present constructed, on our right. On the left is the huge unfinished façade of the abandoned Duomo of Pietro di Lando and Giovanni di Agostino, with what would have been the principal entrance from the Via di Città. The tricuspidate façade of the present cathedral, in black, white and red marble, covered with statuary, was mainly constructed in the last two decades of the thirteenth century under the superintendence of Giovanni di Niccolò Pisano; but all the chief sculptors of the Sienese school have worked upon it, down to the latter part of the fifteenth century. The majority of the statues that we now see are modern copies of the originals, and almost the whole has been completely restored. The mosaics in the cuspidi are modern Venetian work, from the designs of Mussini and Franchi. Upon the platform is represented in graffito the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee; similarly, at the three doors, are three scenes from the administration of Holy Orders. These were originally executed in the sixteenth century, but have been restored and altered. Before entering the sacred building, the tablet should be noticed, set into the wall of the Vescovado, the Archbishop’s palace on the left: “Hoc est sepulcrum magistri Ioannis quondam magistri Nicolai et de eius eredibus.” It is the tombstone of Giovanni Pisano himself, who was buried in the cloister of the Canons, between the Duomo and the Vescovado.
The peculiar beauty of the interior of the Duomo is due to the fact that we have Gothic architecture, combined with decoration that is almost entirely in the style and taste of the fifteenth century. Gothic austerity is tempered here with the grace and fascination of the early Renaissance. The terra-cotta busts of the Popes in the cornice along the nave and choir belong to the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries. They make a strangely impressive series, these crowned Vicars of Christ, who Himself is seen in the midst of them, immediately under the eastern window. They stretch from Peter in a continuous chronological line round the church, to Lucius III., who sat on the Throne of the Fisherman from 1181 to 1185, succeeding to Alexander III., when our Henry II. reigned in England. They are solemn and dignified—the ideal Pontiffs of the closing chapter of Dante’s De Monarchia, “who in accordance with things revealed should lead the human race to eternal life.” But there is naturally no attempt or thought of portraiture: some of Hildebrand’s infamous predecessors are conceived and represented in the same spirit as he who said: “I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore, I die in exile.” Below them are similar busts of Roman Emperors, the supreme temporal rulers of the world in Dante’s dual scheme, “who in accordance with the teachings of philosophy should direct the human race to temporal felicity.”
The famous pavement of the Duomo—a thing unique of its kind—might well have paved the first terrace of Dante’s Mountain of Purgation. The tradition that this work was originally designed by Duccio (from which it would follow that Dante himself may have seen its first beginnings) is now almost entirely rejected. Documentary evidence proves that it was not begun until the year 1369, shortly after the resumption of work upon the Duomo Vecchio. The greater part of it was laid down after Giovanni da Spoleto[77] in 1396 had begun publicly to expound the Divina Commedia in the Studio of Siena, and we can readily imagine that the men under whose superintendence it was done had in their minds those superb terzine in which the divine poet describes the figured scenes over which his feet passed to meet that creatura bella, the Angel of Humility, whose face was like the morning star.[78] With one solitary exception—the rout of the Assyrians after the death of Holofernes—the subjects shown here are not the same as those on Dante’s duro pavimento. Instead of the examples of the punishment of pride, we have here a series of scenes which can hardly be said to be dominated by one idea, but which in the main (a few scenes standing apart, unconnected with the general scheme), through symbol, type and prophecy, lead up to the Sacrifice of Isaac before the High Altar, as mystically representing the Atonement of Calvary, renewed daily in the Sacrifice of the Mass. In the earliest of these commessi and graffiti, white and black marbles alone are used; later, coloured marbles are employed as well, both in shading and in the decorative portions. Executed at various dates, for the most part in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they have been frequently altered and restored, while in some instances modern copies have been substituted for the originals. Save in the season of the feast of the Assumption, the central portions are kept covered.
