The Story of Siena and San Gimignano

by Edmund G. Gardner

Apennines bar the eyes’ further progress. Behind it, to the west, are hills that command a view of Volterra and the distant Mediterranean. The woods that once gave the little town its picturesque name—“Il Castello della Selva,” the “Castle of the Wood”—have almost disappeared. In their place it is surrounded with olive plantations, which temper with their silvery softness the austerity of the towers and the walls:—

“Of the breached walls whereon the wallflowers ran
Called of Saint Fina, breachless now of man,
Though time with soft feet break them stone by stone,
Who breaks down hour by hour his own reign’s span.”[174]

The people are mediaeval still. You may see them throng the churches as in the old days of simple faith, or hear them among the vineyards and in the beanfields answer each other in the rispetti and strambotti of a more primitive Tuscany. The place is miserably poor, in marked contrast to the smug prosperity of its neighbours, Poggibonsi and Certaldo. Living is exceedingly cheap, but there is no trade, and what little work there is, is but scantily paid. Yet the people are full of old-world dignity and courtesy, and seem cheerful in spite of it all, even down to the little beggar bambini who pursue the foreign visitor with insatiable demands for foreign stamps and soldi, or pester him with unseasonable offers to serve as guide.[175]

Like most other small Italian towns, the origin of San Gimignano—il nobile castello, or il florido castello di San Gimignano—is hidden in legendary clouds. There is, of course, a tradition of a Roman foundation, a castle built by Silvius, a young Roman patrician involved in Catiline’s rebellion, of Attila’s hordes of Huns hurled back by a sudden apparition of St Geminianus the martyred Bishop of Modena (whence the change of name from Silvia to San Gimignano), of a great palace built by Desiderius King of the Lombards, of privileges granted by Charlemagne. All these things are presumably mere fables. Luigi Pecori, the historian of his native town, supposes that in the sixth or seventh century, when the devotion to St Geminianus was widely spread, a church was built to his honour here, that people gradually gathered round it, until by the beginning of the eighth century there was a regular town, which was fortified by a castle; and as it was then surrounded and defended by woods, it was called the Castello di San Gimignano or the Castello della Selva. Be that as it may, the first authentic mention of the place is in a document of the early part of the tenth century.

From the tenth to the twelfth century, San Gimignano was subject to Volterra and more particularly to the Bishop of that city; but in the course of the twelfth century, its people were gradually winning their way to virtual independence and self-government, like the other communes of Tuscany, and like them beginning to exert supremacy and authority over the petty nobles of the small castles in the vicinity. By the year 1200, they had practically attained their liberty. At this time they had consuls, three or four elected annually, with a special council of fifty and a larger general council “which met only in cases of peace or war, usually in the Pieve, and always at the sound of the bell, as though Religion with her solemn voice invited the citizens into her own sanctuary to provide for the public weal.”[176] Hitherto the Bishop of Volterra had appointed two rectors, rettori, in whom the judiciary power was vested; but in 1199, instead of these rectors, we begin to find a Podestà, elected by the Council of the Commune, the first being Messer Maghinardo Malavolti of Siena. At first, a native of the place was sometimes elected; but after 1220 the Podestà was always a foreign noble (usually, but not invariably, from Siena or Florence), who judged civil and criminal cases, presided over the meetings of the General Council and led the forces of the Commune in war; he brought with him a judge and a notary with a certain number of attendants, berrovieri, and was not allowed to entertain nor to receive hospitality from the citizens. All this was more or less the same, on a smaller scale, as what took place at this epoch in Florence or Siena; but here in San Gimignano the effect of the appointment of a Podestà was not to reduce the authority of the consuls, but rather to abolish that of the rectors of the Bishop of Volterra, and we find him exercising his magistracy side by side with the consuls for a longer period here than in the larger communes. For the rest, his term of office was originally one year, but it was afterwards reduced to six months; the same Podestà, however, was frequently re-elected.

