HISTORICAL PAGEANTRY IN SIENA Overview The Michelin Green Guide describes, “Siena is a mystic, gentle city of art and architecture with a passionate and generous soul…,” neatly capturing the city’s essence. There is something difficult to encapsulate the immense appeal that Siena exerts, making her many a visitor’s favorite city in Italy. She is elegant and gracious, having refined with age much as her world famous wines. She is hearty, unpretentious, and welcoming, like her thick, bready soups on windy days. Her vigorous spirit of community meets in a backdrop of proud, distinguished history, and all is open to the curious visitor. As the inscription on her Porta Camollia gate reads: COR MAGIS TIBI SIENA PANDIT One translation goes, “Siena opens her heart to you as wide as her gate.” Historical Overview How a thriving city becomes a medieval time capsule: The Sienese claim to have been descended from the twin sons of Remus, whom Romulus expelled from Rome, and statues of the fabled she-wolf abound to assert her place in the city’s classical history. In the Middle Ages, Siena rose to greatness as a spot on the Via Francigena, the pilgrimage route from Northern Europe to Rome. Siena flourished as one of Europe’s largest cities from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, larger than Paris or London and - 65 - rivaling Florence. Artistic projects proliferated, filling Siena with an aperitivo in one of the cafes lining the Campo. Watch the crowds Gothic masterpieces. In 1348, the plague hit, killing three quarters taking their afternoon strolls from this perfect vantage point and if of the Sienese population. This in combination with a banking you’re lucky, the mime in the red beret who prays on unsuspecting failure left Siena a shadow of its former powerful self. Centuries of passers-by. struggle against Florence ended in 1555, when Siena was the last Tuscan city to fall to Medici Florence. Touring “Isolated, defeated, and subjugated, Siena has become a wonderful historical fossil, and The following section begins with the main art and historical sites when it really comes down to it, in the debased in Siena. What follows is a more in depth tour of local culture, Tuscany of today, she is the winner. Go and by means of exploring the world famous PALIO HORSE RACE, a see the Palio and attempt to understand it. If uniquely Sienese feature and point of particular interest to most you do, then you will realize that you have not visitors. seen a game, or a festival, but something truly unique in anthropology, the secret and hidden Siena proper can warrant years of exploration. Its Roman grid is a (well, perhaps not so hidden) motive force of a maze of concentric circles and spidery arteries pumping from the city. In it are the courage, ferocity, pride, thirst central PIAZZA DEL CAmpO, one of Europe’s largest and most for adventure and love of hazard of one of the picturesque piazzas. Its fan shaped paving is divided into nine greatest and most glorious peoples on the face sections, representing the nine magistrates who represented Siena’s of the earth.” various guilds in government during the city’s most prosperous years in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. At the top ~ F RANCO C ARDINI , T USCANY of the fan is the FONTE GAIA, whose name celebrates the ‘gaiety’ when the city’s network of fountains were completed in 1348, as Thus, as Cardini demonstrates in the introduction to his work, Siena unlike its Tuscan counterparts is not situated on a river. Also Tuscany, the fall of Siena is precisely what preserves it as a medieval in the Campo, one finds Siena’s most characteristic monument, the treasure in post-Renaissance Italy, but also a chance to observe the PALAZZO PUBBLICO (0577292226, OPEN DAILY 10 A.M.—7 P.M.) with raw spirit and rhythms of a long-refined and authentic culture. its MANGIA TOWER offering an outstanding view of the city and its surrounding countryside. An ideal day in Siena could take many forms, but it would likely start with a cappuccino at NANNINI. Continue with morning visits The palace houses a museum of Sienese painting, including to the Palazzo Pubblico (or another historical / artistic monument of MARTINI’s Maestà and perhaps the most famous Medieval your choice) and most importantly, the Duomo, before taking lunch fresco, AMBROGIO LORENZEttI’s Allegory of Good and Bad in a small restaurant off the tourist circuit. On a sunny day, you Government. Indeed, for the art lover, no other location in Italy can may opt for a picnic by a fountain or in the Campo. Work off lunch offer the wealth and quality of medieval works than within by exploring several of the town’s contrada neighborhoods and doing some shopping on the Banchi di Sopra. Finish with a tea or - 66 - - 67 - Siena’s protective walls. In the surrounding city, an array of palaces and churches demonstrate civic and non-secular architecture. Siena’s SANTA MARIA ASSUNTA, or DUOMO (0577283048, OPEN DAILY 7:30 A.M.