditry on highways crop up in the stories of Petrarch and
Boccaccio; it was a community’s responsibility to account for road safety and reflected poorly on the city as a whole when they did not. Brigands were a factor when a long-haul pilgrim decided where to go: for example, instead of going to Rome, perhaps they would choose Santiago de
Compostela. The path of El Camino de Santiago was well-documented with guidebooks and many hostels catered to pilgrims, run by monastic orders and under royal protection.40 Robbery or death far away from home was not an appealing prospect: the more assurance, the likelier the pilgrim was to head to their destination. If the journey along El Camino was considered safer,
Siena and other towns along the Via Francigena had already lost profit by the cost of perception alone. Additionally, brigands frequently attacked merchants, as merchants had money but not armed guards (nobles travelled with armed guards, making nobles a risky target for brigands).41
Brigands were also known to attack hostels (alberghi). Brigands did not fear local authorities, like the local signorie, and to occasionally attract sympathizers to hide them from authorities.42
40 Davidson Gilitz, The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook, 84. Hostels differed depending on the route of El Camino, but were generally easily available to pilgrims. Hostels along El Camino were traditionally called “albergues,” akin to the Italian “albergo.” 41 Tuliani, Osti, 16. 42 Ibid 16. 23
As such, the government in Siena tried to guarantee safe passage through its territory to entice
travelers; it took strict measures against brigands and had to drastically increase its protective
measures as travel along the Via Francigena became more popular.
Between 1230-1240, the biccherna (the government accounts for each year) continually made provisions for the upkeep of roads: “confermate, integrate, e rettificate dalla tradizione statutaria” (“confirmed, integrated, and rectified from the traditional statues”).43 The initial system had maintenance and building projects, in both the city and contado, under control of a single “judex viarium” (street judge) with his three “boni homines” (good men) acting as assistants.44 Notably, in 1241, the Strada Romana (the branch of the Via Francigena within the
city) was paved, perhaps in accordance with these acts, and the Piazza del Campo paved in
1262.45 However, in 1290 the Statuto dei Viari or Statutum Dominorum Viarium (replaced the
single judex viarium and established two separate offices: the Viario dentro le mura (master of
the streets inside the walls) and Viario fuori le mura (master of the streets outside the walls).46
The Viario dentro le mura oversaw roads and construction projects within the city walls,
whereas the Viario fuori le mura supervised the contado. The two office supervisors were not
bureaucratic; instead tradesmen drawn from building trades who had executive, full-time, and
salaried role. Their duties were not only to repair damage to the streets within their jurisdiction,
but respond to any citizens’ calls for repairs; the Commune partially funded maintenance work.47
Out of the 434 statutes in the Statutum Dominorum Viarium, only fifty discussed the office in
43 Tuliani, Osti, 15. 44 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 13. “Contado;” the countryside, the territory an Italian city- state commune controlled outside of its own city walls. Translation by me. 45 Nevola, “Urban Renewal,” 16, 26; Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 19. 46 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 13. 47 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 13. From the work of Thomas Szabó, Viabilitá e legislazione, 46-56; “La rete stradale,” 163. 24
general terms, while the rest specified unfinished projects: 107 statutes about the city streets, 107
about contado roads, 62 about fountains, 45 about bridges, and 19 about thermal baths.
Additionally, 400 authorities were dedicated to maintaining the rules of the road for the use of the office of the Viarii. This indicates that not only were the rules already in place not being followed, but that extra manpower was needed to dedicate to its success.
All taken together, the Statutum Dominarum Vairium’s program created a coherent governance system across the entirety of Siena’s territory. This change in road governance, increasing dramatically in scale to become an entire territory-wide system, coincides with
Innocent III’s reinvigoration of pilgrimage in Rome from 1198-1208. Furthermore, it speaks to a tremendous increase in foot traffic; this was not merely in anticipation of more pilgrims, but dealing with the stress that high volume put on the system. More foot traffic would mean more wear and tear on the roads, meaning more need for maintenance; more people means more need for fountains and bridges; more pilgrims would mean more authorities to deter dangers.
The safety of travelers was the concern of the Viarii as well as the government. Bandits were known to damage roads and bridges as well as poison water supplies, which fell under the jurisdiction of the Viarii.48 To combat brigandage specifically, Sienese authorities instituted
fines; deforestation efforts (l’opera di disboscamento) to prevent bandits from hiding in trees;
deputized armed groups to search for malefactors (l’impiego di drappelli armati); and executed
captured brigands, displaying the corpses along the section of the road where the crime was
committed. However, Siena struggled with the implementation of laws with regards to high
density versus low-density areas: in 1380, men within the towns of Torrita and Lucignano
48 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 13. 25
(villages both under the dominion of Siena) were penalized 800 lire for having taken in and
hidden Bettino of Lucignano and Domenico di Bettuccio of Rigomagno, described as “robatori
di strada, mascalzoni micidiali” (“street robbers, deadly rascals”).49 Notably, Bettino was
described as “da Lucignano,” implying that it was his own hometown that covered for him
against the city authorities. This incident illustrates the trouble that Siena had with enforcing its
authority in low-density areas further away from the capital of the contado.50 In contrast, Paolo da Certaldo (1320-1370), a merchant and writer on the Via Francigena, did however note that one could go safely from Siena to Lucca––a distance that crossed almost all of Siena’s northern territory, and involved travel through Florentine territory––without fear. This also suggests that the safety of contado areas depended on the governance of neighboring territories as well as
Siena’s own. Torrita and Lucignano were in Siena’s southern territory, closer to the territory of the Papal States, while to the north Lucca maintained its own independent state and bordered
Florence’s territory. Brigandry continued to be a concern for Siena for centuries. Capital punishment for assaulting pilgrims was reinforced in 1469 and bridges within the contado were fortified in 1473 for the 1475 Jubilee year, “atteso quanto comodo et honore si cava d’essa strada” (“[awaiting] the amount of convenience and honor extracted from this road”).51
The road governance system established under the Statutum Dominorum Viarium not
only accommodated the increased number of pilgrims but specifically enticed and encouraged
pilgrimage along the Via Francigena. For pilgrims to be assured of their well-maintained roads,
clean fountains, and especially their safety would only encourage more pilgrims to travel. While
49 Ibid 17. Translation by me. 50 “Contado;” the countryside, the territory an Italian city-state commune controlled outside of its own city walls. 51 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 14. ASS Concistoro 2125. P. Pertici, La citta magnificata: interventi edilizi a Siena nel Quattrocento, 1995. 26 pilgrims were choosing to make such a perilous journey, the Sienese strived to make travel as safe, easy, and painless as possible across its territory. The Sienese were well aware of the wealth that could be derived from the Via Francigena, but equally aware of their role to play as opsitanto: guests must not only be protected, but accommodated.
27
3.2 Branch Shrines
The establishment of the Via Francigena as a route of two-way traffic––traffic to and from Rome and France, the traffic of travelers surviving their journey to make it back again–– was an essential part of both security and an assurance of security. While Bell and Dale discuss the importance of branch shrines as receiving donations from pilgrims on their way to final destinations, ospedale and misericordia will be discussed in this section as a type of branch or assurance stop.
Ospedale and misericordia (“hospital” and “mercy”) were large, self-sustained superstructures dedicated to the care of ill, infirmed, and poor, as well as pilgrims and orphans.52
Unlike a modern-day hospital, ospedali did not aim to cure the sick, but to simply provide them with palliative care. Ospedali frequently cared for the regular traveler as well as the sick pilgrim.
Often home to more than one religious order, ospedali were considered the most reliable respite for pilgrims. As part of the transcontinental pilgrimage complex, the treasurers of ospedali were prepared to take the money or valuables of pilgrims, in exchange for a document in the treasurer’s own hand.53 The pilgrims could pick up their money on their return journey; however, if they died before returning, the amount would be taken as a donation to the ospedale.54
52 Tuliani, Osti, 20. 53 Meek, “Lucca and Pilgrimage in the Later Middle Ages: A Two-Way Traffic,” 94. 54 Gabriella Piccinni and Lucia Travaini’s Il Libro del Pellegrino (Siena 1382-1446) accounts for all valuables left in the care of L’Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala during that time period. If the pilgrim did not return, having died before the return journey, the valuables were taken in as a donation to the ospedale. 28
Additionally, pilgrims could take out the same amount at a sister location of the same religious
order at another destination. This type of monetary assurance alleviated one main worry of being
robbed and left penniless miles from home.
