SIENA
toscana
The city of Siena is subdivided into three "Terzi", or Thirds, and seventeen "Contrade". The "Terzi" are:
- "Terzo di Camollia" (Third of Camollia) that spreads in the northern area of the city and includes: the "Contrada dell'Istrice" (of the Crested Porcupine), "Contrada della Lupa" (of the Female Wolf), "Contrada del Drago" (of the Dragon), "Contrada del Bruco" (of the Caterpillar), "Contrada della Giraffa" (of the Giraffe) and "Contrada dell'Oca" (of the Goose);
- "Terzo di Città" (Third of City) that spreads in the south-western area and includes: the "Contrada della Selva" (of the Forest), "Contrada dell'Aquila" (of the Eagle), "Contrada dell'Onda" (of the Wave), "Contrada della Tartuca" (of the Tortoise), "Contrada della Chiocciola" (of the Snail) and "Contrada della Pantera" (of the Panther);
- "Terzo di San Martino" (Third of San Martino) that spreads in the south-eastern area and includes: the "Contrada della Civetta" (of the Little Owl), "Contrada del Leocorno" (of the Unicorn), "Contrada del Nicchio" (of the Seashell), "Contrada del Montone" (of the Ram) and "Contrada della Torre" (of the Tower).
This subdivision concerns the historic area of the city. In the more central square of each "Terzo" (Piazza Postierla, Piazza Tolomei and Ponte di Romana) there is still nowadays a column surmounted by a female wolf that nurses the twins Romolo and Remo, symbol of the city because roman colony.
Terzo di Camollia: Porta Camollia, Fortezza Medicea, Basilica Cateriniana of San Domenico, Fontebranda, Sanctuary of Santa Caterina da Siena, Piazza Salimbeni, Basilica of San Francesco, Church of Santa Maria in Povenzano.
Porta Camollia
Porta Camollia opens on the road to Florence, the ancient Via Francigena and, just for its position, is always been the more controlled and defence among all the gates of the city. On the arch there is the inscription "Cor magis Sena tibi pandit" (Siena opens its heart more than this gate) to mean that the city opens wide its heart more than the gate. The legend tells that in the VIII century BC Romolo, the founder of Rome, sent a condottiere Camulio to capture the nephews Aschio and Senio. Camulio put here his encampment and the place took his name, changed in Camollia during the years.
Fortezza Medicea
The Medicea Fortress of Siena, known as Fort of Santa Barbara too, was built in 1560 by Cosimo I de' Medici, Lord of Florence, after the occupation of Siena by the florentine troops, in the place of the old Spanish fortress, destroyed by the senesi in 1552. The Medicea Fortress is an imposing quadrilateral in bricks, reinforced in the corners by four pentagonal bastions. The aim of its contruction was to garrison the city against possible attempts by the senesi to conquer again the independence. In the end of the XVIII century, the Fortress was demilitarized and transformed in public garden. Today in the Fortress there is the seat of the "Enoteca Italiana" (Italian Wine-Bar) where it is possible to taste, in a very suggestive environment, the most esteemed and selected wine both Italian and foreign.
Basilica Cateriniana of San Domenico
San Domenico, also known as Basilica Cateriniana, is one of the most important basilica in Siena. The church was begun in 1226-1265, but was enlarged in the XIV century to the Gothic appearance it has now. It is a large edifice built, like many contemporary edifice of the Mendicant Orders, in bricks, with a lofty bell tower on the left (this was reduced in height after an earthquake in 1798). The interior is on the Egyptian cross plan with a huge nave covered by trusses and with a transept featuring high chapels. The "Cappella delle Volte" is an old praying place of Dominican nuns, connected to numerous episode of sanctity of Catherine of Siena's life. In the St. Catherine Chapel, an altar houses the saint's head. The crypt, in Gothic style, can also be visited. It houses a crucifix by Sano di Pietro and a Crucifixion signed by Ventura Salimbeni (1600).
Fontebranda
Mentioned by Dante in the XXX canto of the Hell, Fontebranda is the most ancient and famous of the numerous fountains in Siena. It is also the richest of water: it quenched the city and made to run the mills and gave work to tanners and dyers of wool clothes. Rebuilt in 1246, just under the Basilica of San Domenico, it has an imposing aspect. In the first basin, like the main medieval fountains of Siena, it was possible to obtain the drink water, while the second was utilized as trough for animals and the third, in the lower part, as public washhouse.