The pavement of the nave and aisles is a preparation, in some sort, for the rest. In the nave is first Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, “Contemporaneus Moysi,” with two disciples—symbolical of the mystical wisdom of the Ancients, “when sages looked to Egypt for their lore.” It was executed in 1488 from the designs of Giovanni di Stefano. Next comes Siena herself, represented by the Lupa suckling the Twins, surrounded with the heraldic beasts of the allied cities; this was originally executed in 1373, and (unlike the rest of the pavement) in mosaic, but the present piece is a modern copy. She is followed—in token of what her chroniclers call her perpetual fidelity to the Caesarian Monarchy—by a wheel with the Imperial Eagle in the centre, of the same year. Then follow two allegories of human life, under the sway of Fortune, “who hath the goods of the world so in her clutch.” The first is the so-called Storia della Fortuna, designed by Pinturicchio in 1505.[79] Fortune has landed ten of her subjects on the shore of a solitary island mountain, the paths of which are stony, and where reptiles lurk and crawl. Some run steadfastly on to seek wisdom; one sinks down to rest by the way, wearied already of the quest; one gazes longingly back, another shakes his fist at his mistress. “But she is blessed and heareth not that,” as Dante has it, as she spreads her sail to catch the breeze, and steps off again into her storm-shattered bark to fetch new votaries. Above all change and alien influence, in the flowery garden that crowns the mountain like Dante’s Earthly Paradise, sits Wisdom enthroned, with palm and book; on her right Socrates receives the palm, on her left Crates is casting jewels into the sea; the obvious meaning being that wisdom can be reached only by pursuit of knowledge and contempt of riches. The second, an allegory of ambition, a modern copy of a work originally executed in 1372, shows a crowned king enthroned on the summit of Fortune’s wheel; clinging desperately to the sides of the wheel are men struggling up to take his place or falling from it, while in the corners the sages of antiquity moralise upon the scene. On the pavement of the aisles are the ten Sibyls, inspired prophetesses of the Incarnation and Redemption among the pagans and gentiles. They were laid down in 1482 and 1483, under the rectorship of Alberto Aringhieri, to whose care so much of the beautiful decoration of the Duomo is due; but they have all been restored. In the right aisle we see the Delphic Sibyl, designed and executed by Giuliano di Biagio and Vito di Marco; the Cumaean Sibyl, ascribed to Luigi di Ruggiero and Vito di Marco;[80] the Cuman Sibyl, with the golden bough and the famous Virgilian prophecy, designed and executed by Giovanni di Stefano; the Erythraean Sibyl, designed and executed, also signed, by Antonio Federighi; the Persian Sibyl, which appears to be mainly the work of Urbano da Cortona. In the left aisle are: the Libyan Sibyl, designed by Guidoccio Cozzarelli; the Hellespontine Sibyl, designed by Neroccio di Bartolommeo Landi;[81] the Phrygian Sibyl, probably, like her Cimmerian sister, designed and executed by Luigi di Ruggiero and Vito di Marco; the Samian Sibyl, designed by Matteo di Giovanni and with his signature; the Albunean Sibyl, designed by Benvenuto di Giovanni.[82] These ten figures are among the most characteristic products of Sienese art of the Quattrocento.
On the pavement of the right transept we have the Seven Ages of Man, a modern copy of what was designed and executed by Antonio Federighi in 1475; the story of Jephthah, by Bastiano di Francesco, between 1481 and 1485; the Death of Absalom, by Pietro del Minella, 1447; and the Emperor Sigismund enthroned, designed by Domenico di Bartolo in 1434. This last is peculiarly interesting as being totally different in character from any other of the series, the work of a singularly striking and certainly the most isolated painter of the Sienese school. We have in all that Domenico does a touch of Florentine science and realism. In the left transept are the Expulsion of Herod, with some spirited fighting in superb Renaissance armour, designed by Benvenuto di Giovanni in 1484 or 1485, with a beautiful frieze of winged lions by Bastiano di Francesco; the Massacre of the Innocents, designed by Matteo di Giovanni in 1481, with a frieze of children, bacchanals, centaurs and amazons, showing how Matteo felt the spirit of the Renaissance more fully than any other Sienese painter of his day; the story of Judith, said to have been designed either by Urbano da Cortona or Matteo di Giovanni, and executed by Federighi in 1473. These three scenes have been completely restored. The raised platform in front of the choir shows some of the earliest of these graffiti, laid down between 1423 and 1426, much damaged and restored; David as the Psalmist and David slaying Goliath are by Domenico di Niccolò del Coro, whose work we have seen in the chapel of the Signoria; the story of Joshua and the victory of Samson are by Paolo di Martino. In the sixteenth century the arrangement of the choir was altered, the high altar being removed from under the cupola to its present position. Beccafumi then set to work to design the graffiti for the pavement in