While wandering down the Strada Romana, before reaching L’Ospedale di Santa Maria
della Scala, the pilgrim would also be met by the many churches that lined the road: with their
doors open and relics on display, they were equally receptive to pilgrim’s donations.55 Shrine revenues went to three main funds: textiles for the church, supporting the local religious community, and the accommodation and sustenance for pilgrims, particularly poor and sick pilgrims.56 While there was definitive variance in the allocation of funds depending on the
shrine, what the pilgrim received from a donation was not only the benefit of faith but the benefit
of investing in their own care, either on the way to or from their destination.
The continuity that branch shrines, either in the form of churches or ospedali and
misericordie run by religious communities, offered to the traveler was immense. Not only did the
branch shrine establish a sense of continuity throughout the continent, but also an assurance of
two-way travel and safety on both sides of the journey––as well as the assurance that the pilgrim
would be making a roundtrip.
55 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 37. 56 Bell, Dale, “Medieval Pilgrimage Business,” 616. 29
3.3 Accommodation & Ancillary Services
While pilgrims risked robbery, illness, and death to fulfill their faithful journey, pilgrims
also faced more mundane daily challenges: where to sleep and where to eat. Accommodation for
pilgrims ranged between a roof-over-the-head to superstructures that provided associated needs,
such as medical care, banking, and security. Bread, wine, and foodstuffs were bought for long
stretches of the road, but also for sale in towns were items in need of replacing like sandals,
pouches, flasks, straps, belts, and medicinal herbs and spices.57 The hospitality industry in
Siena––selling accommodation, food, and goods––formed a large part of the pilgrimage economy. However, the nature of travel-worn or disorderly pilgrims coming down the Strada
Romana looking to spend money clashed with the government’s need to present a beautiful city.
Siena compromised between the two needs by developing an urban plan that presented the best of Sienese wares for sale––engaging the pilgrims in the economy––while carefully hemming in any potential disruption to discrete zones––allowing Siena to form a picturesque city façade.
Within Siena’s territory, there were many types of alberghi (a stay or hostel) available to pilgrims. The types of hostels available to pilgrims can be separated into two broad categories: those available on the road and those available within the city. The types listed are drawn from the records of Archivio di Stato di Siena, primarily the gabella, which was a yearly table that
57 Bell, Dale, “Medieval Pilgrimage Business,” 622. 30
recorded the assets citizens within the city possessed, including money-making stays.58 (See
Appendix A, Tables 1-3 for the full organization of the archive materials discussed.)
Along the road, available to pilgrims were ospedali, xenodochio, and various forms of
private houses and estates.59 These accommodations––particularly the opsedali and xendochio––
were strategically placed in ideal walking distance along the Via Francigena to serve as precise
route stages. Ospedale (“hospital”) were large, self-sufficient superstructures that were dedicated
to the care of both the community as well as outsiders such as pilgrims, and frequently
maintained pilgrim halls with many beds for pilgrims. As mentioned in the above section, they additionally offered a secure location in which to leave valuables or gold for recollection during the return journey. L’Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala di Siena, located just off the Strada
Romana within Siena, was the model of many medieval ospedali and a major influence on the accommodations that other ospedali offered their pilgrims.
Xenodochio were part of a larger ospedale superstructure but were placed apart from the
physical structure of the ospedale, usually along the walking road for convenience to the
pilgrims.60 This was as opposed to ospedale, which were frequently located slightly off the road,
within cities or town. Xenodochio were usually very simple, without many rooms, and allowed
only a short period for a stay, usually one night. The best-case scenario could be seen in the
Xenodochio di Poggibonsi (within Siena’s contado), which included ten beds in the pilgrimage hall, a sick hall, a warehouse, cantina, stables, cloister, and grainery. However, the usual xendochio were microstructures with limited bed space, such as: L’Ospedaletto di Castilgion
58 Tuliani, Osti, 20-31. Specific archive materials on 209. 59 Tuliani, Osti, 20. 60 Tuliani, Osti, 21-25. 31
Ghinibaldi, four beds; Xendochio di Monte San Savino, three beds; Xenodochio di
Monteriggioni, one bed. Also available along the road were various forms of homes, estates, or
farms: mansiones, stationes, stabula, and mutationes. These were the simplest hostels available,
offering a baseline roof-over-the-head, let alone a bed.
Within the city, the name of the hostel indicated either the cost or the food served. Many of the hostels were run out of homes and by the thirteenth century, any private house within
Siena could serve as a stay (an ostia) as long as it adopted a visual sign.61 Lodging was divided
between hospitium, diversorium, and coupona. A hospitium was “a place of hospitality,” which
indicated at least a bed.62 Diversorium, however, indicated the most respectable places, as “a
place of rest.”63 Meanwhile, coupona was simply an ordinary tavern, if not a very cheap hostel.
Food and beverage were divided into popina, taberna, and thermopolium.64 All of these
fell under the general category of taberna/taverna, which has a broad semantic aspect. Generally,
it indicated an inn that had a tap of wine. Taberna/taverna carried on from the late antique
tradition of being placed near churches and monasteries for the needs of travelers. Popina was an
exclusively wine-serving bar. Thermopolium served hot food. However, neither a popina or
thermopolium necessarily had a hostel attached.
The volume of pilgrims coming through Siena presented challenges and opportunities.
Opportunities included the money that could be made by pilgrims paying their way through
Sienese hostels, taverns, and goods on their way through the city. However, pilgrims could also
bring with them disease, death, and disorderly conduct. In order to mitigate the effect the
61 Tuliani, Osti, 22. 62 “Luogo per l’ospitalità.” 63 “Luogo per sostare.” 64 Tuliani, Osti, 23. 32 pilgrims had on the city’s orderliness but maximize the profits of the pilgrims, the hostels for pilgrims were zoned specifically throughout the city.
When a pilgrim entered into Siena with the intention of staying the night, they entered either through the northward Porta Camollia or the southward Porta Romana, with the Strada
Romana stretching between the two and curving around the Piazza del Campo. At the tip of the
Piazza del Campo is the
intersection of the three major
thoroughfares of the city, Croce
del Travaglio: Banchi di Sotto,
Banchi di Sopra, and Via di
Città. The Banchi di Sotto and
di Sopra were portions of the
Strada Romana; the Via di Città
the route that branches off the
Strada Romana to meet the
Duomo di Siena and
L’Ospedale di Santa Maria della
Scala.65 Noticeably, the Banchi
Figure 3-1: Map of gates and walls of Siena by 1480. Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 14. di Sopra was extended with the Croce del Travaglio to include the Via di Città: this worked as a leg to escort the pilgrims up to the Duomo complex, where the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala was situated across from
65 Nevola, “Urban Renewal,” 29. 33 the Duomo, where they could rest. At the Croce del Travaglio, the three terzi meet here; the terzi are the three sections of the city, each encompassing some number of the contrade.
The Croce del Travaglio is, as Fabrizio Nevola puts it, “the golden triangle” of Sienese real estate.66 Wealthy Sienese bought and owned botteghe: shops that lined the street-level, frequently in the bottom of urban palazzos, and the prized location for a bottega was on the
Strada Romana. Andrea di Nanni Piccolomini, the nephew of the Piccolomini Pope Pius II, specified in his will where exactly the botteghe he was endowing were supposed to be built within the city.
[I]n civitate Sene. [P]ro mi[g]liori pretio fieri proterit, quo apotece sint a Platea Ptolomeorum, venendo per Stratam usque ad Platea Piccolominorum, voluendo per ipsam plateam ve[r]sus Sanctu Martinum, et intrando per Porrionem, et veniendo verso Plateam et Campum fori, et per totum ipsium Campum, et ascendendo per Porta Salariam, et venendo per Stratam et iam que vadit versus Cruce Travagli.67
In the city of Siena. Drive forth fiercely for the best value, where the shops should be from Piazza Tolomei, coming through the Strada up to Piazza Piccolomini, turning through that same piazza towards S. Martino, and which is to be entered through [via del] Porrione, and which is to come towards the Piazza del Campo, and through all of the very Campo, and which is to be ascended through Porta Salaria, and coming through the Strada and here already walks along the Croce del Travaglio.
The botteghe of the Strada Romana were incredibly lucrative for their owners, landlords, and the city as a whole. In 1309 industrial pursuits that drained the water supply and were generally unappealing to the eye were banned from the Strada Romana.68 In 1309, luxury retailers were concentrated on a strip of the Strada Romana known as Banchi di Sopra; including jewelers, goldsmiths, and perfumers. Meanwhile, blacksmiths were zoned out of the street in
66 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 126-7. 67 Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 126, from ASS, Consorteria Piccolomini 17: Contratti di Andrea di Nanni Piccolomini (1464-1519) fol. 87 and ff. (28 January 1507). 68 Tanners, meat, hay, barbers, leather, butchesrs, linen-makers, cobblers and saffron sellers. They were relocated to major fountains, such as the Fontebranda and Ovile. 34
1459.69 When luxury retailers were zoned specifically to Strada Romana, the effect meant that the pilgrims coming through the main street of the city not only spied their lodging for the night, but a whole host of luxury Sienese-made goods waiting for them to buy.
