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All material © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 - The contents may not be reproduced without permission - Adrian Fletcher can be contacted at afletch at paradoxplace dot com
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CIAO ADRIANO
8 DAYS IN TUSCANY AND UMBRIA THE 2007 DOM PARADOX A TOUR FOR NICK (DOM P'S SON) AND JACUI October / November 2007
Back to Ciao Adriano Italy Overview
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DAY THREE
Friday 2 November - The only non-Italian visitors to Siena
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South on the via Chiantigiana to the hamlet of Fonterútoli (best wine in Chianti) then Siena – delightfully packed with Italians on this de facto long weekend.
The Duomo buildings. The Baptistery under the east end of the duomo. The Duomo itself including uncovered narrative pavements (kept protected under boards for most of the year), and the Piccolomini Library with it's cycle of huge fresco panels by Pinturicchio (c1452 - 1513 (61)) depicting scenes from the life of the Sienese humanist Pope Pius II (Aeneus Sylvius Piccolomini (1405-1464 (59)) and including a self portrait of the artist and Rafaello. The Opera (museum) in the east aisle of the otherwise uncompleted nave of the enormous "new Duomo" which was stopped dead in nits tracks by the 1348 Black Death, with the Duccio (Duccio di Buoninsegna - (1260 - 1319 (59)) Occulus window and his masterpiece – the “Maestà” altar paintings, then a climb up the “new (1348) façade” witha sweeping 360 degree view over the medieval town and the surrounding vineyards, olive groves and cypress trees.
Lunch at "La Finestra" behind the Palazzo Pubblico.
The Campo and Palazzo Pubblico, whose elegant tower was completed in the year of the Black Death - 1348 - after which Siena, unlike Florence, never regained its momentum. The tower is named after the first bellringer Mangiaguadagni ("he who eats all he earns") and at 88m or 286ft is second only to Venice's tower as the highest in Italy (but, unlike Venice, Siena's tower has never collapsed!).
Inside the Palazzo Pubblico, in the great hall is Guido Riccio da Fogliano by the pre-Renaissance Sienese painter Simone Martini (1284 - 1344 (60)) - the first major secular painting since the end of the Roman Empire over 800 years earlier. In the council room, overlooking the wise heads of the Council of Nine who ran this very successful early city republic, are frescos depicting scenes of the consequences of Good and Bad Government, with the Court of the Common Good in the middle. They were painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1278 - 1348 (70)), a Sienese contemporary of Martini who died of the Black Death along with 60% of Siena's population.
Walk out of town to the car park past the floodlit façade of the Monte dei Paschi bank, clutching a bag of Ricciarelli (soft honey and almond biscuits) bought on the way from Nanninis.
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Portraits of Raphael & Pinturicchio (the painter, with six pack) are in the foreground of a much bigger scene depicting Pius II canonizing Saint Catherine of Siena in the Piccolomini Library in Siena's Duomo. In fact Pinturicchio (b c1452) was about 30 years older than Raphael (b 1483). The latter had helped him with some of the early design work on the Library frescos.
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Photo: Nick Fletcher The Siena Campo and Palazzo Pubblico framed by medieval rooftops
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Baptistery fresco story
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The scaffolding and screening has come off the Siena Duomo facade, though a T crane remains
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Duomo Pulpit
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Simone Martini's (1284 - 1344 (60)) famous fresco of Condottiere Guidoriccio da Fogliano panoramared across the whole of the end of the Sala di Mappomondo - the main hall of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. The otherwise historically obscure Sienese warlord immortalized by Martini is seen pictured in 1328 on his way to make a forceful point to the governor of the castle of Montemassi after putting down some local revolts around there. Whatever it was he was doing, the painting leaves the viewer in no doubt as to his determination! This was one of the first major Italian secular (i.e. non religious) and landscape paintings of the Middle Ages, and Martini was paid to go to the scene so he could get the landscape right. There is also some good stuff for military historians including tents and a monster catapult in the right hand castle (which itself was built specifically for the siege).
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The figure of Peace, from Ambrogio Lorenzetti's fresco "The Court of the Common Good", which sits between his depictions of the results of good and bad government , in the Palazzo Pubblico's Sala della Pace (peace room) - meeting room for the Group of Nine - the successful republican model that brought Siena to the height of its powers in the years before the 1348 Black Death
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The floodlit facade of the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena
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Castellina is located near the "i" of "Chianti"
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Go to the Page LIst for a full listing of pages and their status
All material © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 - The contents may not be reproduced without permission - Adrian Fletcher can be contacted at afletch at paradoxplace dot com
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