And it is dated MCCCCLXXV. All round the chapel runs a frieze of cherubs’ heads. In two large lunettes on either side are two admirable frescoes by Domenico Ghirlandaio, which have a freshness and simplicity that we hardly find elsewhere in his work. On the right is the bare, poverty-stricken room where Fina lies on her plank, which has already begun to break out into flowers beneath her. Her faithful nurse Beldi supports her head with the hand that, according to the legend, caught the disease, and another woman is seated by her; both are peasant types, in the dress of peasants at the painter’s own day. They do not see the sudden vision of St Gregory in his glory, that sheds its splendour over the humble chamber, but they gaze up because of Fina’s rapt face. Above, the Angels are carrying her soul up to Paradise. Opposite is the funeral, a picture full of those splendid Florentine portrait heads that Domenico painted so well. Fina has just placed her dead hand upon that of her nurse, and thereby cured her; Bishop Ranieri of Volterra, who had a few months back reconciled the conflicting factions of the town, is reading the office for the dead. In the background are the towers of San Gimignano, and the Angels are ringing the bells. These two frescoes appear to be very early works of the painter, who had probably been introduced to the Operaio of the Collegiata by either the architect or sculptor.[190] The Prophets and Saints in the angles and round the windows, the Evangelists on the ceiling are the work of Sebastiano Mainardi.
In the choir is a Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels, signed by Benozzo Gozzoli, and dated 1466. How stiff and archaic it seems by comparison with its neighbour, the Coronation of the Madonna by Pietro Pollaiuolo, signed and dated 1483, one of the pictures commissioned by Fra Domenico Strambi! Instead of Benozzo’s heavy gold haloes in which the names of the saints are inscribed (a characteristic which he borrowed from his master Angelico), Pietro reduces this emblem of sanctity to an almost imperceptible thin ring of gold and makes their human side predominant. There is a certain harshness about Pollaiuolo’s picture; Christ and the Madonna are unattractive types, and there is an excessive display of anatomical knowledge; but the admirable heads and powerfully modelled figures of the six saints—Geminianus and Bartolo (the two central figures), Augustine and Jerome, Fina and Nicholas of Tolentino—are unsurpassable in their way. The head of San Bartolo, especially, is a magnificent piece of painting. The beautiful mitres of Augustine and Geminianus on the ground show that the painter was also a goldsmith. On the left is a somewhat Raffaelesque Madonna and Child with Saints, one of the best works of Vincenzo Tamagni; the black monk kneeling in front is not Aquinas (as might be supposed from his attributes), but Nicholas of Tolentino who is much honoured in this town. The choir stalls date from 1490, and there are some illuminated choir books, one of them with ten excellent miniatures ascribed to Niccolò di Ser Sozzo Tegliacci, whose masterpiece in this kind we have seen at Siena.
San Gimignano was the first town in Italy to listen to the teaching of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, while Florence still rejected him. He preached the Lents of 1484 and 1485 in this very church. It was here that he first uttered the words of threefold prophecy that were soon to echo through the world. There was to be a renovation of the Church; but, first, the scourge of God would fall upon her and upon Italy; and these things would come speedily. Can we not imagine his eyes resting on Taddeo’s Last Judgment at the end of the church, when he first mounted the pulpit, thrust back his cowl, and gazed round upon the assembled people?
In the sacristy there is an admirable bust, by Benedetto da Maiano, of Onofrio di Pietro, the Operaio of the Collegiata under whose superintendence the building was restored and the shrine of Santa Fina constructed; he died in 1488. The marble ciborium is also by Benedetto. A Madonna and Child with six Saints by Sebastiano Mainardi does not show that painter at his best. Out of the left aisle opens the chapel of San Giovanni, with a frescoed Annunciation of 1482, probably executed by Mainardi from the design of Ghirlandaio, and an old baptismal font (still used) made by Giovanni Cecchi of Siena in 1379 at the expense of the Arte della Lana, with quaint bas-reliefs of the Baptism of Christ, Angels and the Agnus Dei of the Guild. This same Guild, together with the Commune, had previously borne the cost of Bartolo di Fredi’s frescoes. There is a cloister attached to the Pieve with a few remains of frescoes, one of which—a Pietà—is ascribed by Mr Berenson to Pier Francesco Fiorentino.
At the side of the Collegiata is the Palazzo Comunale or Palazzo del Popolo, which was begun in 1288. Its great tower, the Torre del Comune, was begun in 1300 and finished about 1311, when the bell of the Commune was placed there. The palace is sometimes called the new Palazzo del Podestà, because after 1353 the Florentine Podestà resided here. The steps lead up to the platform upon which the Podestà stood when he presented his credentials and received the baton and keys from the Gonfaloniere, and it was at its steps that the two Ardinghelli had been beheaded in 1352. There is a picturesque court, with fragments of frescoes and armorial bearings, and a well of 1360. To the right of the court is what was once the Cappella delle Carceri. Opposite the door is a fresco of the Madonna and Child enthroned, with St Geminianus and another bishop, of the school of Taddeo di Bartolo. By Bazzi (hastily executed and much repainted) are frescoes in chiaroscuro, representing St Ivo, the just young judge, administering justice to the poor and helpless, and, at the foot of the stairs, a magistrate seated between Truth and Prudence, trampling upon the Lie.
In the Sala del Consiglio, the councils of the Commune met in the fourteenth century, and it was here that Dante, on May 7th, 1300, spoke on behalf of the Guelf League of Tuscany. Here are remains of remarkable frescoes painted in 1292, and which he must therefore have seen; they represent hunting scenes and jousting, knights dashing against each other with swords and lances in the regular Arthurian style, a centaur slaying a hydra, Scolaio Ardinghelli arbitrating between the Commune and the clergy. This latter scene refers to a great dispute that began in 1290 between the Commune and the clergy of the town, concerning tithes and taxes. When the Bishop of Volterra put the place under the interdict, the people broke down the doors of the Pieve and had Mass celebrated there in spite of him, upon which the Proposto and his clergy left, carrying off the pictures and other treasures of the church with them. Pope Nicholas IV. intervened, and at last the matter was referred to Scolaio Ardinghelli, a prelate high in favour with the Pope, who in April 1292 decided in favour of the Commune. The picture was ordered by the latter in the same year. The rest of the frescoes were destroyed to make way for the large fresco by Lippo