All of the accommodations for pilgrims within the city, gathered from the Archivio di
Stato di Siena, are split up by terzi.
The majority of hostels (alberghi) are
grouped within Terzo di Camollia
and Terzo di San Martino; Terzo di
Città does not have the main road of
the Strada Romana running through
it, only a branch of the Banchi di
Sopra. This puts not only the
majority of hostels within the section
of the city that the Strada Romana
occupies, but frequently on the
Strada Romana. For example, a large
number of the alberghi listed in the
Appendix, Table 1 are within Terzo
di Camollia are located near popolo
Figure 3-2: Map of the terzi of Siena. Heywood, William, Palio and Ponte: an account of the sports of Central Italy di Sant’Andrea and popolo di San from the age of Dante to the XXth Century. London (Metheun), 1904. Vincenzo. Sant’Andrea is located on the
69 Nevola, “Urban Renewal,” 26, 31. 35
Strada Romana, right only a couple of blocks from Porta Camollia, while San Donato is located
only three blocks away from Sant’Andrea. As noted above, there was a late antique tradition of
tavernas being constructed next to churches to supply pilgrims with foodstuffs. Perhaps the
majority of the alberghi naturally sprung up around here, to cater to exhausted pilgrims entering
into the city through the Porta Camollia. However, even if it began as a coincidence that the
majority of inns were located next to Sant’Andrea and San Donato, which happen to be next to
the main gates of the city, it did not remain a coincidence. Siena specifically zoned a limited
number of hotels and inns to the Strada Romana and the main streets, capitalizing on the
segregation of pilgrims within the economic heart of the city. This would force Rome-bound
pilgrims to travel through an entire host of Sienese
goods to get to the Porta Romana and onto Rome,
and hopefully entice their purchase.
However, Siena lessened the effect of an
overwhelming number of pilgrims within the city by
creating an overflow area for pilgrims at the
northern tip of the city known as the Castellaccia.
The Porta Camollia, Siena’s northern gate, was a
series of three gates and defensive barriers.70 Inside
the first gate was the Prato di Camollia: it was a
Figure 3-3: Cini, Giovanni di Lorenzo, Biccherna 49, La non-walled area and large, open space that flanked Vittoria di Porta Camollia a Siena nel 1526, Archivio di Stato di Siena, Museo delle Biccherne. Prato di Camollia the Via Francigena. Within the second gate was the is illustrated in the left-hand side.
70 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 36. 36
Castellaccia. The Torrione di Mezzo was connected to the Porta Camollia by an earthen work that created a walled area just outside the city gates. It was walled and protected, yet not quite within the city walls, and was densely packed with shops, hostels, and spedali, all of which could cater freely to Siena’s pilgrim population. Siena, meanwhile, could close its gates at night to rowdy pilgrims and those merchants selling the undesirable, non-luxurious wares banned from the Strada Romana could freely operate. In the morning, then, when the gates opened up again the pilgrims were escorted through the city on their way to Rome or the Duomo di Siena, they would encounter the luxury items of the Banchi di Sopra.
The Croce del Travaglio and the Strada Romana are where not only the economic activity of the city was concentrated, but the political activity as well. Siena maintained a careful balancing act between showcasing the city’s splendor to political elites and international visitors as well as welcoming in the average pilgrim. Palazzo Pubblico was built specifically right off of the Croce del Travaglio so it is accessible, and visible to all terzi of the city.71 Along the Strada
Romana and its branches of the Banchi di Sopra and Banchi di Sotto the palazzi of the great families were built, including Palazzo
Piccolomini (the family of Pius II), Palazzo
Malavolti (a premier Ghibelline nobile family, run out of the city after the Battle of Figure 3-4: The remodeled Palazzo Tolomei. From Grossman, “A Case of Double Identity: The Public and Private Faces of the Palazzo Tolomei in Siena,” 52. Labels by author. Montaperti), and Palazzo Tolomei.72
71 Smith, Steinhoff, Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, 63. 72 Nevola, “Urban Renewal,” 29. 37
Palazzo Tolomei was originally, like the majority of the great Sienese palazzi, a castellare, or urban castle.73 The castellare were slim townhouses with a great tower atop. In times of civic strife, the household could ascend the tower and draw up the ladder and wait for the turmoil to calm down. After the construction of the Torre del Mangia, these private towers
were systematically lowered to
be smaller than the new civic
symbol.74 However, it was not
only government regulation
that pushed the premier
families of Siena to remodel
from an inward-facing,
defensive castellare to a larger
and more welcoming palazzo.
In 1207 the Tolomei family
converted their castellare to a
palazzo on the site of the
demolished castellare.75 The Figure 3-5: Map of the location of castellare within Siena, identified by family each castellare belonged to. From Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, erected palazzo had its façade 159. facing the Via dei Termini, but by 1254 the family remodeled their palace façade to face the
Strada Romana, which had recently been paved. However, unlike its other neighboring palazzi,
73 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 119. 74 Smith, Steinhoff, Art as Politics, 67. 75 Max Grossman, “A Case of Double Identity: The Public and Private Faces of the Palazzo Tolomei in Siena,” 52. 38
Palazzo Tolomei did not invest in any botteghe.76 Instead, an open, ground-floor loggia was built on the new, Strada Romana-facing façade to conduct banking business.
Even by 1254, when the Tolomei family remodeled their palace to face the Strada
Romana, it was clear that not only was the Strada Romana the economic and political center of the city, but also the cultural center, as well. Not only were the political and economic elite invested in attaching themselves to the city street so as to maintain their influence and wealth from the Via Francigena, but the Sienese government was invested in the Strada Romana as the showcase of the city’s beauty, power, and pride.
Siena shaped itself around the Via Francigena. Its main political and religious centers spread off from it––the Duomo and Palazzo Pubblico––while Siena actively transformed the
Strada Romana into its main economic hub. This included wealthy banking families who built and managed their banks from their great palazzi on the Banchi di Sopra. But the Via Francigena was not simply a road, that conveniently ran through the middle of the city: it was the thoroughfare of people, goods, places, news, and wealth that funded Siena––“diventò rico,” as
Agnolo di Tura said, “made one rich.”
The Strada Romana was the living centerpiece of town. Pilgrims made their way through the city, to find their beds, wine, and food before they left for Rome, and in doing so alberghi, taverns, and shops sprung up in their wake. But this was not an accidental occurrence that shaped
Siena: Siena actively transformed itself to both cater to these pilgrims and to entice them. Siena halted the majority of pilgrims in the Castellaccia, slimming the number that actually stayed within the city on the Strada Romana to maintain order. By streamlining the pilgrimage route
76 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 127. 39 through the city, offering easily locatable alberghi and taberna, and protecting the Via
Francigena, Siena’s urban landscape offered itself with open arms to the pilgrims, but rigorously maintained peace. Siena continued upkeep with the Strada Romana, not only zoning and paving it, but even instituting a civic beautification campaign in the fifteenth century that kept the ornata della città alive and well. Siena grew with the Strada Romana, creating a symbiotic relationship, not an incidental cause-and-effect.
The accommodations for pilgrims on the Via Francigena, whether or not it be the various inns, taverns, and hotels constructed for them; the upkeep of the road; or the protection and penalties levelled against brigands all created an organic force. As the Via Francigena and its pilgrims functioned as an organism, pushing through and onwards continually and creating its own pathways, Siena began to grow with the Via Francigena in a partnership. While medieval city planning never took the form of Roman gridded city plans, to say that Siena “accidentally” found its shape is misleading at best. Siena worked with and through the reality of the Via
Francigena and Strada Romana to shape its own city, and capitalized on the opportunities that the
Via Francigena presented to create its own carefully laid zones, districts, and hubs. Siena carefully pruned and crafted its own shape from a great organic growth. 40
Chapter 4 Siena’s Own: Separating the Strada Romana from Outside Influence
On July 12th, 1432, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg met the Signori of
Siena on the Prato di Camollia in a choreographed, ritual meeting: underneath a baldacchino, flanked by over a thousand onlookers and the billowing banners of the Empire and the
Commune, the Signori offered Sigismund the keys to city.77 Sigismund accepted the keys, kissed them, and returned them to the Signori, saying, “Siate voi proprii guardia della vostra citta senese.” (“You be your own guards of your own Sienese city.”)78 Afterwards, Sigismund made a ritual pilgrimage on the Strada Romana to the Porta Romana. Shields were hung on every street corner, garlands and carpets decorated windows, and churches had candles burning with their altarpieces set outside the church. From the Porta Romana, Sigismund returned to the Duomo di
Siena, where he paid respects to the Sienese saints and Virgin Mary, the patron saint and protectress of Siena. Once he left the cathedral, the baldacchino was ripped to shreds by the mob in a symbolic display of violence. After having affirmed the independence of Siena’s governance, journeyed through the heart of Siena, and paid his respects to Siena’s spiritual authorities, the ripped baldacchino now marked Emperor Sigismund as a welcome, honorary
Sienese.
