The Story of Siena and San Gimignano

by Edmund G. Gardner

At least one Sangimignanese in the days of the Renaissance acquired an European reputation. Filippo de’ Buonaccorsi was born here in 1437, of an old and noble family. He was one of the humanists who flocked to Rome in the days of Pius II. Here he was associated with Pomponius Laetus in the founding of the famous Academy, and took the name of Callimachus, which was supposed to be the classical equivalent of Buonaccorsi. He was a leader in the real or fictitious plot against Paul II., of which Platina gives us so vivid a picture in his life of that Pontiff, and saved himself by flight. Later on, he made his way to Poland, where King Casimir IV. made him tutor to his sons and one of his secretaries, and frequently sent him on embassies. When Casimir’s son, John Albert, succeeded to the throne in 1492, Filippo became his chief minister and adviser, and is said to have counselled the King to resist the nobles and aim at despotic power. He died at Cracow in 1496, leaving a number of works in Latin, dealing with the history of Poland and Hungary. On one occasion, when on his way to Rome as ambassador from King Casimir to Pope Innocent VIII., Buonaccorsi passed through San Gimignano. He received a pompous reception from the Commune, in order that others, his fellow-citizens, might be encouraged to follow in his footsteps.

CHAPTER XII
In the Town of the Beautiful Towers

SAN GIMIGNANO is still surrounded by its second circuit of walls, built to inclose the Castello Nuovo at the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century. The five massive towers that strengthen the walls were raised by the Florentines in the fifteenth century, and the whole town is surmounted by the Florentine castle, the Rocca di Montestaffoli. The three main gates have been preserved; the Porta San Matteo to the north, the Porta San Giovanni to the south, the Porta della Fonte to the east; and there is a smaller portal to the west, below the Rocca, the Porta di Quercecchio. And portions even remain of the first ancient circuit of walls that, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, inclosed the Castello Vecchio; especially two massive portoni in the chief street where the two chief gates stood, known as the Arco della Cancelleria and the Arco de’ Becci or de’ Talei, respectively. Even in 1355, Fra Matteo Ciaccheri could write of “the great ruin of the towers, of which many I see destroyed.” At present, only thirteen of these towers are standing.

Until the great pestilence of 1348, San Gimignano was divided into four contrade: the contrade of the Castello, of the Piazza, of San Matteo and of San Giovanni. After 1348, it was divided into thirds, the contrade of the Castello and Piazza being made one. In the sixteenth century these three were further reduced to two, as at present; the Contrada di San Matteo and the Contrada di San Giovanni.

The centre of interest in the town is the former Piazza della Pieve, the historical scene of all the great State functions of the Republic, now called the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. Here are the Collegiata or Pieve (sometimes, but incorrectly, styled the Duomo[187]), the Palazzo del Popolo or Palazzo Comunale (sometimes called the new Palazzo del Podestà), and the old Palazzo del Podestà.

