Siena; A Medieval Dystopian Society

Yesterday: First group trip! We went to Siena under very wet circumstances. We had to walk from Palazzo Capponi to the Porta Romana (perhaps 1 km) in quasi torrential rains to meet our bus. (The roads are too narrow for a coach.) Of course, I brought no umbrella to Florence, so I was soaked by the time we made it to the meeting point. Urie was equally drenched as were half of the students. (Should have listened to my own advice given by email to the group the night before: "You should bring an umbrella, rain expected in the central region of Italy."

Soaked, Hair Matted, but Still Smiling

Walking to Our First Point

Waiting for the Tour Guide

  

Siena, a beautiful city built on top of a hill, has kept a lot of its medieval charm. Older buildings and, according to Alessandro (JMU's program director here), older mentality. Both Urie and I found it oddly refreshing. 

Vista of Siena from Santo Domenico

We visited la Chiesa di Santo Domenico (a church dedicated to a young mystic woman, Caterina, who died in 1380 at the age of 33 after a long fast--her severed head is one of the relics in the church!), the medieval city hall, and the duomo (one of Italy's better known cathedrals).

There would be TOO MANY pictures on this blog if I were to include them all. We were, literally, bombarded by a thousand things to see. It's hard to focus when everything is of interest. Where to look? What to retain? So I am including just a few as to not bore you.

Allora, let's start with the dystopian situation. Siena, for a better frame of refence, has about 58,000 inhabitants with a 20,000-student population at its famous university. Think Harrisonburg, clumped into a one-mile radius on top of Reddish Knob 700 years ago. Okay; that's not really helping. At any rate, about 400 years ago, a horse race became the premise for the division of families into 17 districts (I kid you not). These districts fight each other yearly in games that result in one winner bringing fame to his district. The horse race was originally a commemoration of medieval battles against Florence and other enemies. The people of Siena had formed different troops to defend their city at the time, and the troops' proginy kept an affiliation with that part of their past.

The districts (or contrade) take on the names of creatures or objects part of the city's medieval lore: caterpillar,dragon, goose, eagle, unicorn, panther, giraffe, porcupine, owl, seashell,etc. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrade_of_Siena). Street corners bear the mark of its own contrada.City residents introduce themselves by their clan name before giving their Christian names to others.

   

The Eagles and the Caterpillars

One can marry someone from another district, but two weeks prior to the battle s/he will separate from his or her spouse and regain the family clan until the ceremonies are over. Basically, if you were to marry someone from another contrada, you get a two-week mini vacay from your spouse during battle time, which could do a lot to revive the fires of passion! Children born into such unions must be declared members of one or the other contrada, or can be assigned a third if the parents cannot agree on the nomenclature. 

The epic battle is the same horse race as before; jockeys train for months at a time (though the horse is assigned only a couple of days prior to the events taking place in July and August.). The races are tiered and ranked until the winner emerges. The goose are the kick-assers of the city and the eagle have done very poorly in the past 400 years (they have only won 24 games.) I wonder if Suzanne Collins spent time in Siena before writing The Hunger Games.

Aside from this interesting organization of civil life, the Sienese are proud of their buildings and churches. (One student was threatened by a furious citizen holding a pickax for stepping on her land to take a picture.) The old city hall has some of the oldest frescoes found in Italy. (See below)

Above are two examples of murals in city hall. One represents city life in Siena in the 1300s, while the other represents one of the virtues people should strive to attain: Fortitude. The one to the lower right is part of a much bigger painting, but I liked that face in particular.

Finally, of note, was the art work in the duomo which contains interesting pieces from a Gothic, Renaisscance and Baroque art point-of-view. The building was started in 1229 but chapels and artifacts were added ad infinitum and continue to be piece-mealed together even today (though on a very minute scale--addition of a pope's faccia , for example.). So, let's start with the pulpit created between 1265 and 1268 by Gothic artist Nicola Pisano:

Renaissance Donatello created a bronze statue of John the Baptist in 1457  (1), Michealangelo sculpted  St Peter as a self-portrait in 1504 (2), and baroque artist Bernini* contributed two sculptures to the inside of capella della madonna, finished in 1659, one of which I include here (3).

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2

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Lastly, the Piccolomini library is not your typical library. First, it's located in a church. Second, no Nicholas Sparks here! Ha! Ha! (I really dislike N.S.) Only about ten "books" are included--remember that these predates Gutenberg and the printing press, and are works of art because they contain "illuminations" and are so rare. Mostly, they are works of liturgical songs. The library's walls were painted by Pinturecchio and Raffaelo who included themselves in the images. (Raffaelo on the left and Pinturecchio with the pink and green pants.)

Siena was beautiful, and Gian Mauro (my Italian civilization professor at JMU) would have truly loved it (and probably appreciated it more than any of us could.) Wish he'd been here to give us all of the details he knows about each piece. It would have brought the past to life.

* Bernini was an incredible sculptor whose work surpasses Michelangelo's for its vividness. However, like many artists, he was passionate and mercurial, and once slashed his lover's face with a knife because he thought she was having an affair with his own brother. (Medieval Soap Opera if I've ever heard of one.)