Sigismund’s pilgrimage was emblematic of the importance of pilgrimage to Siena.
Pilgrimage was not simply Siena’s trade: the Strada Romana was the face of Siena’s
77 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 37. 78 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 37. Tommaso Fecini, Cronaca Senese, 844. 41 international social, economic, and political life. The city presented the Strada Romana, invested in it, and adorned it not only as the heart but the face of Siena. It was the Strada Romana, in all its splendor, that Sigismund journeyed down to appreciate the beauty of the city; the Strada
Romana was presented to Sigismund as the best and pride of the city. Pilgrimage was so quintessentially Sienese that it was the ritualized pilgrimage through Siena itself that was
Sigismund’s recognition of his host city’s sovereignty. The pilgrimage business complex allowed
Siena the economic fortitude to maintain its independence and was symbolic of Siena’s self- governance.
Sigismund’s visit to the city was the first of many other imperial, royal, and papal visits during the 1400s.79 The Via Francigena meant that Siena was not only convenient for pilgrims going to Rome, but princes as well. These official visits spurred several successive building campaigns, most particularly the establishment of the Ufficiali sopra l’ornata della città.
79 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 29. The visits included: Emperor Charles IV (1355), Pope Martin V (1423), Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg (1432), Pope Eugenius IV (1443), Emperor Frederick III and Elenora of Portugal (1451), Pope Pius II (1459-1460), King Christian I of Denmark (1474), King Charles VIII of France (1494). 42
4.1 Beautifying the City: Ornata della Città
The Strada Romana winding its way across craggy hilltops has given Siena an iconic
profile that greatly contrasted with Roman gridded systems like that of its eternal neighbor-rival,
Florence. While Siena does not fit the typical profile for “orderly,” as discussed in the last chapter, Siena mapped a carefully arranged city around the Strada Romana’s natural shape that both accommodated and encouraged the needs of its pilgrims. In order to grow beauty from this orderly city, Siena was determined to make both the Strada Romana and the Piazza del Campo a continuous and contiguous series of façades.
As early as 1297 it was clear that the architectural intention of the Piazza del Campo was to have every façade mimic that of Palazzo Pubblico.80 This ambition was never fully realized,
except in the case of the mirroring façade of Palazzo Sansedoni, the desire was still expressed by
Siena, especially in the case of the failed attempt to build a Nuova Torre that would have
matched the Torre del Mangia in height. Instead, the Piazza del Campo was augmented with
sculptural decoration such as Jacopo della Quercia’s decorative Fonte Gaia in 1342 and the
Cappella di Piazza (built between 1348-1374; completed between 1468-1470). Desire for
symmetry took a turn for a more subtle route: in 1370, a shop belonging to Niccholò Toni was
slated to be demolished because it projected “three-quarters of an ell”––roughly fifteen inches––
from the row of houses facing the Piazza del Campo.81 This marks the beginning of a systematic
80 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 106. 81 Smith, Steinhoff, Art as Politics, 67. 43
civic beautification campaign that was characterized by a smooth, even façade for the Strada
Romana, demolitions of unsightly overhangs, and emphasis on luxury materials by the office of
Ufficiali sopra l’ornato.
In 1398, public officials began voicing concerns about the appearance of the Campo and
the Strada Romana: “in every good city and adornment and improvement of the city is taken care
of,” and after several different attempted strategies at encouraged citizens to take up civil
beautification in the early fifteenth century, the Ufficiali sopra l’ornata was established in
1458.82 As Fabrizio Nevola writes:
“The very term “ornato” defies an easy translation, for it coincides with both an aesthetic value of beauty and decorum, but also a collective qualitative judgement defined by the ideal of the well ordered and dignified city, where beauty is a civic virtue that overcomes the shame of squalor and disrepair.”83
The officials of the Ufficiali sopra l’ornato came out of the office of the Patroni, who were the counterparts of the Viarii discussed in chapter three. While the Viarii were concerned
with the physical maintenance of the road, the Patroni were concerned with the property law and
zoning concerning the Strada Romana.84 The Ufficiali sopra l’ornato was an office of nine men
whose job was to enforce and encourage the implementation of beautification policies with a
combination of fines and cash incentives.
Between 1444 and 1471 the government identified over two-hundred properties that needed to be in some way improved or beautified for the general well-being of the city.85 Out of
the 108 sites identified today as having been modified during this time period for the purpose of
“ornate della città,” (“adorning the city”) fifty-four were on the Strada Romana, sixteen were on
82 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 91, 98. 83 Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 98. 84 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 98. 85 Nevola, “Urban Renewal,” 32. 44 the Campo itself, and another fourteen were split between Via di Città and Via del Pellegrino, both of which are Strada Romana branches stretching to the Duomo.86
Ufficiali sopra l’ornato was mostly concerned with ballatoi, which were wooden balconies, and sporti, closed projecting porches that extended several stories.87 Palazzo Tolomei
even had a wooden bridge
over the Strada Romana to
attach the palazzo to the
Tolomei family’s other
holdings on the street.88 The
removal of the ballatoi was
not immediate, peaking in
the latter half of the 1460s,
and even grudging.89 In
1463, Agostino di Iacomo
appealed to the Commune to
force Bishop Giovanni
Cinughi to remove his Figure 4-1: Map of the interventions of Maestri sopra all'ornato between 1431-1480. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 101. ballatoio, because “he practically does nothing but apologize all day” for not removing it.
86 Nevola, “Urban Renewal,” 32. 87 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 119; Smith, Steinhoff, Art as Politics, 68. 88 Grossman, “Double Identity of Palazzo Tolomei,” 54. 89 Nevola, “Urban Renewal,” 33. 45
However, by the late 1460s and 1470s, removal of the ballatoi appeared to become more popular. Many of Siena’s patrons seemed eager to help and take advantage of the remodelling campaign. In 1474, the Abbot of San Galgano, a monastery within the Sienese contado, approached the Commune to build a palace on the Strada Romana at the Porta Romana, with a provision even included to align the new façade of the palace to its neighbors to help straighten out the street.90
“[H]avendo veduto quello bello palazzo che fa lo abate di San Galgano presso ala Madalena nella città nostra; hanno consyderato che potendo adactare che i vicini che vi hanno ballatoio li levassero e pareggiassero le facciate come è facto il disegno, farebbe grande bellezza della vostra città in quella strada Romana.”91
“[H]aving seen that beautiful palace which the Abbot of San Galgano is building near the Maddalena in our city; we have considered that if the neighbors that have raised overhangs [ballatoio] that being able to demolish them, take them off and make equal the façades how it is done in the drawing, would make great beauty in your city along the Strada Romana.” Figure 4-2: Picture of the façade of Palazzo di San Galgano, tightly inline with the rest of the Strada Romana's curvature. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 135.
In 1468, a member of the del Taia family seized the opportunity as well as government subsidies to rebuild the entire family palazzo, as the regulations about the ballatoi “[caused the
90 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 132. 91 Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 132; ASS, Consiglio General 236, fol. 192v (18 December 1475). Said drawing has since been lost. 46 entire original palace] to collapse and it became necessary to rebuild it from the foundations”.92
While Francesco di Goro di Cristofano del Taia’s complaint is most likely exaggerated, the implementation of these new rules appear to have been stringent.
The strict regulations and rules seem out of place with how carefully Siena cultivated its
Strada Romana to look winding, flowing, and casual. The Strada Romana’s flowing façade appears so natural as to trick the eye from seeing the order augmenting the beauty. Ever since the
Via Francigena wandered through Siena and laid down its pavement as the Strada Romana,
Siena displayed the best of the city along the road. The connected the two poles of the authority, the Duomo and the Palazzo Pubblico, within the city and drew the terzi together in the Croce del
Travaglio. On the Strada Romana rested the livelihood of Siena’s elite, the flow of pilgrims and goods, and the importance of Siena as a wayside between Rome and Paris. It is no wonder that the Sienese dedicated so much time to meticulously aligning the street, funding the creation of new palaces, and the demolition of the tiniest protuberance, like Niccholò Toni’s ill-fated shop.