Sanctuary of Santa Caterina da Siena
It is an ensemble of buildings, risen since 1464, on the place where rose the paternal house of St. Caterina, the famous senese mystic, dead in 1380. Defined "the mystic of the policy", Caterina fought against the corruption of the Church, was able to convince the pope, installed in Avignone, to restore the papal seat in Rome. Her writings, of great mystical strenght, are a remarkable testimony of high spirituality. Proclaimed Saint in 1461, in 1939 she was declared, together with San Francesco, Patron Saint of Italy. Her native house, bought by the Commune of Siena in 1466, was transformed in a real sanctuary, where were kept, in addition to the keepsakes of the Saint, valuable works of art. The portico was built in 1941, while the travertine well is original (end XV, beginning XVI century). The sanctuary is formed by the "Oratorio Superiore" (the old kitchen), the "Oratorio Inferiore" (the work-room of the father, that his name was Jacopo and was a dyer), the "Oratorio della Camera" (St. Caterina's room) and, in the end, the Church of the Crucifix, that was built above the kitchen garden of the house. In the Church of the Crucifix is kept the XII-century wooden Crucifix thanks it, as the legend wants, St. Caterina received the Stigmata.
Piazza Salimbeni
The rectangular square is formed by three palaces and, in the centre, is adorned with the statue of the canon Sallustio Bandini, dead in 1780, who was one of the supporter of the economy freedom. In central position, the square is dominated by the most important of three palaces: the XIV-century "Palazzo Salimbeni" that in 1879 was restored and extended, always in Neo-Gothic style, by Giuseppe Partini. It is a majestic building that houses the seat of the "Monte dei Paschi di Siena", one of the main Italian banks that rose in 1624 incorporating the previous "Monte Pio", that was founded in 1472. The name "Monte dei Paschi" comes by the fact that it had as guarantee of its economy operations the incomes of the grazing, at that time named in Italian "paschi", that was property of the State.
Basilica of San Francesco
The Basilica of Saint Francis was erected around 1228-1255 and extended between the XIV and XV century with operations of transformation of the original Romanesque building in the present majestic Gothic structure. To finance its construction, the friars used also donations from thieves and usurers to save their souls. The bulding has an Egyptian cross plan with a single nave, on the basis of the simple architectonical model of the "beggar" order, that aimed to create a wide environment, very right for the predication to a numerous mass of believers. In the right transept there is the chapel in which, in the winter period, the "Sacre Particole" (hosts remained miraculously intact since the August 14th 1730, when was purloined the ciborium that contained them; then they were found in the collegiate church of Provenzano), are venerated.
Church of Santa Maria in Provenzano
The Church of Santa Maria in Provenzano or Church of Provenzano, in mannerism style, rise where there was the Provenzano Salvani's house, senese politics often mentioned by Dante Alighieri. The building, erected in 1595-1604, has a Latin cross plan, a single nave with dome in the centre of the presbytery and a marble facade, divided in two floors by a cornice. The main altar houses the miraculously bust in terracotta with Our Lady of Provenzano (second half of XV century), that on July 2nd 1594 had done some miracles. To remember this miraculously event, since the 1656 that the Palio, on July 2nd, is celebrated.
Terzo di Città: Baptistery of San Giovanni, Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, Museum Complex of Santa Maria della Scala, Museum of the Opera of the Duomo, Palazzo delle Papesse.
Baptistery of San Giovanni
The Baptistery of Saint John was built between 1316 and 1325 by Camaino di Crescentino, it has an unfinished Gothic facade in the higher part in common with the apse of the Cathedral. In the centre, the rectangular room, divided by two columns in a nave and two side aisles, contains a baptismal hexagonal font of great value, accomplished in marble, bronze and glaze, between 1417 and 1431 by the major sculptors of that time: Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Giovanni di Turino, Goro di Neruccio and Jacopo della Quercia. On one of the steps that from the Cathedral bring to the Baptistery ther is a little cross where, as a legend wants, St. Caterina fell while climbing up to the cathedral on her knees.
Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta
The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta was originally designed and completed between 1215 and 1263 on the site of an earlier structure. It has the form of a Latin cross with a slightly projecting transept, a dome and a bell tower. The dome is octagonally based and only becomes circular above the supporting columns. The lantern, atop the dome, was added by the famous Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The nave is separated from the two aisles by semicircular arches. The exterior and interior are constructed of striped white and greenish-black marble, with addition of red marble on the facade. Black and white are the symbolic colors of Siena, derived from the black and white horses of the legendary city's founders Senius and Aschius. In the interior the capitals of the columns in the front section of the nave are sculpted with allegorical busts and animals. The horizontal moulding around the nave and the presbytery contains 172 plaster busts from popes dating from the XV and XVI century, starting with St. Peter and ending with Lucius III. The spandrels of the round arches below this cornice exhibit the busts of 36 emperors. The vaulted roof is decorated in blue with golden stars, replacing frescoes on the ceiling, while the formerets (half rib) and the tiercerons (secondary rib) are adorned with richly elaborated motifs. The stained-glass round window in the choir was made in 1288 to the designs of Duccio. It is one of the earliest remaining examples of Italian stained glass. The round stained-glass window in the facade dates from 1549 and represents the Last Supper. It is the craftmanship of Pastorino de' Pastorini.
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The Siena pulpit, made of Carrara marble, was sculpted between the end of 1265 and November of 1268 by Nicola Pisano with the extensive participation of his son Giovanni Pisano and his assistants Arnolfo di Cambio, Lapo di Ricevuto and several other artists. This is the earliest remaining work in the cathedral. Nicola Pisano was given this commission due to his fame by the Pisa pulpit. This pulpit is even more ambitious and is considered his masterpiece. The whole message of the pulpit is concerned with the doctrine of Salvation and the Last Judgment. The pulpit is octagonal in shape. There are nine columns, made of granite, porphyry and green marble. Four columns rest on a base, two are supported by lions and two by lionesses, while the central column rests on small statues of the Seven Liberal Arts and Philisophy. The inlaid marble mosaic floor is one of the most ornate of its kind in Italy, covering the whole floor of the cathedral. This undertaking went on for two centuries (XIV-XVI century) and about forty artists made their contribution. The floor consists of 56 panels in different sizes. Most have a rectangular shape, bu the later ones in the transept are hexagons or rhombuses. They represent the sibyls, scenes from the Old Testament, allegories and virtues. Most are still in their original state. The earliest scenes were made by a graffito technique: drilling tiny holes and scratching lines in the marble and filling these with bitumen or mineral pitch. In a later stage black, white, green, red and blue marble intarsia were used. This technique of marble inlay also evolved during the years, finally resulting in a vigorous contrast of light and dark, giving it an almost modern, impressionistic composition. The uncovered floor can only be seen for a period of six to ten weeks each year, generally including the month of September. The rest of the year, they are covered and only a few are on display. The cathedral contains valuable pieces of art including "The Feast of Herold" by Donatello, and works by Bernini and the young Michelangelo. It makes this cathedral an extraordinary museum of Italian sculpture. Adjoining the cathedral is the Piccolomini library, housing precious illuminated choir books and frescoes painted by the Umbrian Bernardino di Betto, called Pinturicchio, probably based on designs by Raphael.
Museum Complex of Santa Maria della Scala
Santa Maria della Scala is a former hospital, now turned into a museum complex. Located next to the city's cathedral, it is one of the most ancient European hospitals. The hospital was founded by the Cathedral's priests across the Via Francigena to house the pilgrims coming from France and northern Europe to Rome. It also supported poor and cared abandoned children. In the XV century it became under the responsibility of the city's commune, receiving numerous donations from the local wealthiest families. It also received important artistic works: these include a famous fresco cycle (now lost) with Histories of the Virgin, on the facade, by Simone Martini, Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti (1335); the series of frescoes with the Stories of the Hospital in the Pellegrinaio Hall, by Domenico di Bartolo, Lorenzo Vecchietta and Priamo della Quercia; the old sacristy, also decorated by Vecchietta; the Manto Chapel, with a lunette by Domenico Beccafiumi; the XV-century Fonte Gaia by Jacopo della Quercia; and the decoration of the large apse by Sebastiano Conca (late XVIII century). The nucleus of the hospital is the pre-existing church of Santa Maria Annunziata, dating to the XIII century, and renovated in the current appearance in the late XV century. It now houses an archaeological museum and other rooms for exhibitions.
Museum of the Opera of the Duomo
The Museum of the Opera of the Duomo in Siena is near the Cathedral. The gallery collects operas coming from the Cathedral, among those stand out the great part of the artistic production of Duccio di Buoninsegna, with his absolute masterpiece of the "Maestà", that some time ago adorned the main altar of the Cathedral, and the stained-glass window of the Virgin. It is represented also the youthful period of the artist with the little "Madonna di Cedole", first opera reached us from the artist. The sculptures by Giovanni Pisano (took off the facade of the Cathedral), Donatello, Jacopo della Quercia, Giovanni Duprè, now expose in the museum, were part of the Cathedral too.
