A Companion to Late Medieval and Early Modern Siena

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 Brill’s Companions to
European History

volume 23

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bceh

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 A Companion to
Late Medieval and Early
Modern Siena

Edited by

Santa Casciani
Heather Richardson Hayton

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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Cover illustration: Guidoriccio da Fogliano at the siege of Montemassi (Guidoriccio da Fogliano all’assedio di
Monte Massi), Simone Martini 1328, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Tuscany, Italy.

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ISSN 2212-7410
ISBN 978-90-04-38999-1 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-44482-9 (e-book)

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Contents

Acknowledgements vii
List of Illustrations viii
Abbreviations x
Notes on Contributors xi

Introduction 1
Heather Richardson Hayton

part 1
The City and Commune

1 Siena: the City and Its State Throughout Time 11

Mario Ascheri

2 The Significance of Montaperti 31

Bradley R. Franco

3 “Per queste cose ognuno sta in santa pace et in concordia”:

Understanding Urban Space in Renaissance Siena 51
Fabrizio Nevola

4 Saint Catherine and Siena 69

Jane Tylus

part 2
Art and Religion

5 “Beata quella città della sua patria!”: Siena’s Religious Culture and
Carthusian Monasticism 85
Demetrio S. Yocum

6 The Marian Altarpieces of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti 113

Sheri F. Shaneyfelt

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vi Contents

7 The Discussion and Transmission of Reformed Religious Beliefs in

Early-Modern Siena 132
Andrea Beth Wenz

8 Bernardino of Siena in the History and Culture of the City of

L’Aquila 154
Santa Casciani

part 3
Culture and Society

9 Public Health and Hospitals in Medieval Siena before the

Black Death 175
Anna M. Peterson

10 “Sebben che siamo donne …”: Sienese Women in the Troubled Years at
the End of the Republic (c.1500–60) 195
Elena Brizio

11 “Sotto un Lauro in corona”: Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 218

Konrad Eisenbichler

12 “An Occasion to Banish Melancholy”: Musical Culture in Early

Modern Siena 241
Colleen Reardon

Epilogue
The Foundations of Contemporary Siena

The “Gothic Queen”: the Myth of Siena in the 19th and

20th Centuries 263
Saverio Luigi Battente

Illustrations 289
Bibliography 309
Index 339

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to the many individuals who have sup-
ported us in this project and who have reviewed essays for the volume. We owe
much to Father Marco Federici, OFM, for allowing us to view and to document
the frescoes in the Convent of San Giuliano in L’Aquila, particularly those per-
taining to Bernardino of Siena. Our gratitude also goes to our assistants at John
Carroll University, Kyle Rosser and Linh Huynh, for their help in the office and
assistance with the volume. We must also express our deepest gratitude to our
home institutions, John Carroll University in Cleveland, for granting Casciani a
Grauel Faculty Fellowship Leave in spring 2014, and Guilford College for grant-
ing Hayton a study leave in 2017. We wish to thank Demetrio S. Yocum for his
painstaking translations. We also wish to thank Brill Publishers for entrusting
us with this volume—a debt of gratitude is owed to the wonderful Alessandra
Giliberto and Michael Mulryan. Our greatest debt we owe to the authors who
patiently waited for the volume to be completed.

Santa Casciani
John Carroll University Cleveland, Ohio

Heather Richardson Hayton

Guilford College Greensboro, North Carolina

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List of Illustrations

Figures

3.1 Frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Sala dei Nove of the Palazzo Pubblico,
Siena 291
3.2 Piazza del Campo with Palazzo Sansedoni and Fonte Gaia, showing market
stalls in place in a photo by Paolo Lombardi, c.1860 292
4.1 Parchment cover from the Sienese Archive, depicting Catherine of Siena 293
6.1 Pietro Lorenzetti, The Birth of the Virgin, 1342, Siena, Museo dell’Opera del
Duomo 294
6.2 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Presentation in the Temple, 1342, Florence, Galleria
degli Uffizi 295
6.3 Pietro Lorenzetti, The Carmelite Altarpiece, 1329, Siena, Pinacoteca
Nazionale 296
6.4 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Madonna and Child with Mary Magdalene and
St. Dorothy (or St. Martha), c.1335–45, Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale 297
6.5 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Maestà, c.1340–45, Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale 298
6.6 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Annunciation to the Virgin, 1344, Siena, Pinacoteca
Nazionale 299
8.1 Square in front of the Church of Santa Maria di Collemaggio, L’Aquila showing
the pulpit from where Bernardino preached 300
8.2 Original IHS insignia, tabulella, designed by Bernardino of Siena, kept in the
Convent of San Giuliano, L’Aquila 301
8.3 Fresco of John of Capistrano defending Bernardino to Pope Martin V while
holding the IHS insignia, part of a series depicting the life of Saint John of
Capistrano at the chiosco of the Convent of San Giuliano, L’Aquila 302
8.4 Fresco of Bernardino of Siena and John of Capistrano preaching while holding
the IHS insignia, part of a series depicting the life of Saint John of Capistrano at
the chiosco of the Convent of San Giuliano, L’Aquila 302
8.5 Tomb of Saint Bernardino of Siena, Church of San Bernardino, L’Aquila 303

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List of Illustrations ix

Maps

1.1 Siena and the surrounding area outside of the control of the Florentine
Republic and the Pontifical State 304
3.1 Maestri sopra all’ornato interventions (1431–80); each block
represents a building affect by Ornato interventions documented in ASS,
Concistoro 2125 305
3.2 Map showing the she-wolf sculptures 306
3.3 The arrangement of the Piazza Postierla and Via del Capitano area,
c.1480–1520 307
9.1 Siena in the thirteenth century 308

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Abbreviations

ASF Archivio di Stato di Firenze

ASS Archivio di Stato di Siena
BSSP Bullettino senese di storia patria
COST 1262 Il Constituto del Comune di Siena dall’anno 1262
COST 1309 Il Costituto del comune di Siena volgarizzato nel MCCCIX–MCCCX
CS Cronaca Senese
Doc Documented
I-SC Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronatii
NBC Nouvelle Bibliographie Cartusienne
AC Analecta Cartusiana

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Notes on Contributors

Mario Ascheri
is retired Professor of the History of Medieval and Modern Law at the
Università di Roma Tre. He has worked in European legal history from the
Middle Ages to the contemporary period and has published extensively on the
history of Siena and Italian communes. His most recent publications include
Laws of Late Medieval Italy (1000–1500) (2013), Beyond the Comune: The Italian
City-State and the Problem of Definition, in The Medieval World, vol. 2 (editor),
and the just published A History of Siena from its Origins to the Present Day
with Bradley Franco (2020). He is also Senior Fellow at the Robbins Collection
(University of California-Berkeley), doctor h.c. at the Université de l’Auvergne
(Clermont-Ferrand), and is a member of the advisory board of the Max Planck
Institut for European Legal History. He received the highest Sienese award, the
Mangia d’Oro, in 2003.

Saverio Luigi Battente

is a faculty member of the Department of International and Political Science
at the University of Siena, where he teaches Contemporary and Economic
History. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Siena where he specialized in
constitutional and administrative history in the 19th and 20th century. His cur-
rent research is in the field of nationhood and state building processes in Italy
and in Italian nationalism.

Elena Brizio
is Affiliate Professor at Georgetown University in Florence, where she teaches
Medieval and Early Modern History. She received her Ph.D. in Medieval History
from the University of Florence. She pursued postdoctoral studies and gained
a Master’s in Women’s Studies at the University of Siena. She has published on
the political, legal, and institutional history of Siena in the Trecento. Her cur-
rent research focuses on the cultural, economic, and social power of Sienese
women in the Renaissance. Her most recent publications are “Sexual Violence
in the Sienese State Before and After the Fall of the Republic” (2019) and “Il
‘Dialogo de’ giuochi’ by Girolamo Bargagli and the Women of Siena: Culture,
Independence and Politics” (2018).

Santa Casciani
is Professor of Italian at John Carroll University and is the founding director of
the Bishop Anthony M. Pilla Program in Italian American Studies. She is also
the founding director of the JCU in Rome program (previously JCU at Vatican

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xii Notes on Contributors

City). She has published articles on Michelangelo and Dante, on Italian and
Italian American literature, and pedagogy. Some of her publications include
The Fiore and Detto d’Amore: a Late 13th Century Italian Translation of the
Roman de la Rose (2000), Word, Image, Number: Communication in the Middle
Ages (2002), and Dante and the Franciscans (2006).

Konrad Eisenbichler
is a Professor at the University of Toronto and teaches in the Renaissance
Studies Program and in the Department of Italian Studies. His research fo-
cuses on the intersection of literature, politics, and religion in 15th- and 16th-
century Italy. He is the author, translator, or editor of more than 30 books,
among which the monograph The Boys of the Archangel Raphael. A Youth
Confraternity in Florence, 1411–1785 (1998) received the Howard A. Marraro Prize
from the American Catholic Historical Association. His monograph The Sword
and the Pen: Women, Politics, and Poetry in Sixteenth-Century Siena (2012), also
won several prizes, including the prestigious Ennio Flaiano International Prize
for Italian Studies and the “Outstanding Academic Title for 2013” awarded by
Choice magazine. For his scholarship, Eisenbichler has been elected a Fellow
of the Royal Society of Canada and appointed a Commander in the Order of
Merit of the Republic of Italy.

Bradley R. Franco
is Associate Professor of Ancient and Medieval History at the University of
Portland and is the author of numerous publications focusing on religion,
community, family, and power in late medieval Siena. Franco has co-edited
two books on Franciscan studies, and most recently, he published A History of
Siena From Its Origins to the Present Day with Mario Ascheri (2020).