Nothing in Siena could have been more organically grown yet diligently pruned as the Strada
Romana: it was the mantle upon which the Sienese hung their best. However, the Strada Romana was tightly tied to Siena’s self-conception and foreign rulers were allowed very little interaction with the Strada Romana in order to exclude them from influencing the city’s self-governance.
92 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 119. 47
4.2 Interior Building Campaigns
Returning to the summer love story between Siena and Sigismund’s court, it was captured in Historia de duobus amantibus (The Tale of Two Lovers) by a native Sienese man,
Aeneas Silvius Bartholomeus Piccolomini, future Pope Pius II.93 Historia de duobus amantibus was an international bestseller with over thirty editions and multiple translations by 1500, despite only being published in 1443. Piccolomini begins the star-crossed tale when the unhappy Sienese lady, Lucretia, spies through her window the German lord Eurialus passing on the street. Their love continues to grow through a series of lingering looks, secret messages, and promises, when they finally consummate their love after Eurialus scales the walls of her palace after her husband leaves. Ultimately, he leaves Lucretia behind to go fulfill his duty in
Germany and marry a duke’s daughter, leaving behind a brokenhearted Lucretia.
The novella is roman à clef, based on the romance between a nobleman Kaspar von Figure 4-3: Illustration of Eurialus and Lucrezia, from the 1864 publication of Storia di Due Amanti (Milan), Courting Schlick and an unidentified Sienese woman.94 in the streets of Siena. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 41.
93 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 31. 94 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 32. 48
Kaspar von Schlick was the Imperial Chancellor to Sigismund was attached to the court in Siena during the stay of 1432-1433. Piccolomini wrote the story in 1443, ten years after the events, while serving as a secretary in the Imperial Chancery to Emperor Frederick III, whose Imperial
Chancellor was Schlick himself. Piccolomini sent a copy of the original manuscript with a note attached to Schlick where he referred to Siena as “the city of Venus,” and clearly implied it was about Schlick’s amorous adventures in Siena.
The climax of the story, where Eurialus finally enters Lucretia’s chambers, formed a quintessentially Sienese frame for the story, written with an intimate knowledge of Siena and the imperial court’s arrangement in Siena. Fabrizio Nevola explained, expressing how Piccolomini’s deep knowledge of Siena formed the theatre for Eurialus and Lucretia’s love: “The narrow alleys, in turn, provided a vital feature for the architecture of the narrative, as Eurialus gains entry to Lucretia’s chamber by scaling the walls between neighboring properties.”95 Not only do the winding streets and the alleys of Siena, pressing properties close together, provide a physical route for Eurialus and Lucretia to interact, but the alleys of Siena create a porous border between public and private life.
“Lucretia’s house stood mid way between the Emperor’s court and Eurialus’ lodging; and every time he went to the palace, he could see her displaying herself at an upper window. But Lucretia always blushed, when she saw Eurialus, and from this the Emperor guessed that she was in love. For, riding about the town in all directions, as was his custom, he often passed her and noticed how she was affected by the presence of Eurialus, who was always with the Emperor, like Maecenas with Octavian.”96
While Eurialus carries out daily, public business with the Emperor out in the civil scene of the street, his feelings with Lucretia spill over into public from the private scene of her window. Palazzo Tolomei, as discussed previously, remodeled its facade to face the Strada
95 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 43. 96 Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius. The Tale of the Two Lovers. Translated by Flora Grierson. 1978. 49
Romana with a ground-level loggia to conduct business. Palazzo Tolomei carefully blurs the line
between the private family life and the family’s business. Similarly, Lucretia’s window facing
the street serves as the bridge between the lovers’ private feelings and their civic duties. The streets of Siena serve as a spotlight for civic and public duties, and the Strada Romana specifically exemplified Siena’s own civic identity. Historia de duobus amantibus illustrates the
where the public street life met the private life of citizens’ palazzi.
The ornata della città urban renewal campaign was focused on civic beauty and pride, organizing the Strada Romana for the maximum effect of both pilgrim and prince. However, while the ornata della città beautified the city for a pilgrim passing through it, princely visits and long-staying dignitaries required the movement of civic and public pride into the interior spaces of palazzi reserved specially for these international politically significant visits. Princely visits also sparked interior renewal efforts for individual palazzi as well as hostels and monasteries.
This trend is most evident in the interior renewal campaign spurred on by the visits of Emperor
Sigismund in 1432 and Pope Pius II from 1459-1460.
After his ritual pilgrimage, Emperor Sigismund was sequestered in a curious choice of residence, the Palazzetto di S. Marta. The Palazzetto was near the convent of S. Agostino next to
Porta Tufi, outside of the old city walls of Castelvecchio and the Porta all’Arco and facing the
open space of Prato di S. Agostino with open countryside and gardens until reaching the city
walls.97 It was originally built by Bishop Donusdeo Malavolti in 1384 as a hospice, but later
housed many of Siena’s most honored guests.
97 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 38. 50
This visit sparked an interior renewal of the Palazzetto. A new kitchen was built and
interior decoration and furniture was clearly given much attention.98 An intarsia master was
contracted to install new work in the Palazzetto, while prominent citizens loaned and rented out
their most lavish furniture. Niccolò di Antonio Tolomei loaned out chests, cupboards, and three
bed; one bed had decorative paintings and the other two intarsia work. Numerous carpets and
tapestries were also collected from private citizens, tapestry merchants, and religious complexes
alike, including a set of twelve
tapestries that depicted various stories
including Alexander the Great and
Sheba, which was afterwards bought by
the Commune for Palazzo Pubblico.
However, this renewal was limited to a
single palace and, furthermore, was not
a true restoration. The rented furniture Figure 4-4: Drawing of Palazzetto di S. Marta, attributed to Vincenzo Ferrati. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 38. and quickly renovated kitchen indicate
what will grow to be a larger trend in Sienese renewal campaigns with the later visit of Pius II,
but it was also ultimately a quick fix for city full of palaces that needed heartier renovation
efforts.
Pope Pius II was born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini (Aeneas Silvius
Bartholomeus in Latin) 1405 in Corsignano, a small town controlled by Siena.99 When he was born, the Piccolomini family’s wealth had been lost to Florentine competition, though the family
98 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 38. 99 Hilary, “The Nepotism of Pope Pius II, 1458-1464.” 51
retained many of their estates. House Piccolomini was a noble family associated with the
Noveschi Party that had been expelled from the city in 1355 when the Noveschi-controlled
government, the Nova Council, was overthrown and disallowed from participating in Sienese
government. In 1459, when Pope Pius visited Siena, the noble families of the Noveschi were
allowed back in the city, a gesture of respect to the new pontiff.
Throughout his reign, Pius made time for Siena. Elected in the year 1457, Pius visited
Siena in early 1459 (February) while en route to Mantua, where he would hold the Council of
Mantua in 1459, calling all of the princes of Christendom for a three-year long crusade against the Ottomans.100 Pointedly, Pius almost immediately adjourned back to Siena from Mantua in
1460, where he stayed a total of seven months. Pius imbued much political importance on Siena
by making it the centerpiece of the papal court after such an influential, international event as
attempting to launch a crusade. Should any diplomats wish to convene with both the leader of
Rome, the pope, or any of the cardinals––who themselves were typically bishops over large
cities and maintained large estates as well as other political interests––Siena was the city to call
upon.
Pius’s decision to visit the city in 1459 had great effect.101 Everyone in town was
scrambling to put on a great entrance and procession; the pope was arriving almost unexpectedly
and had decided to stay for several weeks before proceeding to Mantua, and would return to stay
seventh months during 1460 after his time in Mantua. The minute Pius stepped into the city, the
transformation was almost physical. The pope’s residence in Siena had the city suddenly
100 Nevola, “Ritual Geography.” 101 Navola, “Ritual Geography.” 52 booming with renovations and restorations in palazzi and contrade, and the work continued while the pope was in Mantua, preparing for his return.