Palazzo delle Papesse
The "Palazzo delle Papesse" houses an important centre of contemporary art. The centre organises expositions, both collective and personal. It is part of the "TRA ART - Rete Toscana di Arte Contemporanea", a public network of initiatives and centres on the Tuscany territory, created to support the contemporary arts and cultures. Inside the "Palazzo delle Papesse" there are also the "Academy for the Arts", the "Multimedia Sciences ARSNOVA" and "Radio Papesse".
Terzo di San Martino: Piazza del Campo, Palio di Siena, Palazzo Pubblico, Torre del Mangia, Cappella di Piazza, Fonte Gaia, Basilica of Saint Clemente in Santa Maria dei Servi.
Piazza del Campo
Piazza del Campo is the main public space of Siena, and is one of Europe's greatest medieval squares. The open site was a marketplace established before the XIII century on a sloping site near the meeting point of the three hillside communities that coalesced to form Siena: the Castellare (now the City), the San Martino and the Camollia. Siena may have had earlier Etruscan settlements, but it was not a considerable Roman settlement, and the campo does not lie on the site of a Roman forum, as is sometimes suggested. It was paved in 1349 in fishbone-patterned red brick with nine lines of travertine radiating from the mouth of the gavinone (the central water drain) in front of the Palazzo Pubblico. The number of divisions are held to be symbolic of the rule of the Nine (Noveschi) who laid out the campo and governed Siena at the height of its medieval splendour between 1292-1355. It was and remains the focal point of public life in the city. From the piazza, eleven narrow shaded streets radiate into the city.
Palio di Siena
The Palio di Siena (know locally simply as "Il Palio"), the most famous palio in Italy, is a horse race held twice each year on July 2nd and August 16th in Siena, in which the horse and rider represent one of the seventeen Contrade, or city wards. Any connection with the sacred games of the ancient Romans being obscured by time, the earliest known antecedents of the race are medieval. The town's central piazza was the site of public games, largely combative: "pugna", a sort of many-sided boxing match or brawl; jousting; and in the XVI century, bullfights. Public races organized by the Contrade were popular from the XIV century on; called "palii alla lunga", they were run across the whole city. When the Grand Duke of Tuscany outlawed bullfighting in 1590, the Contrade took to organising races in the Piazza del Campo. The first such races were on buffalo-back and called "bufalate"; "asinate", races on donkey-back, later took their place, while horse-racing continued elsewhere. The first modern Palio (called "Palio alla tonda" to distinguish it from the earlier "Palii alla lunga") took place around 1650. The first race ("Palio di Provenzano") is held on July 2nd, which is both the Feast of the Visitation and the date of a local festival in honour of the Madonna of Provenzano (a painting once owned by the Sienese leader Provenzano Salvani, which was supposed to have miraculous curative power). The second race is held on August 16th ("Palio dell'Assunta"), the day after the Feast of the Assumption, and is likewise dedicated to the Virgin Mary. After exceptional events and on important anniversaries, the Sienese community may decide to hold a third Palio between May and September.
The field consists of ten horses, which means that only ten of the city wards can take part in the Palio on any occasion. The seven wards which did not take part in the previous place are automatically included; three more are chosen randomly. A lottery then determines which horse will run for each Contrada. Six trial races are run, the first on the evening of the horse selection and the last on the morning before the Palio. The race is preceded by a spectacular pageant, which includes (among many others) "Alfieri", flag-wavers, in medieval costumes. Just before the pageant, a squad of "Carabinieri" on horseback, wielding swords, demonstrate a mounted charge around the track. At 07:30 pm (July)/07:00 pm (August), the detonation of an explosive charge echoes across the piazza, signaling to the thousands of onlookers that the race is about to begin. The race itself runs for three laps of the Piazza del Campo, the outer course of which is covered with several inches of dirt and the corners of which are protected with padded crash barriers for the occasion. The jockeys ride the horses bareback from the starting line, where there is only room for nine horses, The tenth, the "rincorsa", stands behind those nine. The start is given by a local authority called "Mossiere", who has to wait for all the horses to be in the correct position. When this moment is (with great difficulty) achieved, he activates a mechanism that instantly removes the "canapo", the starting cord. The winner is the first horse to cross the finish line with its head ornaments intact, the rider does not necessarily need to finish, and often does not. The winner is awarded a banner of painted silk, or "palio", which is newly created for each race.