—7:30 P.M.), a twelfth-century cathedral, rivals Florence as a dictionary of Italian greats. The facade of Palazzo Pubblico Santa Maria Assunta Its collection includes a pulpit by Nicola Pisano and Arnolfo di Cambio, sculptures by Michelangelo, Donatello, and Bernini, Pinturicchio’s frescoed PIccOLOMINI LIBRARY (a must-see), and frescoes by Lorenzo Ghiberti and Jacopo della Quercia. The entire marble floor is carved in cartoon allegorical figures and Biblical scenes although to reduce wear, much is covered except during the period from mid-September to mid-November when it is possible to view them in their entirety. The CAPELLA DELLA MADONNA DEL A view of the Mangia tower from the top of the VOTO is the design of BERNINI and includes two of his statures as well as an altar with angels by his design. Beside the chapel is a Duomo’s unfinished wing wall of votive offerings for prayers answered which include a few by winning jockeys in the Palio horse race. - 68 - - 69 - The Duomo’s museum next door is located in what would have been Pietro Lorenzetti, Matteo di Giovanni, Lippo Memmi, and Andrea the entrance of the cathedral before the project was abandoned. Here Vanni, a friend of Catherine herself. SAN FRANCESCO boasts no one can see Duccio’s Maestà, the largest painting from medieval such intriguing reliquaries, but several detached frescoes of note by times and among the most famous. End your tour of the MUSEO Sassetta and the Lorenzettis. DELL’ OPERA DEL DUOMO (OPEN DAILY) by climbing the incomplete west work of what would have been Italy’s largest cathedral had not Also worth mention on an art and historical tour of the city are the plague and various banking failures so crippled the city. The the palaces built by MONTE DEI PASCHI DI SIENA, the world’s skeleton of the never-realized church stands today a reminder of the oldest bank in continued operation. Sienese banking families traded city’s former greatness. with pilgrims on the Via Francigena as far back as the twelfth- century, although Monte dei Paschi dates to the fifteenth when it Also of interest is the PALAZZO DELLA PAPESSE (VIA DI CITTÀ 126), was a lending institution as the city recovered from its fourteenth- one of Siena’s only Renaissance buildings, which was commissioned century crash. Its three attached Renaissance palaces on the Piazza by the great Humanist Puis II for his sister. The building is of Salimbeni of the Banchi di Sopra house its offices and the bank’s architectural interest and offers the least exacting aerial view of the phenomenal art collection. The collection includes Sano di Pietro’s city, because an elevator takes you to its top floor loggia, from which Deposition among other works and is available by appointment you can see across to the Duomo and down into the Campo. The only, so it will be necessary to arrange ahead with your Finocchieto Papesse currently houses a contemporary art museum with changing hosting staff or your guide to visit. exhibits. Across the street is the PALAZZO CHIGI-SARACINI (VIA DI CITTÀ 82), a Gothic building of particular elegance that houses Finally, if your travels in the area have familiarized you with the the Accademia Chigiana with a small art collection including works artwork of Antonio Bazzi, or Il Sodoma, the church of SANTO by Botticelli and Donatello. The palace is one of the world’s great SPIRITO, located off the beaten track on the Via dei Pispini houses a aristocratic residences. Throughout the year, the Accademia holds chapel by Il Sodoma that is worth seeing. A nice spot on sunny days musical programs in its fabulously ornate neo-eighteenth-century is Siena’s ORTO DEI PEccI, the large garden behind the Palazzo concert hall as well as elsewhere in the city and surrounding areas. Pubblico and the Loggia dei Mercanti where in the summer, there Further up the Via di Città and left on the Via San Pietro leads to the is (usually) a falconry show starting at 2:30. PINACOTECA NAZIONALE (0577281161, OPEN DAILY) in the Palazzo Buonsignori. This painting gallery watches the development of Siena is a city full of worthy sightseeing destinations; however, Sienese painting starting in the twelfth-century and through the one of its most distinct pleasures is its cohesiveness and character. Renaissance, with works by Duccio, the Lorenzetti brothers, and With that in mind, one would do well to take time to wander its characteristic streets haphazardly.