The papal court’s arrival spurred the renewal and restoration of interior palazzi, hostels, and monasteries. Pius arrived with a whole host of people: his advisors and attendants, many cardinals and various clingers-on, and all of their attaché, down to and including stables and stable boys. The city government threw themselves full-heartedly into finding places to accommodate the vast number of guests including the palazzi and monasteries, especially after the visit of 1459. Sienese ambassadors travelled to Mantua to send news back to Siena of the pope’s plans, and learned that the reception in Siena left much desired in the minds of the cardinals. Cardinal Pietro Barbo said to the ambassadors, “non se fermarà in Siena ala tornata ma per rectas vias andarà ad Roma” (“[Barbo] will not stop in Siena for the return but will go to
Rome by straight roads [rectas vias]”). Sienese ambassadors relayed back to city’s authorities:
…ci ha dicto che V. S. [Vossignorie] farieno bene a provedere a più stanze per li cardinali che sia possibile senza consegnarle ad alcuno se non quanto piaccia al Summo Pontefice. Hora le V. S. [Vossignorie] sono sapientissime che provederanno quanto lo parrà conveniente per lo honore e debito publico. Advisando le vostre excellentie che Mantova hoggi è molto ornata di prelati e signori, di Ambasciatori e di molta corte, et è una bella Mantova ed. oltra a questo c’è molte stanze belle e grandi e degne. Ecci habundantissimo di ogni cosa. Questo scriviamo acciò che V. S. [Vossignorie] intendino ad pleno et possino provvedere perchè come sa la S. V. ei cortigiani possono assai nel papa non essendo bene tractate.102
…[Alexandro Mirabilli] has said to us Your Excellencies would do well to arrange as many rooms for the cardinals that is possible without committing these to any without the needed approval of the Supreme Pontiff [pope]. Now, Your Excellencies are very wise and will provide what will seem suitable for public honor and purse. Your Excellencies are advised that Mantua now is very honored of prelates and lords, of ambassadors and of many courtiers, and is one beautiful Mantua and in addition to this, there are many beautiful, large, and admirable rooms. There is an abundance of everything. We write this in order that Your Excellencies understand fully and can provide because as Your Excellencies know the courtiers can sway the pope if they are not treated well.
102 Nevola, “Ritual Geography: Housing the Papal Court of Pius II Piccolomini in Siena (1459-1460),” 204; from ASS, Concistoro, 1995, fol. 56. 53
Despite the careful wording, the message is clear: while the pope wants to stay in Siena,
he will bend to the will of his cardinals––some of whom like Cardinal Pietro Barbo were already
planning to go back to Rome if the conditions were not suitable––and leave Siena, depriving
Siena of a great opportunity, if suitable accommodations are not made. Notably, in the case of
the Alexandro Mirabilli mentioned above, Palazzo Mirabilli was one of the palazzi restored
before the pope’s 1460 visit.
The city government took this threat very seriously. Not only were a great number of
palazzi restored, but money was given to monasteries for replastering walls for cardinals with a
preference for a rigorous monastic life, as opposed to the majority of the cardinals, who
preferred––and many even requested––larger accommodations with modern amenities for their large parties.
These restorations, beginning first with the simple furniture improvements during
Emperor Sigismund’s visit and escalating with an entire restoration campaign during Pius II’s visit, speak to the complicated process of bringing foreign rulers and their power base into Siena.
The first challenge was that the Commune dealt with were the material complications of extending Siena’s civic image into private palazzi. The second challenge for the Commune was integrating imperial and papal courts into the urban geography of Siena without interrupting the axes of power already present within the city, Palazzo Pubblico and the Strada Romana, in order to preserve the power of the Commune over its internal politics.
54
4.3 The Urban Geography of Power
Siena maintained three poles of power: Palazzo Pubblico, Strada Romana, and the
Duomo di Siena; respectively forming the political, economic, and religious centers of the city.
The Strada Romana organized the entire city to usher pilgrims north to south, the face of Siena to
ordinary international visitors as well as dignitaries. However, when entire retinues arrived in the
city for extended lengths, such as the year-long visits of Emperor Sigismund and Pius II, these foreign powers placed strain on the existing axes of power in Siena. Siena experimented with different methods of segregating the papal and imperial courts into Siena’s landscape of power, beginning with an isolated precinct for Emperor Sigismund’s visit that evolved into a complex compass-rose arrangement during the visit of Pius II.
The first method tried was isolating Emperor Sigismund in a precinct. The Palazzetto di
S. Marta marks a departure from the normal pattern of Sienese urban planning, which tied the
most important urban sites together on the Strada Romana. While nicely sequestered and private
for a guest who undoubtedly attracted many curious visitors, it was a space pointedly out of the
way of the city’s daily governance. Sienese elite purposely built themselves into the urban fabric
of the city by erecting palaces on the Strada Romana, securing themselves a place in the political
and economic life of the city. Instead, the Sienese authorities took advantage of their ability to
limit the Emperor’s influence over internal government affairs by purposely sequestering him
and his courtiers away from the Strada Romana. Sigismund’s courtiers were housed in various 55
guesthouses at convents (S. Francesco, S. Domenico, S. Agostino, S. Maria dei Servi, Umiliati,
S. Donato, S. Spirito) as well as the vast lodgings provided by the Ospedale di Santa Maria della
Scala and the Sapienza (residential buildings of the Universita di Siena).103 Housing was
provided by private residences in the palaces of Niccolo Tolomei, Antonio Gallerani, the
Operaio of the Duomo.
The spread of Sigismund’s court throughout Siena’s urban landscape created a second
layer of influence, superimposed atop the city’s normal social-political map, that connected the
Palazzetto di S. Marta to its courtiers and, furthermore, to Palazzo Pubblico along the Via del
Casato di Sopra in a direct line from the imperial precinct to Palazzo Pubblico. This technique is
again seen in the housing of Pope Pius II and his court. However, unlike Pius II, Emperor
Sigismund’s residence in the city intertwined deeply with Sienese daily politics.
The Sienese government muddled its own attempts to separate imperial influence on its
politics, gladly taking advantage of him as a peacemaker in negotiations between Siena,
Florence, and the papacy during the summer of 1432.104 He was given command of the
mercenary army in Siena and invited into the council chambers as well as the Consiglio
Generale of Palazzo Pubblico, demonstrating a deep intertwining of government and goals
between Siena and Sigismund during the summer of 1432. Sigismund seemed to have ingratiated
himself successfully with the Sienese, so much so that the appearance of Sigismund on the
Campo, three weeks after his arrival, raised shouts of “Viva l’[I]nperadore!” from the citizenry
there. A few days before leaving the city, the Commune gave Sigismund the farewell gift of a
palace on Via del Capitano for his use in visiting the city again, a gift that has no precedence in
103 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 39. 104 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 39. 56
Sienese history, offering Sigismund a permanent place in the city. Sigismund also interested
himself in local politics: he petitioned that the nuns of S. Maria Maddalena, his neighbors at
Porta Tufia, be allowed tax exemptions on consumables.
Sigismund’s road of Via del Casato di Sopra led straight from the Palazzetto into Palazzo
Pubblico and almost completely bypassed the Strada Romana. This created an isolated, elite
route directly into the governing body at Palazzo Pubblico. Via del Casato di Sopra exemplifies the formation of the Commune’s strategy to isolate foreign leaders and their power bases from interfering with local, daily politics in Siena. However, it was an imperfect implementation and instead, coupled with Siena’s muddling of its own policy, created the perfect path for Sigismund and his supporters to exercise influence over local politics.
The stay of Pope Pius II was an improvement upon this same strategy of isolating foreign dignitaries to create a second axis of power that did not interfere with Siena’s original axes of power. However, the palazzi that pope, cardinals, and their attachés were placed formed a peculiar arrangement. The residences of the papal court were noticeably placed neither near
Palazzo Pubblico nor the Strada Romana. The map of their placements showed a compass-rose-
like arrangement. The table is a list of documented restorations to palazzi, monasteries, and
stables. 57
The ultimate result, as shown in the map, is the creation a second layer of power in the city and positions the center of power of the papal court away from Siena’s own power. Instead
of residing near Palazzo
Pubblico, the pope resided in
the Bishop’s Palace next to the
Duomo, and. The compass-
rose arrangement carefully
delineates the native
concentrations of power at
Palazzo Pubblico and the
Strada Romana from
interference by the newly
arrived papal court. Instead,
the pope resides in the
Bishop’s Palace and his court
is distributed across palazzi in
the subsidiary streets that lead
from the Duomo to monastic
complexes. The compass-rose
arrangement is an expression
of segregating and
Figure 4-5: Map of the lodgings of Pope Pius and the Papal compartmentalizing the pope’s Court in Siena, 1460. Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 66. 58 influence over Siena’s everyday politics.