Heather Richardson Hayton

is an award-winning Professor of English, and the director of the Honors
Program, at Guilford College. She received her Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State
University in comparative literature. She has published on love and desire in
the Middle Ages, monstrosity in literature, and various topics in pop culture.
She regularly leads a study abroad semester in Siena.

Fabrizio Nevola
is Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Exeter, UK.
He received his Ph.D. in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art.
He has held research fellowships at the University of Warwick, the Canadian
Centre for Architecture (Montreal), the Medici Archive Project (Florence), and

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Notes on Contributors xiii

Harvard University’s Villa I Tatti (Florence). He specializes in the urban, cul-

tural, and architectural history of Early Modern Italy, and has also developed a
strand of research on the street life of contemporary urban environments. He
took part in the exhibition Renaissance Siena: Art for City at the National Gallery
in London. He is author of Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City (2007) and
has edited volumes such as Locating Communities in the Early Modern Italian
City (2010), Tales of the City: Outsiders’ Descriptions of Cities in the Early Modern
Period (2012), and Experiences of the Street in Early Modern Italy (2013). In
2008 his book, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City was awarded the Royal
Institute of British Architects, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner International Book Award
for Architecture.

Anna M. Peterson
is an independent scholar who received her Ph.D. from the University of St
Andrews in 2017. Her research focuses on the Church’s and municipalities’
healthscaping policies and their relationship with hospitals and leprosaria in
the south-western Mediterranean. Her work was supported by a recent Mellon
Fellowship at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, Canada.
She is also the co-founder and organizer of the interdisciplinary conference
Leprosy and the “Leper” Reconsidered. Currently, she is on the advisory board
for the International Network for the History of Hospitals (INHH).

Colleen Reardon
is Professor of Music at the University of California, Irvine and received her
Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research centers on
musical culture in Siena from the 16th through the 19th centuries. She has been
the recipient of grants from the Fulbright Foundation and from the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Her publications include A Sociable Moment:
Opera and Festive Culture in Baroque Siena (2016), Holy Concord within Sacred
Walls: Nuns and Music in Siena, 1575–1700 (2002), Agostino Agazzari and Music
at Siena Cathedral, 1597–1641 (1993), and numerous articles. She is past presi-
dent of the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music.

Sheri F. Shaneyfelt
is in the Department of History of Art at Vanderbilt University where she
teaches courses in northern European Renaissance and baroque art. Her re-
search has been published in the Burlington Magazine and in Studying and
Conserving Paintings, a joint publication of the Kress Foundation and the
Institute for Fine Arts Conservation Center at NYU. In a recent article pub-
lished in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte she establishes the graphic style of

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xiv Notes on Contributors

the painter Giannicola di Paolo, an important associate of Pietro Perugino.

Dr. Shaneyfelt’s current studies continue her focus on Renaissance Umbria,
particularly the Società del 1496 and workshop practices in Perugia in the later
15th and early 16th centuries.

Jane Tylus
is Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature
at Yale University, where she also has a teaching appointment in the divinity
school. Her recent books include Siena, City of Secrets; Reclaiming Catherine of
Siena (2015) and, with Karen Newman, the co-edited Early Modern Cultures of
Translation (2015). She is currently working on a book called Meditations on
Leavetaking: Saying Goodbye in the Renaissance, and a collection of essays on
music and translation. She is the General Editor of I Tatti Studies in the Italian
Renaissance and is an honorary member of Siena’s Accademia degli Intronati.

Andrea Beth Wenz

is Assistant Professor of History at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan
and received her Ph.D. in Early Modern European History from Boston
College in 2017. She teaches classes on the Italian Renaissance, the Protestant
Reformation, and society and culture in the early modern world. Her research
interests focus on the Italian Reformation, especially the contributions of the
Sienese reformer Bernardino Ochino, and issues of exile, mobility, and migra-
tion in the early modern world.

Demetrio S. Yocum
is Senior Research Associate in the Center for Italian Studies at the University
of Notre Dame, where he coordinates the Opera del vocabolario italiano pro-
gram and performs a range of editorial tasks for the Devers series in Dante and
Medieval and Italian Literature. He is the author of Petrarch’s Humanist Writing
and Carthusian Monasticism. The Secret Language of the Self (2013), is co-editor
of At the Heart of Liturgy (2014), and of Carthusian Monasticism. History, Life,
World, Texts (forthcoming 2023).

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Introduction
Heather Richardson Hayton

For many, Siena is most famously known for its Palio, the twice-annual horse
race run in the clam-shell shaped brick Piazza del Campo, with horses manned
by riders representing ten of the 17 medieval neighborhoods. Hundreds
of thousands of spectators and tourists crowd into the historical center of
the walled city to see who will win the Palio, or flag of the Virgin Mary, and
garner bragging and parading rights for their contrada throughout the upcom-
ing year.1
Still others know of Siena as a Tuscan “hill town” pretty enough to visit for a
day en route to Florence. Established as a UNESCO Heritage site in 1995, Siena
is a treasure for students of the Middle Ages, of religious history, of Tuscan
culture. The city still functions and looks much as it did in the Middle Ages:
Banchi di Sopra and Banchi di Sotto, the two main mercantile streets, are
still the arteries of a walled city where, since 1966, the centro storico has re-
mained pedestrian. Each year, thousands of tourists visit Siena’s magnificent
but unfinished Duomo, with its striped marble exterior gleaming in the sun-
light and its extraordinary interior. Or perhaps they visit the Palazzo Pubblico,
with Lorenzetti’s famous 14th-century fresco panels, the Allegory of Good and
Bad Government. Or maybe they wander through the city’s winding medieval
streets to visit Saint Catherine of Siena’s mummified head on display in the
Basilica San Domenico. Unlike many other Italian cities, Siena’s medieval and
Renaissance buildings, its streets, churches, walls, and gardens, remain re-
markably unravaged by modernity.
Early period academics tend to know Siena only from Dante’s bitter jibes
in the Commedia, or from its long-standing rivalry with, and eventual defeat
by, its neighbor Florence. Yet, despite having a deep archive of historical docu-
ments, one of the earliest universities established in Italy, the oldest contin-
uously operating bank in the world (Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena), and
one of the most representational communal governments in the Middle Ages,
Siena remains often overlooked, or forgotten, by the scholarly community, es-
pecially those outside of Italy.

1 Siena’s horse-race was famously the setting for the opening of the 2008 Bond movie, Quantum
of Solace (dir. Marc Forster). The Palio di Siena is held annually on 2 July and 16 August, and
includes elaborate pageantry before the race, as well as contrade activities throughout the
year. Although medieval in origin, the first modern Palio dates back to the 17th century.

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2 Hayton

This collection of essays by 12 prominent scholars, across a variety of differ-

ent disciplines, aims to correct that injustice by focusing our attention back on
Siena in the Middle Ages and early modern periods, when “the fame of Siena
once rivaled that of any city”.2 The essays bring to light the story of a once-
powerful Commune that birthed a Pope, sheltered saints, gave rise to the bank-
ing industry, welcomed artists, musicians, educators, intellectuals, and built
institutions that have thrived for nearly 1000 years. The collection also seeks
to redress some of the scholarly imbalances of the past by introducing medi-
eval and Renaissance Siena to a wider audience with contributions written in
English, and moving beyond the Palio, or the city-state’s rivalry with Florence.
While devoting attention to Siena’s early development as well as its legacy
through the 20th century, these essays focus mostly on the period between
the 12th and 16th centuries, when Siena strengthened its powerful Commune
by crafting a distinctive civic identity, and a recognizable Sienese culture, that
remains intact still.

0.1 From Saena to Siena

While not much is known about Siena’s earliest days, archeological evidence
in the current city and its surroundings point to habitation by the Etruscans.
Called “Saena” (transliteration), it was most likely a small outpost linked to
Volterra.3 Scholars have identified the highest geographical area of Siena,
Castelvecchio, as the site of earliest settlement, though not much is known
about what it might have looked like before 30 BC.
Situated along three ridges, the city would prove defensible against invaders
and was surrounded by plenty of fertile lands to support a growing population.
What it lacked, most acutely, was a direct water source. Without a navigable
river to use for commercial and political means—much less for consumption
by an ever-growing population of people and animals within the city—it was
almost inconceivable that Siena could have thrived. This lack of ready access
to water would plague the Commune, and various attempts to find a water
source under the city’s boundaries would occupy her citizens for at least the
next millennium. Indeed, spurred by the longstanding belief that there was a

2 Hook, J., Siena: A City and its History, London, 1979, p. xi. See also the excellent Ascheri, M.,
Franco, B., A History of Siena: From its Origins to Modern Day, New York, 2020.
3 The first to assert this was Pietro Rossi (Rossi, P., Le origini di Siena: conferenza tenuta il 16
marzo 1895, Siena, 1895), followed by Ferdinand Schevill in his Siena: The Story of a Medieval
Commune, New York, 1902, p. 7. It has been oft-repeated since then.

