there a sudden glimpse of a rose garden, or a fig tree in a little cortile bending its branches over the way. In the less picturesque Via San Quirico is the church of San Quirico, perhaps the oldest in Siena, but now modernised. By the side of it, an irritating piece of wall cuts off what should be a superb view of the Duomo. In the same street are the remains of the little church of Sant’ Ansano in Castelvecchio, which was possibly the first baptistery of Siena and of which there is documentary evidence as far back as the year 881.[139] Near it stands an old tower, the Rocchetta, which is probably the only remnant of the first castle and certainly the most venerable piece of masonry left in Siena; according to the legend, it was here that St Ansanus himself was imprisoned by the Roman governor before his martyrdom. In the Via delle Murelle (now Via Tommaso Pendola) is the chapel of the Contrada della Tartuca. This part of Siena is rich in charitable institutions. On either side of the street is a great institute for the Deaf and Dumb, and in the refectory of an old convent of the Poor Clares (now the female side of the Institute) the Sisters of Charity show you a beautiful fresco of the Last Supper with scenes from the Passion above. It appears to be the work of some Sienese master of the latter part of the Quattrocento, who had, perhaps, seen Andrea del Castagno’s rendering of the same theme in Santa Appollonia at Florence. The last house in the Via Stalloreggi, on the left, is the one in which Duccio painted his glorious masterpiece, and it was hither that the procession came, to take it in triumph to its place beneath the cupola of the Duomo. Then we pass out of the old city, under the Arco delle due Porte, into the Piazza del Carmine, now a part of the Via Baldassare Peruzzi.
The present church and convent of Santa Maria del Carmine were built early in the sixteenth century, possibly from Peruzzi’s designs; the cloisters are particularly graceful. The convent itself is of very ancient origin, and in the further cloister is the famous Pozzo della Diana—which, however, may possibly have no connection, save by name, with Dante’s cut at the vain hopes and foolish expenditure of the Sienese.[140] The church contains some good pictures: the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin by Bazzi; the Ascension of Christ by Pacchiarotti; the Adoration of the Shepherds, begun by Il Riccio and finished by Arcangiolo Salimbeni. But finer than any of these is Beccafumi’s St Michael casting down the rebellious Angels, over the altar opposite the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, a work of much beauty and great imaginative power, enthusiastically—but hardly excessively—praised by Vasari. Baldassare Peruzzi, Messer Giorgio tells us, was never tired of praising it; “and one day that I saw it with him, uncovered, as I was passing through Siena, I was struck dumb with admiration.” The sacristy contains a statue of St Sigismund, ascribed to Giacomo Cozzarelli. The Palazzo Celsi opposite is ascribed to Peruzzi and contains three ceiling paintings attributed to him, ruined by repainting.
From the Via Baldassare Peruzzi, the Via della Diana and the Via di San Marco lead to the most picturesquely placed of Sienese gates—the Porta San Marco, outside which is a pleasant and shady piazzale with a view over the sweeping country to the distant hills, the Monastery of Sant’ Eugenio standing out conspicuously on its eminence in the foreground. The picturesque Via delle Sperandie leads to the same gate, past a large abandoned convent—the cloisters of which have been deserted even by the