Solo in Siena

I was inspired by my sister-in-law to do a little solo travel this winter during the weekends My Girl is traveling with her sports teams.  I have plenty of time to be at home by myself, so I might as well go have a little adventure.  For awhile I had a kid at home or I was waiting for a travel buddy.  No more waiting.  I used to do a lot on my own and I can do it again.  So, this weekend I went to Siena.  I wanted to see the frescoes of good and bad government in the city hall.  They are famously one of the first examples of secular art.  Prior to this most art was religious or mythological.  It's unique and sounded interesting and a good enough reason to go somewhere.

 

Piazza del Campo and the Palazzo Pubblico

Siena is one of the better know Tuscan Medieval hill towns between Rome and Florence.  It's famous for the Palio, the horse races between the neighborhoods.  Twice a year, in summer, the central shell shaped piazza is turned into a race track and every spare bit is packed with people.  It is a Party with the whole town celebrating and hordes of tourists there to see the spectacle.  I was happy to be there on a quiet day in January where only a handful of people scurried across the piazza on a gray day.

Inner courtyard of Palazzo Pubblico

15th century Painting of S. Bernadino preaching in front of the Palazzo Pubblico

The Palazzo Pubblico is the city hall built at the end of the 13th century.  During this time Italy was divided into Duchies or city states.  From the 12th century until the mid 16th century the city of Siena was the center of the republic of Siena and one of the most important cities in Europe.  It rivaled Medici Florence in wealth and power.  The Palazzo Pubblico was the seat of the Signorina, the governing body of Siena, and the Podestà, a nonpartisan mayor of sorts.

Frescoes depicting the Risorgemento of 1870s

The interior is decorated with frescoes old and new, including depictions of the unification of Italy in the 19th century.  With it's long history, people forget that Italy as we know it today is a relatively new country.  Most of the interior decorations are Medieval.  The room with the frescoes I had come to see was closed for restoration.  I should have checked before choosing to come.  I missed it by a few days.  I'll just have to come back.

Maestà by Simone Martini

View into a main hall of the Palazzo Pubblico

I spent a lot of time wandering the streets of the old town.  It isn't large, but it is packed with a warren of old buildings and narrow streets, perfect for exploring.  The town has Etruscan roots and legends say that it was founded by the sons of Remus, the nephews of Romulus, the founder of Rome.  They stole the statue of the Capitoline wolf and fled Rome on a pair of horses, one white and one black, after Romulus murdered their father.  The coat of arms for the city has a white band on top and black band on the bottom representing the horses of the founding brothers. (You can see the coat of arms in the 15th century painting of the Palazzo Pubblico.)

Cathedral Facade with unfinished exterior walls extending to the side

The Cathedral of Siena, the Duomo di Santa Maria Assunata, is certainly spectacular.  The story of the building tells the story of the rise and fall of Sienna.  Before the cathedral there was a 9th century church and episcopal palace on the site.  At the end of the 12th century the mason's guild, the Opera di Santa Maria, was commissioned with the cathedral's construction and reconstruction continuing for over 200 years.  It took so long to build that the lower parts of the facade are Romanesque (round arches, simpler style) and the upper parts are Gothic (stained glass, tall pointed arches, very ornate).

In 1339, at the height of Sienese power and wealth, a massive addition to the cathedral was planned that would have made their cathedral larger than the Duomo of Florence, their rival city.  This reconstruction would have turned the current nave into the transept of the new larger cathedral.  Construction started, but was never completed.  An expensive war and the plagues of the mid 14th century robbed the city of its wealth and decimated the population.  And they lost the war with Florence.  Two outer walls are still in place.  The wall and columns of what would have been an aisle were incorporated into the current museum of the Duomo.  You can climb inside what would have become the new facade for spectacular views.  White stones in the piazza mark where columns would have been.

Palazzo Pubblico

Inside the Duomo is even more spectacular with the dramatic striped walls and columns and works by Michelangelo, Donatello, Bernini, and Pisano.  The black and white stripes are reminiscent of the white and black colors of the city crest.  Around the nave are busts of the popes.  Since no one knows exactly what they looked like in the early years, there seem to be only a few faces that then repeat over and over.  The interior is elaborately decorated including the marble mosaic floors which were added over the 14th - 16th centuries.  I was fortunate to be there on a day the floors were uncovered.  The mosaics are often covered to protect them when the church is in use.

Marble pulpit and angel candelabra on the column

An early panel, Wheel of Fortune floor mosaic - Symbols of Sienna and nearby cities

One of my favorite parts was the Piccolomini library, a smaller room off to the side.  It houses the collection of illuminated choir books.  The library is decorated with brightly colored Renaissance frescoes.  Decorations include a Roman copy of the Greek statue of the Three Graces.  It is quite the room.  I really enjoyed intricate decoration of the choir books.  A friend just told me about a church where you can go hear Gregorian chants on Sunday evenings.  I'll have to check it out.

I took a few minutes for a little drawing inside. I finished later because the church was closing and the light was fading.  The perspective is tricky and the stripes are a bit chaotic, but it is a fun thing to draw.  I have a little notebook with brightly colored pages that makes for more lively sketches.  The orange changes the feel of the place.  Yellow would be too bright, blue too cold, green too lush.  Maybe red would have been better, warm, but darker.

I also visited the baptistry, crypt, and museum of the Duomo complex.  The crypt was rediscovered during some renovation work in 1999 has only recently been excavated.  This so called crypt was never used for burials and may have been an entry point for pilgrims in a slightly earlier version of the cathedral, but it wasn't used for long.  It was soon filled in to support the expansion of the building above and the baptistry in front and below.  So there are pieces added, missing, and covered due to remodeling and additions in the surrounding buildings.  In the excavations they found the remains of a Lombard building that you can now see in the floor of the crypt.  The Lombards were a Germanic people who arrived in the area in the 6th century, after the fall of the Romans.  The room is small but worth seeing for the wall frescoes.  They are incredibly rich and bright and it seem that every bit of wall and ceiling is decorated.  I loved this little space.  

When buying paints, raw sienna and burnt sienna are common pigment colors.  These earth colors have been in use since humans painted in caves.  Here you can see the colors on the steps from the baptistry up to the Duomo.  In the steps you can see the natural golden yellow of the local stone.  You can see the deep red orange brown of the the burnt iron rich clay in the bricks of the walls all over town.

The museum houses some of the original pieces of the exterior for preservation including statuary from the facade and the original stained glass window.  Copies are outside.  Lots of alter pieces, reliquaries, and bejeweled religious items, but my favorites were the statues.  These are late enough that you can see a bit of the "Gothic sway", so different from the stiff straight posture seen in earlier works.

I really enjoyed my short stay in Siena.  It's picturesque and filled with history.  It's also quite a small town, small enough that while I loved my visit, I wouldn't really want to live here.  There are, however, still a few things I didn't get to see.  I'll come back for another little visit when the frescoes I came to see are finished.