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Introduction 3

secret river called the Diana flowing somewhere under the city, they spent an
inordinate amount of money trying to locate it in the 13th century. Such des-
peration prompted Dante’s scorn for those “vain ones” whose hope of finding
the secret river will come at too costly a price in canto 13 of the Purgatorio.4
Roman documents give us few clues about Siena’s earliest days. Pliny, in
his Natural History, speaks vaguely of a “Sena Julia”, as does Ptolemy in his
Geography (AD 160), as being a colony of Augustus.5 Tacitus, in his Histories,
tells the tantalizing story of a Roman senator in the time of Vespasian (AD 70)
being accosted by an unruly mob as he traveled through Siena.6 We have pre-
cious little to go on, other than these brief references, in uncovering what Siena
might have been like through the end of the Roman Empire. In the 7th century,
however, the Commune becomes important enough to get a bishopric, pre-
sumably because it was a stop on the pilgrimage and trade route to Rome, the
Via Francigena. As early as the 7th century, as well, references to Ansanus as
Siena’s founding saint begin to appear.7 A 4th-century martyr who converted
many to Christianity, including those in Siena, Saint Ansanus was executed in
304 under orders from Diocletian. He is famously depicted in Duccio’s Maestà
and his feast day is celebrated on 1 December.
Siena’s other founding narrative also harkens back to this period of Roman
occupation, though most evidence positions the myth as an early 13th-century
effort to give Siena a more glorious past than her rival, Florence. According to
the story, Siena was founded by Senius and Ascius, sons of Remus, who fled to
safety in Siena. The origin myth was persuasive enough that it remains a sig-
nificant part of the city’s iconography and identity. The black and white shield
with a she-wolf suckling twins has been a protected emblem of Siena through-
out the ages, and one can still find the Capitoline wolf on the mosaic floor in
Siena’s Duomo as well as on columns in front of the Palazzo Pubblico.

4 Dante, Purgatorio 13.151–54: “Tu li vedrai tra quella gente vana / che spera in Talamone, e
perderagli / più di speranza ch’a trovar la Diana; / ma più vi perderanno li ammiragli.” For
Dante’s Divine Comedy, see Dante Alighieri, Lq Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata, ed.
G. Petrocchi, 4 vols., Milan, 1966–67.
5 Pliny the Elder, Natural History 3.50–51. Pliny mentions “Sena” within a list of other colonies
such as Luca and Pisa, all founded by Augustus. See also Ptolemy, Geography, 3.1.
6 Tacitus, The Histories 4.45. According to Tacitus, a Senate resolution was passed that or-
dered the Senese people to be more orderly and respectful: “additumque senatus consultum
quo Seniensium plebes modestiae admoneretur”. See also Ascheri and Franco, A History of
Siena, p. 8.
7 Douglas, R.L., A History of Siena, London, 1902, pp. 3–4. See also Parsons, G., “Civil Religion
and the Invention of Tradition: The Festival of Saint Ansano in Siena”, The Journal of
Contemporary Religion 21 (2006), pp. 49–67.

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4 Hayton

0.2 The Republic of Siena

By the mid-12th century, Siena had grown in size and stature to support 15,000
people and declared its independence as a city-state, no longer under the di-
rect control of its bishop. The Republic of Siena lasted over 400 years, attracting
and fostering artistic, commercial, and religious innovators in the 13th and 14th
centuries, especially, and starting ambitious building projects like the Duomo
(consecrated in 1215). As a thriving commercial and political republic, Siena
especially leveraged its location on the main north-south trade route from
Rome to become a banking center. Governed by various republican structures
throughout the period, the Commune’s wealthiest and most powerful families
nonetheless exerted enormous influence. Some of Siena’s leading families lent,
traded, and minted money, and traded wool, with a reach extending through-
out most of western Europe and England. By the end of the 12th century, the
Merchants’ Guild had established influence in Siena as well as in the trading
fairs at Champagne, Paris, Rome, and London. Judith Hook reminds us, “for
such men their city had a particular importance”, and their prosperity was re-
flected in civic pride.8
Mario Ascheri’s essay in this collection will provide a more thorough his-
torical introduction to Sienese factional politics and government in this pe-
riod, but it is important to note that by 1179 Siena had a written constitution, a
body of jurists, and was prosperous enough to attract mercenaries, architects,
and artists for its expansionist goals. By the mid-13th century, the population
increased to 20,000 and Siena had founded its own university.9 In 1260, Siena
defeated Florence in the Battle of Montaperti, arguably the high point of
Sienese political influence. Within 100 years, the Black Plague would devastate
the Commune and Siena would never recover her political, economic, or mili-
tary momentum.
In 1348, the plague killed roughly two-thirds of Siena’s population, dropping
it from well over 40,000 to less than 14,000 people in one year. As Agnolo di
Tura wrote in his now-famous diary, “they died by the hundreds both day and
night” in Siena.10 With the ensuing loss of labor and funding, construction on
the Duomo would halt, and the Commune would never recover from the ca-
tastrophe. By 1555, after 18 months of resistance, Siena surrendered to Spain

8 Hook, J., Siena: A City, p. 16.

9 Originally called “Studium Senese”, the University of Siena was founded in 1240, and was
funded in part by public taxes levied in the city. It is one of the oldest universities in Italy.
10 Agnolo di Tura, “Cronaca Senese”, in Lisini, A., and Iacometti, F., (eds.), Cronaca senese
di Paolo di Tommaso Montauri, vol. 15.6, Bologna, 1931–37. See also Bowsky, W.M., The
Black Death: A Turning Point in History?, New York, 1971, pp. 13–14. Agnolo claims 80,000
people died in Siena and its surrounding territories, a number disputed by most modern
historians.
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Introduction 5

and Florence, marking the end of the Republic. Siena formally became part of
the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1569 and remained so until Italian unification.
From the 16th through much of the 20th century, Siena stayed remarkably
undisturbed by outside forces. As some of the essays in this collection show,
cultural, religious, and economic activities continued throughout the next
300 years, but Siena would never again be a political or military force in
Tuscany. While local resistance fighters during World War II used the medieval
tunnels under the city, Siena was spared damage by war-time bombing. The
city, thus, has become a living museum of sorts, granting us a glimpse into
what the Republic would have looked and felt like. Her towers may be gone
and her walls not so high, but the vita civile that defined the Commune for mil-
lennia remains as strong as ever.

0.3 Siena’s Lasting Importance

This brief historical overview of Siena does not do justice to the lasting im-
portance of the city. Siena was a radical experiment in shared governance and
civic pride that gave the world numerous masterpieces from the influential
Sienese School of painters, three popes, two saints, and one of the most power-
ful banks in the world. The Sienese School flourished between the 13th and 15th
centuries and works by Duccio and Simone Martini attest to Siena’s economic
and cultural influence. Popes Alexander III (d. 1180) and Pius II (d. 1464) were
born in Siena and served long terms in the papacy. Pope Pius III (d. 1503) was
made a cardinal in Siena by his uncle, Pius II, before going on later to serve
the shortest reign of any pope in history (26 days). Caterina Benincasa, better
known as St Catherine of Siena, was born in the Commune as the plague began
to ravage the region. Her influence on Siena and Rome cannot be overstated,
despite only living to the age of 33 years. Equally radical, Bernardino of Siena
was a Franciscan whose fiery preaching made him famous throughout the re-
gion. He died in 1444 in L’Aquila and was canonized a mere six years later. Any
discussion of Siena’s contributions to the world would be incomplete without
including the world’s oldest continuously operating bank, Monte dei Paschi di
Siena (MPS), founded in 1472. Originally created out of Siena’s powerful guild
and merchant class to aid citizens during a time of economic hardship, the
bank and its non-profit foundation have been instrumental in many large-
scale cultural and economic projects in Tuscany and throughout Europe.11 Its
headquarters remain in Piazza Salimbeni, in Siena’s historical center.

11 Since the financial crises of 2008–12, the bank and foundation have struggled. In the past
few years, it has sold off various units and had two Italian government bail-outs, as well as
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6 Hayton

0.4 Navigating This Volume

The volume has been organized into sections relating to cultural, political, and
religious issues in Siena’s complex history. Each chapter is wonderfully inter-
disciplinary, however, and avoids being ruled by the false distinctions of a su-
perimposed taxonomy. Instead, they bring to bear original research and recent
scholarship from a broad variety of disciplines to highlight Sienese life in the
Middle Ages and early modern periods. The result is a rich conversation about
a dynamic Commune that produced spectacular art, music, and architecture,
gave birth to influential religious leaders, and created the blueprint for modern
cities in its political and legal documents. Siena’s contributions and her history
are worthy of more study, and we are pleased to bring together such distin-
guished scholars for this collection.
The first group of chapters focuses on Siena’s difficult process of nego-
tiating factional politics in pre-modern Tuscany. The first chapter, by Mario
Ascheri, provides a fitting overview of the political history of the Commune
and Republic of Siena, drawing our attention to the ways in which the city re-
sponded to external and internal threats by creating a complicated, but highly
representational, form of shared government. Bradley Franco’s chapter, “The
Significance of Montaperti”, contextualizes Siena’s 1260 defeat of Florence, and
explains how that single event shaped the collective Sienese identity for the
next 750 years, weaving together “fact and myth to create a foundation leg-
end” that offers the city to the Virgin Mary in an act of “feudal submission”.
Fabrizio Nevola also considers how Siena shapes collective identity through
urban planning in his contribution, “‘Per queste cose ognuno sta in santa pace
et in concordia’: Understanding Urban Space in Renaissance Siena”. Focusing
on the period of Medici domination, Nevola examines how Siena’s urban im-
provement efforts and legislation were used to foster and protect civic iden-
tity during catastrophic loss. In “Saint Catherine and Siena”, Jane Tylus asks us
to consider the relationship between a strong-willed young woman born into
a walled city suffering from the plague, and how, after her canonization, the
saint and the Commune’s fates become entwined. Tylus’ chapter is particularly
apt reading for thinking about how place creates and constrains identity, and
the kind of courage it takes to break free from such bonds.
In the second section of this collection, we focus more directly on art and
religion, and the way they were used to define Siena’s ideals. The influence
of art in public and religious space developed alongside, and often highlights,

debt swaps and recapitalizations. The Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena eliminated
its underwriting of the Palio in 2010.