accordance with this new arrangement. His work, roughly speaking, runs from 1518 to 1546. It comprises the story of Elijah in the hexagonal space below the cupola; the story of Moses between this and the platform; and, before the high altar itself, the Sacrifice of Abraham, with Adam and Eve, Abel, Melchizedek and other scenes from the Old Testament, inclosed by a frieze representing the Children of Israel going to seek the Promised Land. In recent years the Elijah series has been completed from designs by Alessandro Franchi. Mr Cust remarks that Beccafumi, save in his earlier scenes, discards the colours that Pinturicchio had used, and “confines himself almost entirely to low tones of colour, which shade from one into the other; and produces his effects by a species of chiaroscuro. Instead of outlining each piece, or figure, in a single colour, he frequently uses, on the same subject, white and two or three different shades of pale-coloured grey marble.”[83]
Just within the great doorway are the sepulchral stones of two of the Sienese nobles who fell at Montaperti: Giovanni Ugurghieri and Andrea Beccarini. The delicately worked Corinthian columns supporting the tribune, the bas-reliefs (by Urbano da Cortona) round their pedestals representing scenes from the life of the Blessed Virgin, are of 1483. The stained-glass window over the portal, representing the Last Supper, was designed by Raphael’s famous pupil, Perino del Vaga, and executed by Pastorino Pastorini in 1549. The basins for Holy Water—perhaps the most beautiful things of their kind in existence—are by Antonio Federighi; the pedestal of the one on the right is supposed to be a real antique from an altar dedicated to Neptune. Near the side-doors are statues of two of Siena’s seven popes; Paul V. (Camillo Borghesi), who pontificated from 1605 to 1621, noted for his quarrel with Venice and for his extravagant ultramontanism; Marcellus II. (Marcello Cervini), a saintly man who held the papacy for a few weeks in 1555, and to whose memory Palestrina dedicated his famous Mass.
At the end of the right aisle, over the door of the Campanile, is the tomb of Tommaso Piccolomini, Bishop of Pienza, who died in 1483, by Neroccio; below it, three on each side, are bas-reliefs by Urbano da Cortona, representing scenes from the lives of the Madonna and her parents; that of Joachim among the shepherds is full of pastoral charm. The Cappella del Voto, in the right transept, glowing with lapislazuli and gold, was built in 1661 by Cardinal Fabio Chigi, to enshrine the miraculous Madonna—the Madonna delle Grazie—to which the Sienese had paid their vows in the days of Montaperti, and which is still credited with wonderful powers. The superbly modelled Magdalene and Jerome, by Bernini, the great Roman sculptor of the seventeenth century, are strongly characteristic of that master’s exaggerated and emotional, but undeniably powerful style. Further on in the transept, Siena’s first and latest pope face each other; Alexander III., the Orlando Bandinelli, so frequently mentioned, and Alexander VII., the above-named Fabio Chigi, who reigned from 1665 to 1667, a good, easy man, who loved letters, and of whom the Venetian envoy wrote that “he had merely the name of a pope, not the substantial power of the papacy.” In the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, let into the wall, are reliefs of St Paul and the four Evangelists, by Giovanni da Imola and Giovanni di Turino.
Opposite the Cappella del Voto is the Chapel of the Baptist in the left transept. It contains, in a richly worked reliquary, what is supposed to be one of the arms of the Baptist himself, which Pius II. presented to Siena in 1464. The chapel was built by Giovanni di Stefano, the external marble decorations being by Lorenzo di Mariano. Of the two pedestals that support the marble columns at the entrance, the one on the right is a genuine antique, which Antonio Federighi bought in exchange for a pair of oxen, and the one on the left is his own imitation of it.[84] Within, the presiding genius of the place is Donatello’s St John in bronze, one of the master’s latest works, full of dramatic expression and the same spirit of austere prophecy that we found in the Magdalene of the Florentine Baptistery. The marble statues of St Ansanus and St Catherine of Alexandria are by Giovanni di Stefano and Neroccio respectively; the latter, assigned to the sculptor in 1487, was left unfinished at his death. The bas-reliefs of the Font—representing scenes from Genesis, and two of the labours of Hercules—are fine and characteristic works of the school of Giacomo della Quercia, and should perhaps be ascribed to Antonio Federighi. The eight frescoes were originally executed by Pinturicchio and his pupils, between 1501 and 1504, for Alberto Aringhieri. On the left and right of the entrance, by Pinturicchio himself, we see Alberto in youth and age; first as a young knight keeping vigil, then advanced in years, kneeling in prayer, in the dress of a knight of Rhodes; they are full of charm, especially the first, in its harmonies of grey and red, the highest expression of Sienese chivalry:—
“Unfathomable thoughts with him remain
Of that great bond he may no more eschew,
Nor can he say, ‘I’ll hide me from this chain.’”[85]