Hitherto San Gimignano had consisted of the Castello Vecchio, surrounded by the old walls and with those grim antique gates, of which the remains stand to-day in the shape of the two portoni, with a suburb outside. But now, at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries, the new circle of walls was built to inclose the Castello Nuovo, as it was called; this is the seconda cinta, the second circuit of walls that still surround the place.

With the thirteenth century begins the series of the wars of the Sangimignanesi. In 1202, under their Podestà, they sent a force to relieve Semifonte, then besieged by the Florentines, but ended by helping to subject the castle to their formidable neighbours. They amplified their own dominion, destroyed the fortresses of the lords of various little castles in the contado, forcing them to enter San Gimignano, and obtained Castelvecchio (which no longer exists) in 1210 from the Bishop of Volterra. They carried on a long intermittent struggle with Volterra, sometimes for the possession of Monte Voltraio, sometimes in alliance with the warrior bishop, Pagano de’ Pannocchieschi, whom his people expelled at intervals. Occasionally, Florence or Siena would intervene and compel the two small communes to keep the peace. San Gimignano even sent men to the Crusades, and two of these, Bene Trainelli and a certain Gradalone, are said to have won great honour. Within the city, there were the usual struggles between the magnates and the people, the grandi and the popolani, which came to a head in 1233, when the houses of the Knights Templars were burned, and a number of popolani, chosen from each of the then four contrade, with the rectors of the Arts, were appointed to sit with the consuls in the councils of the State. There was another tumult in 1236, which the Bishop Pagano came in person from Volterra to appease, after which the two Councils appear to have been reduced to one. In the days of Frederick II., San Gimignano was Ghibelline, took its Podestàs “by the grace of God and of the Emperor,” and sent horse and foot to serve in the imperial army. But the factions raged here, as everywhere else in Tuscany. In 1246, irritated by an unusually heavy tax upon the churches, the Guelfs rose. Headed by the sons of Guido Ardinghelli, they assailed the houses of the Ghibellines, especially those of the sons of Messer Salvuccio. The Podestà was absent at Certaldo; but he gathered troops in the contado, and entered the town while the uproar in the streets was at its height; he assailed the Guelfs who, under this combined attack and the rain of bolts and arrows from the towers, were forced to retire. There were numbers banished on both sides. Thus began the feud between the houses of the Ardinghelli and Salvucci, that was to bring San Gimignano into servitude.

Shortly after the middle of the thirteenth century, a more democratic form of government was established. Instead of the consuls, the supreme authority was vested in a magistracy of twelve, elected annually—the twelve “Captains and Rectors of the People,” two captains and one rector being elected from each quarter of the town. There was the one Council of the Commune, usually sixty in number. A special magistracy of eight presided over the public expenses (the Otto delle Spese), and the Podestà, of course, had a special council, which in San Gimignano consisted of sixteen citizens.

But in the years in which this reformation was effected, immediately after the death of Frederick II., the factions grew more furious. In June 1251 the Guelfs rose, headed by the Twelve, expelled the Ghibelline Podestà, Neri degli Uberti of Florence, and made themselves masters of the town. Then in September 1252, the Ghibellines rose, headed by Michele Buonfigliuoli. The Guelfs made their stand at the houses of the Cini and Cici in the quarter of San Matteo, where after a desperate battle—the Podestà vainly spreading the red and yellow banner of the Commune and calling upon the combatants to lay down their arms—the Ghibellines got the upper hand, sacked the houses and massacred their opponents. The Guelfs appealed to the Bishop of Volterra, Ranieri de’ Pannocchieschi, who came to San Gimignano and patched up a sort of peace between the two factions—apparently to the advantage of the Guelfs. The Ghibellines rose again in January 1253; the gates were broken down and a portion of the walls destroyed, until at last the men of San Miniato interposed and assisted in expelling the leading Ghibellines.