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Introduction 7

important shifts in Sienese thought and practice in this period. Demetrio

Yocum’s chapter on the Carthusian order in Siena in the 14th century sheds
light on the impact that the Carthusians had on Siena’s literary and religious
culture, as well as engaging with the work of some of the most prominent re-
ligious and cultural figures of the time, including Colombini, Boccaccio, and
Petrarca. Sheri Shaneyfelt, in her chapter, examines the Marian altarpieces pro-
duced by trecento artists Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Shaneyfelt argues
that the distinctive altarpieces provide “greater understanding of Siena’s artis-
tic heritage, patterns of art patronage, and particular devotion to the Virgin” in
the 14th century. In “The Discussion and Transmission of Reformed Religious
Beliefs in Early-Modern Siena”, Andrea Wenz argues that Siena serves as an
ideal location to examine the discussion and dissemination of religious ideas.
In the 16th century, Siena was far from a homogenous Catholic city. Instead,
its elite intellectual circles gave rise to one of the Italian Reformation’s most
infamous “heretics”, Bernardino Ochino. This section concludes with Santa
Casciani’s chapter on St Bernardino of Siena and his influence on L’Aquila in
the 15th century. Casciani argues that Bernardino’s Franciscan preaching, es-
pecially on Mary’s role in the Passion, impacts L’Aquila’s political and religious
development at a crucial time in the city’s history; it also shows how widely
Siena influenced other regions beyond her own borders.
Section three is devoted to the ways that Siena maintained its civic iden-
tity, even during periods of crisis and loss. Anna Peterson’s interdisciplinary
chapter focuses on healthcare in Siena before the plague, and the ways that
the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala became a model of responsive care for
other medieval cities. Peterson argues that Siena’s comprehensive approach to
public health was inspired by civic pride and institutionalized at every level of
the Commune. Both Elena Brizio and Konrad Eisenbichler focus their chapters
on the troubled years of the 16th century in Siena. Brizio uses archival resourc-
es to re-examine the role of women in Siena at the end of the Republic, arguing
that Sienese women “enjoyed more social and economic independence and
agency than their neighbors in Florence”. Eisenbichler’s chapter, “Sotto un lauro
in corona: Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena”, looks at women’s poetic and
literary production in this period to expand our understanding of the intel-
lectual spaces—ranging from the Intronati to the private soirees—cultivated
in the city. He argues that women participated in, and often outshone, men in
the poetic and philosophical games popular in 16th-century Siena. Focusing on
musical culture in early-modern Siena, Colleen Reardon examines the diverse
music and musical landscape in Siena through the 18th century. Reardon’s
chapter argues that Siena preserved its civic identity and cohesion through
musical performances as much as through festivals and games.

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8 Hayton

The chapters in this collection draw our attention to the ways that Siena’s
distinctive civic identity, senesità, was cultivated and performed in spaces and
activities both private and public, and beyond the annual Palio. The epilogue,
by Saverio Luigi Battente, continues to explore Siena’s identity, from the per-
spective of 19th and 20th century political projects. Battente highlights the
disparity between reality and myth as he analyzes the “making” of a cultural
project, “in which the history of medieval Siena was pivotal” for how it justi-
fied choices made in the present. Taken as a whole, this collection showcases
the many ways that Siena’s influence reaches across space and time. From her
golden era as an independent and wealthy republic, to her post-plague devas-
tation and submission to Florence, Siena remained committed to enacting its
own vision of the common good, of a corporate or communal identity that is
recognizable in its buildings, its Palio, and its history. As Pia dei Tolomei says,
in Dante’s Purgatorio, “Siena mi fe” (Siena made me).12

12 See Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio 5.34, ed. G. Petrocchi, 4 vols., Milan, 1966–67.

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 part 1
The City and Commune

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 chapter 1

Siena: the City and Its State Throughout Time

Mario Ascheri

Abstract

This essay focuses on the ways in which the city of Siena built and defended its identity
as a city-state, beginning in the 12th century. Specifically, it will analyze the continu-
ous development of its strong urban identity and will examine primary written sourc-
es, as well as artistic representations, for instance: the Sienese Biccherne, Ambrogio
Lorenzetti’s frescoes of the Effects of Good and Bad Government, and the pancali
found in the Loggia della Mercanzia.
It will also study the period of the Battle of Montaperti (1260) and that of the
Government of the Nove (1287–1355) as integral parts of a longer and significant histor-
ical process. Therefore, particular attention will be given to the problem of the Monti
and to the organization of the Populus, dividing the analysis into three important stat-
utory laws (Costituto) of 1262, 1310, and 1545.

1.1 A Small Yet Great City

Siena is a small town—today—but of great renown both nationally and in-

ternationally. Its art and architecture, as well as its Palio and its very ancient
bank (Monte di Pietà, later Monte dei Paschi, and now in deep crisis), have
made it famous and well known, even though it has little more than 50,000
inhabitants in total.1 This number, however, drops to little more than 10,000
today, if we consider only those living within the city’s medieval-Renaissance
walls, which are almost entirely preserved. There is no other Italian city that
can match Siena for its cultural wealth, population, and density ratio.
The secret of the city’s success resides not only in the many aspects that have
survived from the medieval and early-modern past, which are still visible today
with a simple tourist trip. The truth is that Siena, with its much sought-after ar-
tistic and architectural masterpieces, can still boast that its medieval and his-
torical figures remain significant and influential. Some examples to mention

1 See Map 1.1 for Siena and its surrounding area outside of the control of the Florentine Republic
and the Pontifical State.

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12 Ascheri

here include St Catherine, St Bernardino, and the popes—from Alexander III

and Pius II to Pius III and Alexander VII, without even mentioning the Sienese
Paul V, who was born in Rome but came from an illustrious Sienese family—
or the medieval bankers, such as the Bonsignori or those of the Renaissance
period, like Agostino Chigi, perhaps the richest man in Europe around 1500.
This is also to say nothing of writers like Cecco Angiolieri, physicians like Ugo
Benzi, and jurists like Mariano and Bartolomeo Socini. From a true heretic like
Bernardino Ochino to Lelio and Fausto Socini of the 16th century, who began
the “Unitarian” movement (still active today especially in America), it is truly
an embarrassment of riches.
The city’s early medieval roots were so strong that they have nurtured ex-
cellence well beyond the Middle Ages, even until recently, for example, with
Count Guido Chigi—founder of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, a major
attraction to the Siena of the 20th century—along with the staggering success
of the Bank Monte dei Paschi.
There are a number of factors at the heart of Siena’s success. Of course, we
will not try to list them all here, nor will we rank them in order of importance.
It will be enough for us to show them, from a bird’s eye view, and taking into ac-
count the most relevant facts from a political and institutional perspective, for
how the town was built—a small one in the aftermath of the Black Death—a
town that, despite all the difficulties it had to face, was able to preserve and de-
velop a strong identity. Siena’s intense relationship with other regional powers,
including an almost artfully cultivated hostility toward the mighty Florence,
and some deeply-rooted urban myths, contributed to the consolidation of a
strong civic, secular, and religious coherence for a city so limited in size.

1.2 The City’s Difficult Beginnings

The city’s Etruscan-Roman past is little known because most of the ancient
settlements are covered by upper stratifications, thus archeological findings
have not been very significant so far.2 Siena’s oldest subsoil, around the area
of “Castelvecchio”—the highest part of the city—has only recently become
the site of archaeological excavations. The results of the digs at the foot of
Castelvecchio, in the area of the Cathedral and the ancient hospital of Santa
Maria della Scala, are now visible in the city’s historical center, recently opened

2 See Ascheri, M. and Franco, B., History of Siena from its origins to the Present Day, London &
New York, 2020.

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Siena: the City and Its State Throughout Time 13

in the underground area beneath the ancient hospital, opposite the cathedral.
The Roman period, in particular, is well documented with some interesting
episodes, such as the mockery of a senator who, once back in Rome, sent a
solemn warning to the city. But the city’s transition from Late Antiquity to the
Middle Ages still remains obscure.
An established fact was the weakness of the city during the late Empire,
which allowed the first bishops of Volterra and Arezzo to inherit the very large
territories of their important urban settlements. The diocese of Siena was
initially limited in size, but in the Lombard-Carolingian age, from the years
around 600, during which it became an important military site, the city’s epis-
copal see gained in importance. The Lombard leaders turned also to armed
clashes with their fellow countrymen of Arezzo for the control of some of
churches on the borders, and in particular the shrine of the martyr St Ansano,
the official patron saint of Siena.
Siena jutted toward the province known as the Patrimony of St Peter and
the city’s ruling class favored the shifting of the main internal road to Rome
from the Val di Chiana, where the classic Roman consular road, the via Cassia,
passed. The same foundation, in the Lombard period, of the Abbey of San
Salvatore on Monte Amiata, soon to become an important center loyal to
the empire, attests to the interest of the Lombard elite of northern Italy in
this area.
Lucca remained the main Frankish-Lombard city in Tuscany, but it was con-
nected to Siena by the new “Roman” road, later called Francigena. The iden-
tity of Tuscany was strengthened by the marquisate, and Siena found its own
space, also because the south of Tuscany became the main operating terri-
tory of ​​the Aldobrandeschi, the most powerful Tuscan feudal family until the
14th century.3

1.3 The Foundations of the City’s Prosperity: 11th–12th Centuries

Siena begins to develop more rapidly in the 11th century. Siena’s military tradi-
tion was soon confirmed by participation in the Balearic Crusade, led by the
Archbishop of Pisa in the early 1100s, and its outings with troops (and mer-
chants) in places outside the diocese, like Radicofani—in front of Mount

3 Ascheri, M., “Siena capitale: quale itinerario?”, in Lo sguardo lungimirante delle capitali.
Studi in onore di Francesca Bocchi, eds. R. Smurra, H. Houben, M. Ghizzoni, Rome, 2014, pp.
401–409.