Palazzo Pubblico
The Palazzo Pubblico (town hall) is a palace in the Piazza del Campo. Construction began in 1297 and its original purpose was to house the republican government, consisting of the Podesta and Council of Nine. The outside of the structure is an example of Italian medieval architecture with Gothic influences. The lower story is stone; the upper crenelatted stories are made of brick. The facade of the palace is curved slightly inwards (concave) to reflect the outwards curve (convex) of the Piazza del Campo, Siena's central square of which the Palace is the focal point. Nearly every major room in the palace contains frescoes. These frescoes are unusual for the time in that they were commissioned by the governing body of the city, rather than by the Church or by a religious fraternity. They are also unusual in that many of them depict secular subjects instead of the religious subjects which are overwhelmingly typical of Italian art of this era. These frescoes are collectively known as Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government.
Torre del Mangia
The Torre del Mangia is located adjacent to the Gothic Palazzo Pubblico. It was built between 1325 and 1344 with its crown designed by the painter Lippo Memmi. The tower was designed to be taller than the tower in neighboring rival Florence; at the time it was the tallest structure in Italy. The tower was built to be the exact same height as the Duomo of Siena as a sign that the church and the state had equal amounts of power. The name (meaning "Tower of the Eater") derives from its first guardian, Giovanni di Balduccio, nicknamed "Mangiaguadagni" for his tendency to spend all his money for food. The clock was added in 1360. The stairwell up to the top of the tower is cramped and most visitors nedd to duck their heads most of the way up the tower. There is little room for two way traffic on the stairs. The tower is visible from all parts of Siena.
Cappella di Piazza
The Cappella di Piazza is the marble tabernacle that rises at the foot of the Torre del Mangia. It was added in 1352 as a vow for the Holy Virgin by the Sienese survivors from the Black Death. The pilaster were remade in the current form in 1378, the sculptures decorating them being executed in 1378-1382 by Mariano d'Angelo Romanelli and Bartolomeo di Tommè. The simple wooden ceiling once covering the loggia was replaced by the current Renaissance marble vault in 1461-1468 by Antonio Federighi, also author of the bizarre decorations of the coronation. In 1537-1539 Il Sodoma painted a fresco over the altar, now housed in the Town museum in the Palazzo Pubblico.
Fonte Gaia
The "Fonte Gaia" (Fountain of Joy) was set up in 1419 as an endpoint of the system of conduits bringing water to the city's centre, replacing an earlier fountain completed around 1342 when the water conduits were completed. Under the direction of the Committee of Nine, many miles of tunnels were constructed to bring water in aqueducts to fountains and thence to drain to the surrounding fields. The present fountain, a center of attraction for the many tourists, is in the shape of a rectangular basin that is adorned on three sides with many bas-reliefs with the Madonna surrounded by the Classical and the Christian Virtues, emblematic of Good Government under the patronage of the Madonna. The white marble Fonte Gaia was originally designed and built by Jacopo della Quercia, whose bas-reliefs from the basin's sides are conserved in the Museum Complex of St. Maria della Scala in Piazza Duomo. The former sculptures were replaced in 1866 by free copies by Tito Sarocchi, who omitted Jacopo della Quercia's two nude statues of Rhea Silvia and Acca Larentia, which the XIX-century city fathers found too pagan or too nude. When they were set up in 1419, Jacopo della Quercia's nude figures were the first two female nudes, who were neither Eve nor a repentant saint, to stand in a public place since Antiquity.
Basilica of Saint Clemente in Santa Maria dei Servi
The Basilica of Saint Clemente in Santa Maria dei Servi is in the hill that dominates Valdimontone. Originally, in this plase, rose the Church of Saint Clemente, the church that the "Serviti" coming from the Mount Senario found in 1234 to build their monastery. The works for the construction proceeded slowly and only in 1416 were took away off the staircase of the original church. In 1553 the consecration was done when the works were not completed yet. The structural internal works finished in 1537 with the purchase of four columns for the division of the three aisles, while the XV-century facade was never ended and the bell tower was restored in following times (radically in 1926). Today the style of the bell tower recalls the late florentine XV century even if it was modified in baroque age and then stylistically revolutionized between the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century on a project first by Giuseppe Partini and then by Agenore Socini.
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