The Collegiata, or Pieve, was originally built in the eleventh century and modified in the fourteenth, the stone columns of the nave with their curiously worked capitals and part of the exterior belonging to the earlier epoch. But, in 1466, Giuliano da Maiano came to the place and designed the new choir and chapels, with the result that the church is a peculiar combination of Romanesque and early Renaissance architecture. The walls of the aisles and between the two doors are a mass of glowing fresco painting, illustrating the whole story of Sienese art daring that epoch that intervened between the deaths of the Lorenzetti and the rise of the great painters (practically the scholars of Taddeo di Bartolo) of the Quattrocento—but presently yielding, like San Gimignano itself, to the Florentines. On the left, in three parallel series, are scenes from the Old Testament by Bartolo di Fredi, finished in 1356; the Creation and Expulsion from Paradise, Cain and Abel, the story of Noah, Abraham and Lot, the stories of Joseph, Moses, and Job. They impress us by their naiveté, the charm and grace with which the Sienese tell a story; note the delightful realism in the Building of the Ark, the beautiful group of women and children on the altogether impossible beasts intended for camels in the Crossing of the Red Sea. On the right are scenes from the New Testament, the life of Christ from the Annunciation to the Crucifixion; the later scenes have been destroyed (in the sixteenth century) to make room for the orchestra, but we can just see the remains of the Descent into Hades and the Ascension. They were begun by Barna of Siena, who fell from his scaffolding here and was killed in 1380, and finished by his pupil Giovanni da Asciano. Though of no surpassing merit, the scenes are well composed, in accordance with the usual tradition, and the painter has caught enough of Duccio’s spirit for the sacred stories to receive fairly adequate illustration for devotional purposes. The whole scheme of decoration of the aisles and nave is to set forth the entire creed of mediaeval Christianity, in accordance with which we see on either side of the window of the right aisle (below which is a memorial tablet to Barna) the peacocks, the emblems of the Resurrection. Round the central window is what completes the whole tale of human life, from this point of view: the Last Judgment, painted by Taddeo di Bartolo in 1393. It is a mere variation of the usual mediaeval composition; Christ is enthroned as Judge, with Angels bearing trumpets and the emblems of the Passion, the Madonna and Baptist kneeling on either side as representing Divine Mercy and Divine Justice respectively; lower down are Enoch and Elijah as assessors, while the twelve Apostles are seated below the window. At the sides, to right and left of the Judge, are Heaven and Hell. Christ and His Mother are seen in the Empyrean, with Angels and Saints in the fruition of the Beatific Vision. The Hell is disgusting and vile, even beyond the usual fashion of these representations. Those who can endure it, will be able to work through its revolting details with the aid of the scrolls, and will be interested to note how certain Dantesque motives (the punishment of the panders and seducers is a good instance) have become coarsened and brutalised by the feebler imagination or provincial taste of the Sienese painter or his Sangimignanese employers.

After the pestilence of 1348, it was decreed that an altar should be built, between the two doors of the Pieve, in honour of St Fabian and St Sebastian, to put the survivors under their protection. The fresco that we now see in that place, under Taddeo’s Last Judgment, by Benozzo Gozzoli, commemorates the pestilence of 1464, and was ordered by Fra Domenico Strambi, an Augustinian monk, who was regarded as the great theological light in San Gimignano in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and to whom many of the artistic monuments of the town are due. He had been sent to study theology in Paris, partly at the cost of the Commune, in 1454, and received a State welcome on his return. Benozzo, as the inscription states, finished the work, “to the praise of the most glorious athlete, St Sebastian,” in January 1465 (that is, according to our modern reckoning, 1466). The Saint himself is impassive and stolid, though his body is a mass of arrows; the group of Florentines who seem practising archery, on our left, is the most satisfactory part of the fresco. Angels crown the martyr, Christ and the Madonna appear to him in glory above the clouds. In the frieze we see St Geminianus above with the model of his town, and, in the corners below, Bartolo and Fina. The Eternal Father with the Dove and the beautiful group of Angels (completing the scene of the Annunciation, with the two wooden statues of Mary and Gabriel by a Sienese sculptor of the preceding century) are also by Benozzo. His, too, are the Assumption on the left, the St Antony and four Saints on the pilasters. The Patriarchs opposite the scenes from the Old Testament, the medallions of the Apostles between the arches, the Christ above the steps to the choir, are by the priest, Pier Francesco Fiorentino, that curiously unprogressive painter of the latter part of the fifteenth century, whose works abound here and in the neighbourhood.[188]

At the end of the right aisle is the shrine of Santa Fina. The chapel is a perfect gem of later fifteenth century art; architecture, sculpture and painting are blended to form a plastic poem even more harmonious than that of the more strenuous virgin of Siena in San Domenico. It was designed by Giuliano da Maiano in 1468; the shrine itself, in pure white and gold, was executed by Giuliano’s brother, Benedetto, in 1475. It is not quite as the sculptor left it. Above the sarcophagus are the Madonna and Child in a glory of cherubs with two Angels; underneath them are scenes from Fina’s life in relief; her vision of St Gregory, her funeral, her appearing to heal a sick woman. These predella scenes were originally below, the present base of cherubs’ heads and sacramental cups being more modern. Below, on either side of the tabernacle, are four Angels in niches, and two more (isolated statues) kneel with vases of flowers on either side of the altar. Upon the sarcophagus, with curious naked genii in the spirit of the Renaissance, is the inscription:—

“Virginis ossa latent tumulo quem suspicis, hospes.
Haec decus, exemplum, praesidiumque suis.
Nomen Fina fuit; patria haec; miracula quaeris?
Perlege quae paries vivaque signa docent.”[189]