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14 Ascheri

Amiata, along the Francigena—and Grosseto, on the coast, where the episco-
pal see of “Roselle”, dating back to the Roman era, was transferred.
That Siena in 1100 was well established (the first known consul can be traced
back to 1125), is attested by the transfer to the city, with the strong participa-
tion of citizens, of the body of St Ansano from the territory of the diocese of
Arezzo (1108), and, soon after, by the first documented military clash with
Florence (1115). The latter, however, already demonstrated greater military and
economic strength, thanks to its privileged position along the Arno and its out-
let to the sea, the port of Pisa. Thus, Florence was soon able to defeat the well
defended Fiesole, for example, and resume the clashes with Siena until the
peace agreement—temporary of course—of 1158.4 These are also the years of
the ecclesiastical career of Rolando Bandinelli, later known as the great pope
Alexander III (1159–81), the proud Sienese who opposed Frederick I (Federico
Barbarossa), with whom, however, Siena sided and caused the bishop to flee
from the city.5
In this period, Siena made economic gains through mining investments and
the making of coins. This became possible thanks to the silver discovered in
the lands of the bishop of Volterra—a member of the noble Pannocchieschi
family who was always in need of hefty loans—and at Massa Marittima, which
rapidly became an important mining center where the bishop fled after aban-
doning Populonia under Islamic attacks. Here it soon became clear that Siena
would eventually clash with Pisa, pressing from the north, and Grosseto, press-
ing from the south, with its Aldobrandeschi lords.

1.4 The Great “Ghibelline” 13th Century: the Foundations of the

Future City

Thus, around the year 1200, Siena, the city of the Balzana (the White and Black
coat of arms) already had precise coordinates and boundaries that would re-
main into the present day. The Florentine “threat”, meanwhile, meant a large
investment in the building of the castle of Monteriggioni (among others), a few
miles north of Siena, which was completed at the beginning of the 13th centu-
ry, when a peace agreement was also made that secured a lasting boundary line

4 For the history of clashes between Florence and Siena in the 12th century and onward, see
Marrocchi, M. (ed.), Fortilizi e campi di battaglia nel Medioevo atttorno a Siena, Siena, 1998.
See also Ascheri, and Franco, A History of Siena.
5 For the conflict between Frederick and Alexander III, see Laudage, J., Alexander III und
Friedrich Barbarossa, Cologne, 1997. For the Sienese context, see Pellegrini, M., Chiesa e città
in Uomini, comunità e istituzioni nella società senese del XII e XIII secolo, Rome, 2004.

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Siena: the City and Its State Throughout Time 15

towards Florence, in the Chianti region. In order to contain the Florentine ex-
pansion, however, Siena had to pay close attention to the northern area of San
Gimignano, Colle Val d’Elsa, and Poggibonsi, and south-east, to the direction of
Montepulciano and Montalcino, where Perugia and Orvieto converged as well.
Defense of the city was supported by the establishment of Siena as a major
banking center, which compensated for the city’s inability, due to the lack of
large water resources, to develop a manufacturing industry. The Sienese thus
became campsores domini pape (official bankers to the pope) and wide-ranging
money lenders active in the markets of the Champagne and Brie regions of
France. During this time, they also created business ties with the powerful
kings of France and England.6 Thus, the city knew a fast and astonishing con-
struction boom period. Within a few decades, the city walls were enlarged and
the underground water sources and the underground tunnels (bottini) were in-
creased to provide for an extremely fast demographic growth.7 Siena was even
forced to prevent farmers from leaving the countryside for the city by imposing
that at least one household out of three remained to cultivate the land.8 This is
also the time when land was purchased for what would eventually become the
now-famous Piazza del Campo.
Therefore, these early years of the 13th century, despite the recurrent mili-
tary clashes with Florence, were very promising and prosperous. Siena had by
now subdued part of the noble clans of the area, forcing them to reside in the
city (e.g., the Ugurgieri dei Berardenghi and the Cacciaconti) and was able to
strengthen the city’s militias, clashing heavily with the Ardengheschi, until
their final defeat within the century, which cleared the way for a path to the
sea, where the important castle of Paganico was built within the century.
The financial relationship with France was particularly decisive at that
time for the Sienese. Under the virtual lordship of Emperor Frederick II, Siena
became a safe outpost against Florence; the latter’s Ghibelline exiles were
warmly welcomed in Siena despite the periodic treaties between the two
cities. Hence came also the protection of King Manfred after Frederick’s death

6 Siena’s banking history has been explored in Cassandro, M., “La banca senese nei secoli XIII
e XIV”, in F. Cardini et al. (eds.), Banchieri e mercanti di Siena, Rome, pp. 134–42.
7 For more about the Sienese water system, see the recent book of Kucher, M.P., The Water
Supply System of Siena, Italy: The Medieval Roots of the Modern Networked City, New
York, 2005.
8 For more on the breakdown of Sienese demographics between contado and city, see
M. Ascheri (ed.), Siena e Maremma nel Medioevo, Siena, 2001, pp. 115–76; Pinto, G., Città e
spazi economici nell’Italia comunale, Bologna, 1996 and G. Piccinni (ed.), Fedeltà ghibellina
affari guelfi. Saggi e riletture intorno alla storia di Siena fra Due e Trecento, 2 vols., Pisa, 2008.

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16 Ascheri

in 1250, an alliance that caused Florence to lead an army to invade Sienese ter-
ritory from the Chianti region on the pretext of liberating Montalcino from the
Sienese “siege”.
The dreadful clash of 4 September 1260, recalled by Dante,9 was perhaps the
largest battle ever fought in Tuscany; apparently 40,000–50,000 people took
part in it. It took place right in the area of the tomb of St Ansano, at Montaperti,
a border castle that only a century and a half later would be besieged and taken
back by the Florentines, in memory of their earlier heavy defeat.
Siena emerged victorious in 1260 thanks to the protection of the Virgin
Mary, to whom the city was consecrated on the eve of the battle, thus rein-
forcing an ever-increasing devotion. Mary became the Advocata, the Queen of
Siena (as she was already addressed in the Ordo officiorum), immortalized with
her “court” by Duccio di Boninsegna for the cathedral and in the new Palazzo
dei Signori (only recently called “Palazzo Pubblico”) by Simone Martini.10
This religious identification and the ever-present threat of Florence prob-
ably facilitated the political agreement between the nobles and the popolo
(commoners), a group of non-noble merchants, shopkeepers, and craftsmen,
thus overcoming the political conflict typical of the first decades of the century
(even elsewhere). By mid-century, the government would be led by 24 mem-
bers, composed of 12 members of the nobility and 12 of the popolo: probably
the same 20 figures seen in the foreground of Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Allegory
of Good Government.11
This new arrangement also helped to deal with the otherwise traumatic
transition from the government of the defeated Ghibellines to that of the vic-
torious Guelfs after the defeat suffered by the Ghibellines at Colle Val d’Elsa in
1269. A famous battle in its own right, in which the most famous 13th-century
Sienese, Provenzan Salvani, found his death, something mentioned in
Dante.12 His severed head was fixed upon a lance and shown to the winners
by Regolino Tolomei, of the rich Guelf family. After Montaperti, the bad rela-
tions between the papacy and Manfred had become acute; the election of the
French Pope Urban IV meant the excommunication of the Sienese Ghibelline

9 See Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 10.85–86, ed. G. Petrocchi, 4 vols., Milan, 1966–67.
10 Dante’s conversation with Farinata degli Uberti in canto 10 of the Inferno describes the
battle as particularly gruesome: “Lo strazio e ’l grande scempio / che fece l’Arbia colo-
rata in rosso” (“The carnage and great bloodshed / that stained the waters of the Arbia
red”). For more on Siena’s relationship with the Virgin Mary and Montaperti, see Bradley
Franco’s chapter in this collection.
11 For a detailed analysis of the political developments in Siena between 1250 and 1310, see
Waley, D., Siena and the Sienese in the Thirteenth Century, Cambridge, 1991.
12 Dante, Purgatorio 11.109–42. For his aunt, Sapia, see also 13.85–154.

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Siena: the City and Its State Throughout Time 17

merchants and the well known invitation to Charles of Anjou into Italy, to side
with the Church.
But among the cultural achievements prior to their defeat, Ghibelline
Siena had succeeded in securing the pulpit of Nicola Pisano, and perhaps
also the frescoes found under the cathedral. They had also created the
Constituto (code of laws) of 1262 (the first one preserved), that is, the very
elaborate statute of the city, which already presented a picture of the city’s
conquered territory.13

1.5 After Colle: a Guelfism of Necessity

The “court” of power in Siena was consolidated, but what changed

significantly—as in other cities run by the popolari—was the relationship with
the nobility, which the government of the 24 had helped to make official. Now
with Guelfism on the rise and successful, thanks to families like the Tolomei,
who played a major role at Colle, a 1277 law listed a series of casati (families)
to be considered magnatizi (magnate families) and, therefore, officially con-
sidered too powerful to enjoy the highest political rights that were reserved to
the popolari.14 As in the similar but still disliked city of Florence, social strati-
fication was complex and political relations were complicated. But the idea of ​​
giving particular status to the nobility was almost certainly effective. It gave a
minimum of cohesion to the variegated world of production and commerce,
with its lifestyle different from that of the belligerent and knightly nobles.
The members of the recognized magnate families could not, in fact, be part
of the highest governing body, which was soon called, for its own exaltation,
the “Consistory”, like that of the Roman emperors. However, the multifaceted
Sienese institutional world shrewdly continued to allow nobles to fill other im-
portant positions. For example, at the Mercanzia, which during the 14th centu-
ry occupied a beautiful palace (today the result of an 18th-century remodeling
effort) right across the Palazzo dei Signori (Palazzo Pubblico), almost as a
symbol of an alternative power. The Mercanzia controlled all productive and
commercial aspects of the city, with all the guilds except for wool under its
control. However, the nobles were admitted to the City Council, where their

13 Zdekauer, L. (ed.), Il Constituto del Comune di Siena dall’anno 1262, Milan, 1897, repr.
Bologna, 1983. For a transcription of the later statute in the vernacular version after its
translation by the Nine in 1309–10, see Lisini, A., Il Constituto del Comune di Siena volgariz-
zato nel MCCCIX–MCCCX, Siena, 1903.
14 For more on the popolari, see Waley, Siena and the Sienese, and Ascheri and Franco,
A History of Siena.