Table 2: Restored property in Siena, 1460, for the Papal Court. Nevola, Ritual Geography: Housing the Papal Court of Pius II Piccolomini in Siena (1459-1460), 206. In the case of Pope Pius II’s visit, the urgency for isolating Pius was excruciatingly imminent. After Pius’s ascension in 1458, he was deeply involved with negotiating the lift of 59 exile from families associated with the Noveschi.105 While nobile families, such as the
Piccolomini, were traditionally disallowed from participating in government, many allies and associates were still able to campaign for their interests. In 1456, the remnants of the Noveschi–– many personally associated with Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini––gathered under the banner of
Antonio di Cecco Rosso Petrucci, who attempted a coup to install a solely Noveschi regime.
Only three years later, Pius successfully pressured the Commune into allowing many Noveschi families and associates back into the Commune, which was under fragile governance by a three- party coalition of the Monti. Furthermore, Pius campaigned for Siena to revoke its nobile- exclusionary laws, and Siena at first avoided readmitting the Monte del Gentiluomini, the entire noble class into governance.106 Instead, Siena reclassified the Corsignano branch of the
Piccolomini family as Monte del Popolo, which allowed for the noble Piccolomini family to successfully enter as influential Popolo. However, by April 1459, Siena relented and readmitted the entire Monte del Gentiluomini. This action spelled the end of rule of the Monte del Popolo; by 1487, the descendants of the Noveschi under Pandolfo Petrucci seized control of the government and instituted a signoria-style government.107
While the government of Siena at the time of Pius’s 1460 visit could not have known the coup d’état that would take place twenty years later, the precautions taken by isolating Pius’s court speak to the Commune’s awareness of papal influence. Siena once again, like in the case of
Emperor Sigismund, balanced accepting favors for the city but withdrawing from outside influence completely consuming control over Siena’s situation.
105 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 62. 106 “Monte” literally translates to “mount” but refers to a political group. 107 Nevola, “Ritual Geography.” 60
Pointedly, both emperor and pope and their attaché were led away from the Strada
Romana. Instead, their courts were carefully arranged away from the main streets, a strategy
beginning first with the imperial precinct around Palazzetta di S. Marta and extended to a more
complex compass-rose arrangement for the entire papal court centered the Bishop’s Palace. The
Strada Romana, as both the city’s civic pride and also the city’s economic lifeline, made for the
Commune valuable, something to be protected from outside influence. The Strada Romana was
invaluable in its ability to organize the disorderly pilgrimage business and its symbol as the
city’s wealth and economic fortune. Consequently, the Strada Romana was fiercely protected
from outside influence as an emblem of the city’s independence. Even the Holy Roman Emperor
had to acknowledge, with his ritual pilgrimage, the primacy of the Strada Romana and Siena’s
ownership of it: “You be your own guards of your own Sienese city.” 61
Chapter 5 Conclusion
In 1451, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, the Bishop of Siena, arranged for Holy Emperor
Frederick III to meet his betrothed, Eleonora of Portugal, outside the gates of the city before he
escorted them both to Rome.108 When the Emperor and his betrothed arrived in the coldest and
earliest months of the year 1452, their procession began much like Emperor Sigismund’s in
1432: from the Prato di Camollia they
were both escorted down the Strada
Romana, the dark winter days meant
torches and candles lit up the Strada
from every church, window, and roof.
Battista Petrucci, daughter of a rhetoric
professor, gave a Latin recitation to the
imperial couple which impressed them
Figure 5-1: Pinturicchio, Frederick III and Eleanor of Portugal Meet so much they offered her a reward of Outside Porta Camollia, from the cycle in Libreria Piccolomini. From Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, 160. her choosing.109 Battista asked that all
the city’s women be released from all sumptuary laws. The city agreed, reluctantly, and released
the city’s women from these sumptuary laws––for a single day only.
108 Nevola, Constructing the Renaissance City, 61. 109 Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy 1200-1500, 122. From Orlando Malavolti, Historia de’ Fatti e Guerie de’ Sanesi, cosi esterne come civili (Venice, 1599); and Tommasi Giugurta, Seconda deca delle Storie di Siena, ASS, Biblioteca, MS n. 22. 62
The sumptuary laws of Siena, from Dama dal Manto Trapunto d’Oro to Battista Petrucci, are not only indicative of the wealth that prospered in Siena from thanks to the Via Francigena.
The sumptuary legislation also demonstrates the desire of the Commune to impose order and regulation upon fantastic wealth and beauty to make it a comely civic showcase. Beauty could not exist without order in the medieval mind. Siena’s greatest challenge was to organize the pilgrims that the Via Francigena brought to the city’s doorstep.
The pilgrimage business complex, while incredibly profitable for Siena, was a fundamentally messy ordeal for the city. Pilgrims needed their ancillary needs attended to; wine and foodstuffs, wills and beds, clothes and transportation––the pilgrim spent money in Siena, but their presence also dominated Siena’s cityscape. In response to the overwhelming growth of the
Via Francigena and the problems that bloomed with it was a study in careful pruning and crafting. The Strada Romana became a mantle from which Siena could hang its wealth. But first,
Siena had to whittle away at the shape of the Strada, creating a street that both carried pilgrims through the city and yet also invited them to stay and spend money.
The continuous, smooth, and even façades that line the Strada Romana today, houses all with botteghe peeking out from underneath, are the intended affect: a pilgrim moved gently from
Porta Camollia to Porta Romana, offered all of the luxury, Sienese goods. The order instituted on the Strada, through the use of rigid but creative urban zoning allow for the Strada Romana to be a functional pilgrimage road unburdened by an overabundance of pilgrims. These same techniques were used in the imperial and papal visits, of reorganizing centers of power away from native Sienese axes of control, to offset the outside influence and maintain Siena’s sovereignty. The Strada Romana was both the greatest achievement and expression of Siena, a 63 showcase for not only civic pride and the self-conception that Siena presented on the international stage, but also the heart of Siena. 64
Appendix A Recorded Alberghi Within the City of Siena 1318-1474
Organized by terzi. Data from Tuliani, Maurizio. Osti, Avventori E Malandrini: Alberghi, Locande E Taverne a Siena E Nel Suo Contado Tra Trecento E Quattrocento. Siena: Protagon Ed. Toscani, 1994.
