The Story of Siena and San Gimignano

by Edmund G. Gardner

This is the epoch of the short, flower-like life and flower-attended death of the virgin heroine of San Gimignano, Santa Fina. Fina de’ Ciardi, born of a noble but poor family, at the age of ten contracted a horrible disease and, instead of a bed, chose to lie upon a plank of hard oak for five years, “offering herself up as a perfect holocaust to God.” She lost her father and mother, had horrible visions of the fiend in the form of a serpent. Then according to the legend, eight days before her death, St Gregory appeared to her, and told her that the end of her miseries was come, for that on the day of his feast she would be with him in Paradise. She died on March 12th, 1253, being then fifteen years old. “Hardly had that blessed soul expired,” writes the Annalist, “than the Demons in envy and rage filled the air with such fearful whirlwinds, that poor mortals were struck with horror. Against them the sound of the bells of San Gimignano, moved by the invisible hands of Angels, bore witness to the sanctity of Fina, and straightway caused those storms and infernal whirlwinds to cease. At these prodigies, the people flocked to the house of the saint, from which every one imagined that these effects proceeded. And when they arrived there, they smelt a fragrance of Paradise, and saw all the room where the sacred body was, miraculously full of flowers, as also the board upon which she lay. And when they wished to lift her from it, a part of the mortified flesh remained attached to it and straightway turned into flowers.”[177] Such are the contrasts offered by mediaeval

life and legend. The towns where the streets are still running red with the blood of the citizens, while the remains of houses and palaces are still smoking in their ruin, are visited by beings of another world, and have mystical gates and windows that open out upon the unseen.

San Gimignano was now Guelf for a while, and sent a well-equipped little force to swell the Florentine host at Montaperti in 1260. After the battle the Ardinghelli, Pellari, Mangieri and other Guelf families fled to Lucca; the Ghibellines took over the government and recalled Neri degli Uberti to serve as Podestà. San Gimignano now followed the fortunes of Siena, as in its Guelf days it had followed those of Florence. But in 1269, after the battle of Colle di Val d’Elsa, it became Guelf again under the suzerainty of Charles of Anjou, expelled the leading Ghibellines, and took a Captain of the People in imitation of the Florentines. But the neighbouring castle of Poggibonsi still clung to the decaying cause of the Ghibellines, and sheltered the fuorusciti. It was now, in 1270, reduced by the French soldiery of Montfort, aided by the Florentines and Sangimignanesi. The splendid castle, which Giovanni Villani calls the strongest and most beautiful in Italy, and of which we still see the remains rising above the modern town, was razed to the ground, and the inhabitants were forced to descend from the hill into the plain. King Charles put the work of destruction into the hands of the Sangimignanesi and made over a portion of the territory of the “rebellious” castle to them, the rest to the Florentines. Henceforth San Gimignano adhered to the Guelf League of Tuscany, sent armed men to take part in its wars, and did a little independent fighting with the Bishop of Volterra. The small Commune began to have a voice in the counsels of Tuscany. In August 1276, the Sienese sent for peacemakers from San Gimignano, and the Podestà, Fantone de’ Rossi of Florence, with two of the citizens went at their request, “for the utility of that City and for the honour of this Commune.”

This was, indeed, the golden age of San Gimignano, from about 1270 to about 1320. According to Pecori, the population of the terra and contado together amounted to about 16,000 in the fourteenth century. The internal government grew more democratic, more definitely Guelf. Instead of the twelve captains and rectors, it was now ruled by the Otto delle Spese with the four Capitani di Parte Guelfa, and the usual credenza and General Council. In 1301 these Eight were increased to Nine, the “Nine Governors and Defenders of the Town,” whose term of office (like that of the Priors of Florence and the Nine of Siena) was two months. With the Nine was associated a giunta of twenty-four. The Podestà was publicly elected in front of the Pieve or Collegiata. All the magistrates assembled, and the Captains of the Parte Guelfa determined two cities from which he should be chosen. Then they drew by lot twelve councillors, each of whom nominated two knights from each of the two cities. They balloted for these, took the names of the eight who had received most votes, and wrote them on two tickets, four on each, which were inclosed in wax and put into a vessel of water. A child drew out one for the first six months, leaving the other for the second. Then the four names were similarly inclosed in four other wax globules, the child drew again, and the first name that came out was that of the Podestà for the next six months. The names on the second ticket, carefully inclosed in wax, were put into the custody of the Friars Minor until, at the appointed time, they were brought to the General Council and the same process repeated for the Podestà of the second six months.[178] And, indeed, the Podestà of San Gimignano had no easy task; the factions continued their aimless and deadly course, the Pellari leading the Guelfs and the Salvucci the Ghibellines, until in May 1298, the Cardinal Matteo d’Acquasparta came to the place and patched up a peace, which was solemnly celebrated in the Piazza.

In the following year, 1299, died San Bartolo, the Father Damian of the Middle Ages. He was the son of Giovanni Buonpedoni, Count of Mucchio in the Sangimignanese contado. At an early age he entered the Church, tended the sick at Pisa, served as a simple parish priest at Peccioli and Picchena, and at length devoted the last twenty years of his life to the service of the lepers in the leper hospital, the Leprosario of Cellole. Here he fell a victim to his heroic self-sacrifice, and suffered so terribly that he was called the Job of Tuscany. By his own last wish, he was buried in Sant’ Agostino, where, two centuries later, the art of Benedetto da Maiano raised the noble monument we now see.

The day in this epoch that has made most impression upon the imagination of posterity, probably created comparatively little excitement at the time. It was only one of many similar embassies from the allied cities of the Guelf League that came to the gate of San Gimignano on that May morning of the year of Jubilee, 1300;[179] but the young burgher who rode in, with trumpeters and others whose coats were emblazoned with the red lily, was no other than Dante Alighieri, come as ambassador of Florence to announce that a parliament was to be held for the purpose of electing a captain for the Guelf League of Tuscany, and to invite the Commune of San Gimignano to send representatives. The great new Palace of the Commune was then just finished, and the Tower barely begun. There was much Guelf fervour in San Gimignano in this year, the Podestà ordaining that, to avoid disorder and faction, every one should solemnly declare himself Guelf or Ghibelline, and that the Captains of the Party should raise a guard of six hundred men, half from the terra and half from the contado, for the custody of the town, to appear ready in arms at the sound of the bell. As we might have anticipated, when the Guelfs split into Blacks and Whites, San Gimignano was “black,” and in 1305 sent men to the siege of Pistoia.