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18 Ascheri

interventions were always very influential, and were employed in diplomatic

and military missions, when it was useful to flaunt their power.
Moreover, Siena’s episcopal see became, between the late 13th century and
the late 14th century, the preserve of the Malavolti, a magnate family who, in the
late 14th century, would even use its castles in Maremma against the Republic
and in their pursuit of a pro-Florentine politics. Defeated by other power-
ful leaders in the city, living secluded in the massive, and largely destroyed,
castellare dei Malavolti—in the desolate area where, in the second half of the
15th century, was built the church of the Madonna delle Nevi—the Malavolti
were reduced to a marginal presence, and knew a significant resurgence only
with the Medici. Orlando, the first “modern” historian of Siena, was a Malavolti.
Another sector naturally destined to change with the advent of Guelfism
was that of the relations with the papacy. The rise of Florence as the Angevine
capital of north-central Italy (against Ghibelline Milan) and of international fi-
nance, with its gold florin, allowed its merchants to overtake the Sienese bank-
ers, even though they still often worked together as partners abroad, until the
beginning of the 14th century. But the period of the banking collapse, of which
the bankruptcy of the Bardi and Peruzzi companies is particularly well known,
affected important Sienese banks like that of the Bonsignori. At the end of the
13th century, Sienese merchants were kept in French prisons while a case of
unpaid tithes to the Avignon papacy dragged on for decades, with the futile
sending of special commissions to Siena.15
This period also produced the mysticism of Andrea Gallerani—who died
in 1251 and is claimed as the founder of the House of Mercy—and the suc-
cess of the Franciscan Pier Pettinaio. The civic engagement of the Dominican
Ambrogio Sansedoni, son of a Ghibelline leader but honored in the Guelf era
with a palio no less, and the presence of the frati gaudenti (jovial friars) and
the brigata spendareccia,16 is also noted in 13th-century Siena. Finally, the re-
nunciation of the city’s wealth by a group of Sienese—including a member of
each of the Tolomei, Patrizi, and Piccolomini families—to found the monas-
tery of Monte Oliveto in the Sienese area of Asciano, attests to a very lively and
advanced society with regard to its religious culture, one that at times was also
strongly critical of secular ecclesiastical hierarchies, as evident in poets such as
Cecco Angiolieri and Bindo Bonichi.17

15 Further discussions of Sienese versus Florentine banking can be found in English, E.D.,
Enterprise and Liability in Sienese Banking, 1230–1350, Cambridge, MA, 1988.
16 See Dante, Inferno 24.130.
17 For an in-depth, English-language analysis of the religious culture of Siena in the 13th and
14th centuries, see Bowsky’s chapter, “The Civic Ideal”, in his A Medieval Italian Commune:
Siena under the Nine, 1287–1355, Berkeley, 1981, pp. 260–98.

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Siena: the City and Its State Throughout Time 19

1.6 The Period of the Nine (1287–1355)

Starting in 1287, Siena succeeded in achieving a relative political-institutional

stability. That same year marked the beginning of a series of bimonthly gov-
ernments composed of Nine “Governors and Defenders” of the City, the
Commune, and the People of Siena. The Period of the Nine is the first moment
in Sienese history characterized by its government. It is also the period most
studied for its accomplishments, from the completion of the cathedral to the
Piazza del Campo (intended for recreatio civium, and not for religious proces-
sions), to the Allegory of Good Government, etc., as the chapters in the present
volume will show more in detail. In those dense decades, while many other
cities and free communes witnessed the rise of the signorie, or even “tyrants”,
Siena remained independent despite the Angevin pressure and the threat of
destruction represented by Henry VII.18
At that time, the foreign rulers of the judicial courts and collateral ser-
vices, the podestà, and the Captain of the People, continued to arrive in the
city. However, the government assumed a clear preeminence, surrounded by a
large number of citizens who were in peaceful relations with the nobles who,
in turn, presided and participated, even actively, in the City Council. The latter
was called “General” because it included the Commune and the People, which
earlier had separate councils. Of the Guelf faction, which was certainly pres-
ent in Siena, there was little talk (unlike what happened in Florence), and no
records exist apart from indirect ones.
The ruling class of the Nine was defined by law and formed by “merchants
and middle-class people”, or businesspersons and people socially “in the
middle”, that is, between the wealthy magnates and the poor and the wage
earners.19 It can be defined as “centrist”, as we would say today, and aspired
to express the mediating common sense between opposing positions, as well
as temperance, and the need for unity despite the very different interests at
play. In short, an ideology able to convey that “good government” and the
“peaceful state” mentioned by the preachers of the time (e.g., Giovanni da San
Gimignano for Siena), and of which the official documents of the Commune
also speak with impressive political maturity and communicative effective-
ness, just like Lorenzetti’s well known “political” frescoes.

18 For significant scholarship on the period of the Nine, see Ascheri, M., “Costituzionalismo
medievale a Siena: la Madonna ‘Regina’ e ‘Avvocata’ della Repubblica”, in Initium: Revista
catalana d’història del dret, 24 (2019), pp. 455–486.
19 For the legislative governance of Siena in the 13th and 14th centuries, see Ascheri, M. (ed.),
Antica legislazione della Repubblica di Siena, Siena, 1993.

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20 Ascheri

However, only the nobles were at that time a well defined group, based on
the 1277 list of casati, later updated, as well as the well known Ghibellines, who
were obviously excluded from any government position. Those who entered
the wide circle of Guelf popolari were sooner or later to be admitted to the
Government of the Nine, after terms in minor offices and after occupying im-
portant positions, such as at the Biccherna (the chancellery of finance) and the
Gabella (the collection office). They would then become an eligible member
of the Nine, and would later enjoy the status of riseduto, given to those who
already served in office. This achieved eccellenza had an obvious effect on the
member’s family. However, the family coats of arms, attested by the Biccherna
and the Gabella’s tablets now preserved at the State Archive and in various
foreign museums, were used by the popolari even before becoming riseduti (al-
though there is only a very partial extant list of riseduti). Moreover, during this
time the Commune conferred the knighthood (militia), in competition with
the one bestowed by emperors and princes.
But it is important to note that the Nine was not a political party as we see
them today, largely because of the prohibitions against conventicole. The bans
restricted political associations, which, it was believed, could give rise to dan-
gerous factions. There was instead an official, communal organization (of the
Guelf party, the arts, the confraternities, etc.), which did not consider parties
to be in contention among themselves. At this time, the city was divided into
Terzi, which survived until the modern age, as an expression of the three large
areas that over time had a distinctive urban development: Città, Camollia, and
San Martino. But the basic organization of the people was founded on the mili-
tary companies that gradually became 42. Their coats-of arms surround the
she-wolf with suckling twins, the symbol of Siena, realized in 1430 by Giovanni
and Lorenzo di Turino, now at the Civic Museum.
The argument, however, often made that a “mercantile oligarchy” had the
city under its control is, however, far from being supported by the extant
sources, partly because the definition of “merchant” is anything but univocal.20
Instead, what is certain is that at that time the government experienced dif-
ficult moments due to the city’s internal unrest, which no doubt involved mak-
ing tough decisions. But this happened precisely because the Nine did not have

20 For a discussion of this claim, see Bertelli, S., Il potere oligarchico nello stato-città medi-
evale, Florence, 1978. I have previously argued against this idea of a mercantile oligar-
chy in my essay, “Un invito a discutere di ‘oligarchia’: in margine al governo di Siena nel
Tre-Quattrocento”, in A. Ciani and G. Diurni, Esercizio del potere e prassi della consultazi-
one, Vatican City, 1991, pp. 263–72; and in Ascheri and Franco, A History of Siena.