Table 1: Terzo di Camollia
DATE NAME/OWNER ATTRIBUTE WORK(S) PAGE 1318 Bounaventura popolo di Est. 139 c. 271-v di Manfredi Sant'Andrea 1422 Campana della–– Gab. 775 c. 19, 22, 23, 70 -23 1398 Castellaccia contrada della Gab. 775 c. 34 - Magione 1450 Gab. 782 cc. 9r-v, 10r-v Gab. 785 6-7r-v Gab. 1053 c. 342 Vino e Ter. 15 c. 5-v 1397 Cavalluccio popolo di San Conc. 2472 cc. 15-19 Vincenzo 1318 Chiesa di San popolo di San Est. 122 c. 232v Martino Vincenzo 1318 Conticino di popolo di Est. 138 c. 27 Guicciardino Sant'Andrea 1424 Corona popolo di San Gab. 642 c. 7v - Donato 1474 Gab. 666 c. 10 Gab. 776 cc. 6-7v Gab. 777 cc. 31r-v Vino e Ter. 15 c. 7 Arti 42 cc. 19v-20 Conc 2163 c. 21v Lira 147 c. 154 Tommaso Fecini p. 872 Gab. 663 cc. 27r-v 65
1446 Costa d'Ovile alla-- Vino e Ter. 15 c. 26v 1439 Ebrei popolo di Gab. 666 c. 22 Sant'Andrea 1318 Eredi di Mino di popolo di San Est 131 c. 83 Rosso Donato 1440 Galli Porchettaie Gab. 663 cc. 27r-v - 1446 Vino e Ter. 15 c. 3 1303 Gallo popolo di San Part. Fam. 161 - Donato 1460 Pod. 11 c. 96v Est. 132 cc. 77r-v, 118 r-v Est . 142 c. 84 Osp. 2293 c. 35 Conc. 2137; 2474 cc. 11, 27; cc. 15-19 DAG 1379 dec. 30th, 1402 nov. 8, 1414 feb 27th P. Resti 2344 cc. 136, 143v. Gab. 663 cc. 25, 35 Gab.775 c. 6 Vino e Ter. 15 c. 2v Vino e Ter. 21 c. 96v 1318 Malavolti popolo di San Est. 136 cc. 111, 111v, 234v, Donato 296v Est. 143 c. 434 1318 Mitara p.d. San Donato Est 138 cc. 14, 23 - & Sant'Andrea 1432 Osp. 1330 c. 186v Osp. 2293 c. 34v P. Resti 2344 cc. 3, 13, 19, 38, 80v, 88, 99, 128 106, 128, 136v-7, 143v, 153v, 156v, 164 Conc. 2474 cc. 15-19 Conc. 2475 c. 73v 66
1318 Neri di Bonico popolo di San Est. 126 c. 381 Donato 1348 Oca contrada di Osp. 1330 c. 163 - Pellicceria 1467 Osp. 2293 c. 66 Osp. 516 c. 119 Gab. 663 c. 27r-v Gab. 775 cc. 13, 20r-v, 46, 67v, 70 Gab 776 cc. 38v-39v Pod 89 cc. 3-5v Vino e Ter. 15 c. 2 Arti 42 cc. 19v-20 Conc. 2163 c. 153 1318 Ospedale San popolo della Est. 142 cc. 108, 110 - Jacopo di Magione 1321 Altopascio 1431 Porchettaie alle-- Gab. 663 cc. 27r-v - 1435 Gab. 779 c. 16 Vino e Ter. 15 c. 3 Lira 147 cc. 20, 62 1397 San Cristoforo di-- Conc. 2474 cc. 15-19 1422 San Gregorio di-- Gab. 775 c 14v 1432 San Nicola di-- Gab. 652 c 25 1445 Sant'Onofrio di-- Gab 671 c. 13
67
Table 2: Terzo di Città
DATE NAME/OWNER ATTRIBUTE WORK(S) PAGE 1318 Eredi di Mino di popolo di San Desiderio, Est. 96 c. 336v Guglielmo contrada da del Casato 1318 Eredi di Mino di popolo di San Desiderio Est. 96 c. 337 Guglielmo 1362- Marescotti contrada del Casato Osp. 1331 cc. 25, 26, 32, 1397 126, 286 Conc. 2474 cc. 15-19 1362- Marescotti popolo di Malborghetto Osp. 1331 cc. 165, 258 1390 1432- Porta San Marco alla-- Conc. 2475 c. 82 1438 Gab. 781 cc. 3r-v 1348 San Marco borgo di S. Marco Osp. 1330 c. 162v 1318 Tuccio di Alessandro popolo di San Desiderio Est. 96 c. 129 e Suo Figlio
68
Table 3: Terzo di San Martino110
DATE NAME/OWNER ATTRIBUTE WORK(S) PAGE 1432- Campana Salicotto Gab 652 c. 4 1443 Gab 660 cc 6v Gab 661 c. 10v Gab 663 cc. 27r-v Gab 668 c. 6 1318- Chiesa di San Martino Pantaneto Est 122 c. 232v 1377 Donato di Neri p. 668 1450 Donzelle alle-- Gab 785 c. 50 1318 Eredi di Vitaleone contrada di Pantaneto Est 122 c. 67v Altimanni 1384- Guanti Pantaneto Osp. 66 c.s.n. 1403 Conc 2474 cc. 15-19 Uff. 2 c. 42 1453 Luna popolo di San Vigilio Lira 144 c. 558 1397- Maddalena alla-- Conc 2474 cc. 15-19 1440 Gab 663 27r-v Gab 775 c. 32v 1349 Pantaneto di-- Osp 1330 c. 174v 1440- Porta Romana a-- Gab 663 cc. 27r-v 1450 Gab 785 c. 47 1397 Porta San Viene fuori la/vicina alla Conc 2474 cc. 2, 15- chiesa di Sant'Eugenia 19 1397- Porta San Viene a-- Conc 2474 cc. 15-19 1448 Gab 784 cc. 80-81 1422- Porta Uliviera a-- gab 775 cc. 11v, 1423 68v 1386- San Giovanni popolo di San Vigilio Osp 1331 c. 274v 1452
110 This is where I go tthis from 69
Gab 784 cc. 60- 61v Arti 42 cc. 19v- 20 Conc 2163 c. 22 Conc 2474 cc. 15-19 1379 San Leonardo a lato di San Leonardo Conc 2474 c. 2v 1439- Santo Spirito a-- Gab 663 cc. 27r-v 1440 Gab 781 cc. 8r-v 1445- Staffe popolo di San Vigilio Gab 782 c. 22v 1453 Lira 144 c. 568
70
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ACADEMIC VITA
ISABEL R. B. BRADY
EDUCATION The Pennsylvania State University, University Park - Graduation: 2020 Schreyer Honors College, Pennsylvania State University 2018 - 2020 ● Students selected for the Schreyer Honors College represent the top 2% of Penn State Undergraduates with average SAT score of 1430 and high school GPA of 4.0. Founded upon academic excellence, the SHC provides development of an international perspective, leadership skills, and community engagement. Paterno Fellows Program, College of the Liberal Arts 2016 - 2020 ● Honors Program including advanced academic coursework, thesis, study abroad and/or internship, ethics study, and leadership/service commitment Triple Major: History, Medieval Studies, College of the Liberal Arts Art History, College of Arts and Architecture Double Minor: Latin, College of the Liberal Arts Architectural History, College of Arts and Architecture EXPERIENCE Vernice Projetti Culturali, Fondazione di Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Siena, Italy - Intern JANUARY 2018 - MAY 2018 ● Translated technical descriptions of works of art from Italian to English while embedded in the Projetti’s direct administration and conservation of Palazzo Sansedoni, which aims to further the public’s understanding and restoration of great Sienese medieval and Renaissance historical monuments. ● Conducted tours and compiled critiques of foreigners’ experience for internal review to suggest upgrades to current information layout and tour scripts. Archivio di Stato di Siena, Siena, Italy - Intern JANUARY 2018 - MAY 2018 ● The Italian state archives serves a dual function of both research center and museum, collecting and conserving state and state-affiliated documents concerning the governing of the commune of Siena from 735 to 1960. ● Within Palazzo Piccolomini the biccherne tablet covers are housed in a public museum, featuring major artists across 1258 to the 16th century. ● Participated in both the research and museum life; conducted tours in English as well as the translation of technical descriptions of biccherne for the display and internal use in the museum, library, and on the website for virtual tours. Office of Global Programs, Pennsylvania State University - International Student Orientation Leader JULY 2017 - AUGUST 2019 ● Guided groups of twenty to fifty international students with varying levels of English competency for three- to five-day instruction and training through both university and federal regulations as well as acculturation to the United States.
Museum Kunst der Westküste, Alkersum, Föhr, Germany - Intern JULY 2015 - JULY 2015 ● Supervised the deconstruction of two exhibits and the construction of two new exhibits; taught in the pedagogy; and organized receptions as an administrative intern. VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES Mack Brady Memorial Soccer Fund, State College, PA - Co-Founder and Volunteer JANUARY 2012 - PRESENT ● Established and maintained the Mack Brady Soccer Fund, in memory of my brother, to raise money for the PSU Men's Soccer Team, including organizing tailgates and auctions prior to the annual Mack Brady PSUMT's game and annual clinics. ● Currently raised $200,000+ over the past seven years through emails, letters, and private fundraising events. Penn State Dance Marathon - Committee Member & Committee Chair OCTOBER 2016 - 2020 ● A committee member for both Development and Alumni Engagement committees which focus on engaging small and corporate businesses, the local community, and students as donors to help in the fight against pediatric cancer. ● A committee member and committee chair for the Special Events committee which plans and organizes all THON-related events throughout the year, culminating in organization of an hour’s worth of coordinating, themed activities as the committee’s Theme Hour Chair. OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS Languages ● LATIN - 3 years - proficient in translation, composition, and comprehension. ● ITALIAN - 6 months intensive abroad - advanced in translation, proficient in communication. ● SPANISH - 5 years - proficient in communication and translation. Awards ● 2016-2019 Dean’s List, College of the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Architecture ● 2018 John Taylor Scholarship in the Department of History, Pennsylvania State University ● 2019 Rodney A. Erickson Discovery Grant Recipient, Pennsylvania State University ● 2019 Arts and Architecture Alumni Scholarship Recipient, Pennsylvania State University ● 2019 Creative Achievement Award, College of Arts and Architecture, Pennsylvania State University ● 2019 Diane & Craig Zabel Scholarship in Architectural History, College of Arts and Architecture, Pennsylvania State University ● 2020 John Taylor Scholarship in the Department of History, Pennsylvania State University Conferences ● 12th Moravian Undergraduate Conference in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Moravian College ○ “Rest in Pita: Bread & the Dead in the Viking Age” ● SECAC 2019, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga ○ “A Look to Die For: A Valuation System for Norse-Anglo-Saxon Burial Ornament”