Two Sienese, Giovanni Andrea Bonizzelli and Giovanni Battista Cappanna, who had served the Spaniards as commissaries, attempted to escape from the city; they were brutally done to death, the one by the contadini into whose hands he had fallen, the other brought back as a prisoner to be hurled out of a window of the Sala di Balìa. At the beginning of August, at the intervention of the Duke of Florence, the Citadel capitulated; the Spaniards and Florentines were allowed to march out with their arms and baggage, and retire unmolested to Florence. The young-lady-like maestro di campo, Don Franzese, shed tears when he found Messer Ottavio Sozzini and a number of young Sienese gentlemen waiting in the Prato di Camollia to bid him farewell. “You brave Sienese,” he said, “have made a most beautiful stroke; but for the future be wise, for you have offended too great a man.”
Lansac, the French representative, at once entered the Citadel and summoned the Signoria. They came in procession with a banner of Our Lady in front of them, with all the other magistrates and officials following, crowned with garlands of olive, while all the clergy and a multitude of people came after, with men bearing spades, pickaxes and the like: “it seemed that each one was going to a wedding.” In the name of the Most Christian King, Lansac formally made over the Citadel to the Republic—the notary of the Concistoro, Ser Luca Salvini, drawing up the instrument in strict legal form. Let Sozzini, who was present, describe the scene: “When the deed had been drawn up in valid form, the Captain of the People first and then the most illustrious Signori, with pickaxes and other instruments began to destroy the said Citadel; and all the people shouted, with tears of joy in their eyes: ‘Liberty, Liberty!’ ‘France, France!’ ‘Victory, Victory!’ Now whoso had seen the great multitude of gentlemen and shopkeepers, who raced to come first to the destruction of the Citadel, certainly would have been astounded; seeing that, in the space of one hour, more was destroyed facing the city than would have been built in four months. When the Signoria and the procession departed to return to the Palace, many gentlemen and shopkeepers remained to continue the destruction, and continually fresh folk arrived there.”[120]
Siena was now under the protection of France, with a French garrison. The people were in a fever of delight. Sonnet after sonnet, abusing the Spaniards and extolling the French, satirising the Catholic Majesty and praising the Most Christian, appeared on the Loggia di Mercanzia. With no thought or talk of war, the Sienese gave themselves up to sport and pleasure. The Balìa was abolished, or rather combined with the Concistoro in one chief magistracy composed of the Signoria and twenty others elected by the Senate; the two councils (the General Council of the Campana, or Senate, and the Council of the People) were reduced to one; the Monti were nominally annulled, or united in one body of the “Cittadini Reggenti della Città di Siena.” In November the Cardinal of Ferrara, Ippolito d’Este the younger, with a goodly guard of Swiss, came as lieutenant of the King of France, received by the government with the utmost honour, and welcomed by the people, says Malavolti, con incredibile allegrezza. Hearing that the Emperor was massing troops in the Kingdom of Naples to come against Siena, the Cardinal had new forts built outside the Porta Camollia. The men of the contrade came to work upon them, “always gladly to the sound of drums and trumpets,” while one of the Cardinal’s guard played on the flute, so sweetly “that every one stayed to listen to it as a thing most rare.” But wiser folk shook their heads, noticing that the forts were being designed in such a way that they would serve equally to bombard the city, “from which thing many took a right sinister impression.”[121] And again the strange weird figure of Brandano appeared, wandering up and down the streets, gazing upon the new fortifications, singing in a quaint doggerel of his own: “Little good, O Cardinal, may’st thou bring us! Siena, Siena, the physician will come who will cure thee of thy madness.”[122]
The first attempt of the powers of Spain and the Empire to avenge their discomfiture failed signally. At the beginning of 1553, a great army of Germans, Spaniards and Italians under Don Garcia de Toledo (the brother-in-law of Duke Cosimo) invaded the dominion of the Republic, occupied the Valdichiana, took Pienza, and captured Monticchiello after a heroic defence in which the garrison of the little castle, commanded by Adriano Baglioni, only surrendered when all the powder for the arquebuses was spent and they were reduced to fighting with stones. In the Maremma, Cornelio Bentivoglio sallied out of Grosseto and routed the imperial reinforcements that had landed at Piombino from Sicily. In the latter part of March the invading army laid siege to Montalcino, which Giordano Orsini