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Siena: the City and Its State Throughout Time 21

a stable group of power to support them, such as the clientele of loyalists who
formed around the signori in other post-communal cities. In Siena, the “court”
with a precise identity was only of the heavenly kind. Of the thousands of gov-
ernors of the Nine we do not know much, apart from a few, mostly insignificant
names. The fact remains that even in the Allegory of Good Government there
is no man of law with his beloved book of law to administer justice. Justice is
guaranteed by the government, that is, by the civic officers seen in the fore-
ground who “concordantly” (symbolized by “Concord”, the woman in fine gar-
ments seated on the wooden chair to the left of the viewer) bind administered
Justice to the Commune, symbolized by the great old man with the temporal
insignia. Here too the “court” is composed of virtues only (peace, fortitude,
prudence, etc.), and not by notables or armed men.
And yet, Justice is the main theme of the fresco, as it is in Simone Martini’s
Maestà in the hall next door with its biblical verse in clear view: Diligite iusti-
tiam qui iudicatis terram (cherish justice, you who judge the earth). On the wall
dominated by the Tyrant figure, it is Justice who is tied to his feet, not Freedom;
Freedom is absent in Lorenzetti’s masterpiece, the most famous political fres-
co of the time. There is instead, in the Effects of Good Government, Securitas,
who protects those who work and provide work in the city and outside, in the
city’s treasured territory, subjugated by force of arms and administered wisely.
And, in fact, during the government of the Nine, we witness the transfor-
mation of a mostly banking oriented enterprise into one more concentrated
in the countryside. This meant an increase in land owned by Sienese citizens,
who organized most of the “farms” worked by families of sharecroppers. These
farms have become a traditional feature of the landscape, whose beauty they
enhanced (as still evident today).
Other critical moments, in 1318 and following years, suggested the adoption
of a new system for electing the Nine, which became more “open”. Until then,
they were elected with the assistance of other offices or institutions (e.g., the
Mercanzia); the outgoing council would choose their successors, thus giving
the impression of a restricted group despite the many disagreements and man-
datory periods of absence from office. From then on, however, a new system
was adopted to become part of the Nine, which became customary, albeit with
a few adjustments; this was the periodic drawing by lot from pissidi (electoral
boxes) containing a large number of selected names. These are partially pre-
served at the Civic Museum, and there are quite a few since they were also used
for the election of the podestà and for other offices.
The final years before their fall in 1355—during Emperor Charles IV’s stay in
the city as guest of the powerful Salimbeni—were also difficult for the Nine in

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22 Ascheri

the government of the territory (Grosseto, Massa, etc.).21 The greatest jurist of
the Middle Ages, Bartolo da Sassoferrato (d. 1357), after learning of the Sienese
situation at the imperial court in Pisa, and writing shortly thereafter, acknowl-
edged their good government, but he also noted that it was backed by a strong
military apparatus, and therefore repressive (with Guidoriccio as the main ex-
ponent), almost as a way to justify their fall. The Nine had not been in tune, at
least in their final years, with Siena’s citizens, as Bartolo said was the case in
Perugia, an urban reality in his view similar to Siena, and unlike the great cities
of Venice and Florence, in need of aristocratic governments.22
Yet that period was central to Sienese history and soon also for the city’s
own collective consciousness for the many public works and art that the
Commune was able to commission in those years. During this time, Sienese
painters, sculptors, and goldsmiths—often present in the City Council, or
even government—worked brilliantly inside and often outside the city: from
Avignon to Naples, Messina, and elsewhere. In the early years of the 14th cen-
tury, the city was also able to inaugurate the port of Talamone, Siena’s outlet to
the sea, which had already allowed the landing of Florentine troops at the time
of the war with Henry VII, despite Dante’s sarcasm.23 In 1321 there was also
the migratio of the University of Bologna to Siena. It was short-lived, but it en-
riched the city with precious manuscripts while consolidating Siena’s academ-
ic stature, with the considerable effort of the Commune to acquire the title of
Studio generale (achieved in 1357) and to always hire distinguished professors.
Thus, the government of the Nine gave life to the myth of a period of pros-
perity nostalgically evoked only a few decades later; the art itself of that period
also later became in many ways an object of “remembrance”.

1.7 The Difficult Years: 1355–1403

The movement that led to the Nine’s violent suppression, along with the loss
or damage to many municipal papers (but apparently with no damage to the

21 For the foundational studies of the fall of the Nine in 1355, and Charles IV’s role in it, see
Rossi, P., “Carlo IV di Lussemburgo e la repubblica di Siena, 1355–1369”, Bullettino senese
di storia patria n.s. 38 (1930), pp. 5–39. [hereafter BSSP]; and Luchaire, J., Documenti per la
storia dei rivolgimenti politici del Comune di Siena dal 1354 al 1369, Lyons, 1906.
22 To read Bartolo Sassoferrato’s writings on the political regimes of his time, see Quaglioni, D.,
Politica e diritto nel Trecento italiano. Il “De tyranno” di Bartolo da Sassoferrato (1314–1357)
con l’edizione critica dei trattati “De Guelphis et Gebellinis,” “De regimine civitatis,” e “De
tryanno”, Florence, 1983.
23 Dante, Purgatorio 13.151.

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Siena: the City and Its State Throughout Time 23

frescoes), prolonged a difficult era that began with the Black Death. The popu-
lation was decimated due to several widespread outbreaks. Apparently, nearly
40,000 inhabitants within the city’s walls were reduced to about 20,000, and
then to 15,000 during the course of the 15th century. An entire new village,
Santa Maria, with its own church, in the valley of Montone, reachable through
Porta Giustizia (now closed), was abandoned and eventually buried by the
frequent landslides from the lateral tuffaceous walls of the valley, which has
remained the widest of the city.24 Unfortunately, the city was also attacked
several times by compagnie di ventura (mercenary bands), which necessitated
the disbursement of large sums of money to divert them.
The territory, with many deserted villages, now became, even more than
before, the beneficiary of investments from Sienese landowners, starting with
important institutions such as the Santa Maria della Scala Hospital. The hospi-
tal, under the control of the Commune from the early 14th century, benefited
from many bequests and began to locally organize their farms into “granges”,
on the Cistercian model, an example of which was at San Galgano abbey. The
same central building, facing the cathedral, underwent a huge expansion that
eventually also incorporated a street and the Chapel of the Disciplinati.
Important centers in Sienese territory took advantage of Siena’s political
crises, which resurfaced in 1368 and 1385, before reaching an open-ended war
with Florence at the end of the century. The most important towns, those on
the borders, rebelled and forced Siena to renegotiate their membership in the
Republic. Thus, cases of “citizenship” concessions spread, favoring certain
small cities, such as Montalcino, Casole, and Asciano, which were destined to
have, in this way, few regional governors but those there were, were very at-
tentive to their own rights. In the Val d’Orcia, with its main center in the un-
assailable Tintinnano (today known as Rocca d’Orcia), the Salimbeni, already
protagonists of the rebellion of 1355, organized a kind of “state” by taking con-
trol of several nearby castles and launching a deadly challenge to Siena’s gov-
ernment, as they were able to control access to Rome by way of the Francigena.
In effect, the governments following the uprising against the Nine first tried
to implement radical reforms. For the first and only time in Siena, for example,
they tried to connect the government to the guilds, grouped into 12. But the
relationship with the nobles, who became politically very active again, proved
difficult to manage in a peaceful manner. In a few years, even the Twelve, which
had borne the brunt of the government after the Nine, had to give way to new

24 For an excellent review of the political and societal impact of the high Sienese death toll
during the Black Death, see Bowsky, W.M., “The Impact of the Black Death upon Sienese
Government and Society”, Speculum 39.1 (1964), pp. 1–34.

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24 Ascheri

groups. Thus, after losing their political rights in 1355, they both became recog-
nizable groups. The 14th-century advent of the Riformatori and the Popolo (in
the strict sense), variously allied to the previous groups, meant that within the
century groups of families that at one time or another had prevailed in the city,
were now set.
They formed the so-called Monti, which remained with hereditary affilia-
tions up to the 18th-century reforms, even if their composition could vary de-
pending on the circumstances. Originally voluntary and fluid groupings, they
became, once established in power, stable blocks of power from Siena’s families
and making up the popolari. The magnate group of the Monte of the “nobles”,
those officially recognized as such, remained unchanged, with some of them
authorized by special decree and for political merit, to enter a Monte of the
popolari, thus acquiring government rights for themselves and their family.25
It goes without saying that the Monti had no rigid social platform. They were
established with the goal of promoting the wellbeing of the city which they
thought was neglected because of the bad government. Justice, the “peaceful
state” of the city and its territory, and its defense and improvement, as epito-
mized by Lorenzetti in the Hall of the Nine, were part of the tacit program
shared by all. The Twelve initially represented families less wealthy than the
Nine whom they replaced, but, as it has been argued, there were huge differ-
ences in income among the Nine. As for the Twelve, and the other Monti, it is
plausible that in the course of one or two generations, thanks also to inter-class
marriages, the social status of a family could change significantly.26
In general it can be said that the tendency was to strengthen the Monte of
the Nine, not only because it always had some part in the government of the
city (except during the period of the Twelve), but also because its families took
the utmost care in cultivating the memory of their own past greatness. But, for
example, a family which eventually became undisputed nobility in modern
times, the Chigi, was at this time simply a “normal” family of popolari belong-
ing to the Riformatori (apparently only a modest Monte, at first).
From a constitutional point of view, a peculiar creation of this period was
an institute already in place at the time of the Nine, but now consolidated as
the “Council of the People”, a sort of real Senate for citizens. There, the riseduti

25 See Isaacs, A.K.C., “Popolo e monti nella Siena del primo cinquecento”, Rivista storica
italiana 82 (1970), pp. 32–80; Hook, J., “Siena and the Renaissance State”, BSSP 87 (1980),
pp. 107–22; Ascheri and Franco, A History of Siena.
26 For an in-depth refutation of the term oligarchy in relation to the Nine, see Ascheri, M.,
“Un invito a discutere di ‘oligarchia’”, pp. 263–72. See also footnote 20 in this essay.

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Siena: the City and Its State Throughout Time 25

would become members for life at the end of their bimonthly government at
the Palazzo dei Signori. It thus becomes clear why it was necessary for provi-
sions to be approved first by this Council before reaching the General Council.
The Council of the People became the seat of the city’s governing elite, the
place where the memory of the city’s politics was preserved, and thus compen-
sating for the brevity of terms and rotations in office: bimonthly, semi-annual,
or annual. Only the rectors of the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala and the
Opera del Duomo had lifetime appointments, and only after dedicating their
lives and their assets to the institution. Admission to the Council of the People
obviously excluded the nobles and was a mark of excellence for those fami-
lies whose members gained access. For this reason, of course, at every political
changeover, great care was taken to select its members, and to exclude those
who belonged to the Monti and were considered opponents of the current sys-
tem of government.
During this difficult time, however, another important event was the arrival
on the scene of St Catherine (dead 1380), a simple tertiary who was able to
overcome, thanks to the Dominicans, suspicions of heresy and to form a circle
of learned followers who strongly defended her reputation. Catherine herself
experienced difficult times in the city despite her early fame as a saint. Her
restlessness and association with political powers outside the city to whom she
appealed—from Avignon to Florence and Rome, and even to the court of the
mistrusted Salimbeni clan—aroused the widespread feeling in Siena that she
could harm the interests of the city and its leading political groups. Many of
these were now inclined to resume the traditional anti-Florentine stance after
the government of the Nine, a decision that led them also to accept for a few
years, around the year 1400, the rule of the Duke of Milan.27
Perhaps it was not by chance that Catherine’s brother left Siena to start a
business in Florence. However, apart from her extraordinary role of religious
mystic, Catherine is important for her lucid attention to the great problems
of her time (from the Schism to the Crusade), and for the determination with
which she was able to appeal, at times both confidently and authoritatively, to
the “greats” of the time. It is hard to imagine that the open political struggle
of the years in which she grew up in Siena, as well as the rich Sienese mystical
tradition, did not influence her exceptional personality.

27 Scholarly interest in St Catherine has been significant; for a near-contemporary account

of her life, see Raymond of Capua in Nocentini, S. eds., Legenda maior, Florence, 2013.
For a good general introduction to her life, see Duprè Theseider, E., “Caterina da Siena”,
in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, vol. 22, Rome, 1979, pp. 361–79.

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26 Ascheri

1.8 The Early 15th Century: Demographic Crisis and Political Stability

In 1403, after overcoming a pro-Florentine conspiracy, Siena achieved a peri-

od of great political stability, thanks to the agreement of the three Monti that
quickly reacted to the coup attempt. The Nine, the Popolo, and the Riformatori
inaugurated an almost 80-year government, holding off both the recently-
defeated Twelve, and the Nobles. The Twelve, as dissidents removed from
government, were deprived of their political rights, while the Nobles were par-
tially admitted.
The government, which was called trinario in official documents, consoli-
dated the government traditions developed up to that point. The Consistory,
with its nucleus of nine priors (of the three Monti for each Terzo) under the
leadership of the Captain of the People, continued to alternate every two
months with its residence at the Palazzo; we now know a lot about the reli-
gious ceremonies, music, and furnishings during their stay. The Councils con-
tinued to gather in the “Lower” Palace, that is, the last built wing of the great
“L” shaped building, along the Torre del Mangia and via di Salicotto where the
entrance was. On the external wall are still visible (though unreadable) traces
of the infamous frescoes commissioned to publicize the solemn convictions
of the traitors of the Republic, because the entrance was precisely on that
side, and in this way all the councilors would have their memory refreshed.
From this space they could also catch a glimpse of whomever went to a nearby
brothel on the other side of the road.
The participatory political tradition, immortalized in Lorenzetti’s Good
Government, continued, perhaps with a particular emphasis on its republican
character inspired by the great models of antiquity, soon visible in the Campo
on the astonishing Fonte Gaia by Jacopo della Quercia. The iconographic pro-
gram at the Palazzo by Taddeo di Bartolo, with the map of Rome, Aristotle,
and the ancient heroes, accompanied by the admonishing inscriptions in the
vernacular addressed to rulers, could not be more eloquent. Interestingly, the
republican spirit was also brought to the surrounding territory, for example at
Lucignano della Chiana, a town conquered only in the early 15th century, as
well as at nearby Chiusi and Radicofani. The “state” of the Salimbeni was no
longer compatible with the dignity and security of the Republic. Thus, with
another war effort and the collaboration of the inhabitants of Rocca d’Orcia,
they were defeated. Their palace in the city, where Charles IV had stayed as a
guest, was confiscated and became the seat of municipal offices and then of
the Monte dei Paschi, the municipal bank, until 1936; it still bears the plaque
with the Balzana of the 1422 Commune. Control of part of the Amiata was also
reinforced, along with Piancastagnaio, thus giving stability to the border with

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Siena: the City and Its State Throughout Time 27

the county of Santa Fiora, which remained with the last Aldobrandeschi de-
scendants, before being supplanted in the mid-15th century, with the favorable
intervention of Siena, by the Sforza. To the south of Talamone, towards the
Papal States, the fortified center of Capalbio was also permanently occupied.
All of this occurred even during such difficult years.
The system in the crosshairs of the coniuratio, and for which the Sienese
were also labeled as “crazy”, was in fact unique at that time.28 Every eight years
(except for occasional mishaps, as in 1456), the Council of the People would be
selected from the lists coming from all the companies, with all votes inserted in
the appropriate wax ballots, the voting slips containing the list of the potential
Nine bimonthly priors. In this way, 432 citizens were expected (apart from the
Captains of the People) to alternate every eight years as priors of the Signoria
in Concistoro. Hundreds more were appointed in the same way to other major
and minor offices.
Thus, thousands of people were expected to share governance at some level.
Even taking into account the clerics and the Twelve who were excluded from
service, and the Nobles with reduced rights, it was a very large participation
rate for an adult male population, which we can thus assume fluctuated at
around 4000 to 5000 people. It is easy to imagine uncertainties in these po-
litical choices, with such frequent changeovers, which must have caused se-
rious concern to those who knew, like Petrucci, other states that were more
politically stable. Even without considering Venice and other princely capitals,
Florence itself, while still in the hands of the popolari and governed by a coun-
cil, was never that unstable. It seems, therefore, that it was always considered
a priority (and therefore in conformity with justice) to ensure the participatio
officiorum mentioned, something seen, for example, in a text of 1356.29 The
freedom of the city was the necessity in this participatory perspective, which
could have been compromised by the prevailing of a narrow elite.
Surprisingly, this government of the popolari was able to successfully coor-
dinate the city’s defense, in spite of everything, and knew how to preserve its
honor, image, and unity (except for political discriminations) with initiatives
that were not exclusively artistic. In the early 15th century period, Siena was
also able to host, sparing no expense, the pope and a papal council, as well as
the Emperor Sigismund (with his increased courtly taste) and his court for a

28 See the documents that labelled those in Sienese government as “fools”, in Catoni, G., “La
faziosa armonia”, in A. Falassi and G. Catoni (eds.), Palio, Siena, 1982, pp. 225–72.
29 The provision reads: “Item scientes quod participatio ofitiorum est dare unitatem inter
cives civitatis”: Luchaire, J., Documenti per la storia, p. 57; for more on this provision, see
Ascheri, Siena nel rinascimento, p. 9.

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28 Ascheri

prolonged period of time, while he awaiting to be crowned in Rome. For the

Palio of the Assunta, the city was able to secure the presence of the Emperor of
Sacred Empire and the Duke of Milan no less.

1.9 After 1456: Toward the Final Crisis

This system of government continued, albeit with deep conflicts that led the
weak Republic to establish friendly relations with Cosimo de’ Medici and his
powerful ally Francesco Sforza. But this new season in foreign politics gave rise
to a series of controversies, including that with Pius II, who considered Siena’s
rulers “vile plebeians”, who did not appreciate his efforts in favor of the city.
The pope was suspected of involvement, at least in theory and among his circle
of friends, with the conspirators of 1456.30 Resentments and misunderstand-
ings finally led to the traumatic expulsion of the Riformatori by the trinario
government in 1480, after the “mutilated victory” of the war with Alfonso and
the pope against Florence following the War of the Pazzi, and accusations of
collusion with Lorenzo de’ Medici.31
The following years saw various reshufflings of the Monti, which allowed
the Nobles and the Twelve to get back in the official political game. The unity
of the governing families was weakened to such an extent that a relative of
Antonio Petrucci, Pandolfo, the famous quasi-despot, managed to control
Sienese public life for several years beginning in 1487. He did so by resorting
to intimidation and even to the murder of his father-in-law, while still working
within the formal boundaries of republican institutions. He used, for example,
trusted men in the Balie (the governing bodies for extraordinary affairs that
trampled over the powers of the Concistory) and the loyalty of the Guards of
the Piazza.32

30 Controversy with Pius II, and the unsuccessful coup of 1456, is covered more extensively
in Ascheri, M. and Pertici, P., “La situazione politica senese del secondo Quattrocento
(1456–79)”, in La Toscana ai tempi di Lorenzo il Magnifico: Politica, economia ed arte, Pisa,
1996, pp. 995–1012.
31 For more on the conflicts between Florence and Siena in the 15th century, see
M. Ascheri, F. Nevola (eds.), L’ultimo secolo della Repubblica di Siena, Siena. 2007.
32 On the rise of Paldolfo, see Hicks, D.L., “The Education of a Renaissance Prince: Lodovico
il Moro and the Rise of Pandolfo Petrucci”, Studies in the Renaissance 8 (1961), pp. 88–102;
Jackson, P., “Le regole del l’oligarchia al tempo di Pandolfo Petrucci”, in M. Ascheri (ed.),
Siena e il suo territorio nel Rinascimento, Siena, 1990, pp. 209–13; Shaw, C., L’ascesa al po-
tere di Pandolfo Petrucci il Magnifico, Signore di Siena (1487–1498), Siena, 2001; Ascheri
and Nevola, L’ultimo secolo della Repubblica di Siena.

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Siena: the City and Its State Throughout Time 29

His ruthlessness was acknowledged by Niccolò Machiavelli, who met him

unofficially three times in Siena without being able to win him over to the al-
liance with Florence. Yet Pandolfo’s ruthlessness also allowed Siena to avoid
the rule of Cesare Borgia, maintain good relations with the papacy—one
of his sons became cardinal in 1511, but due to conflicts with Leo X and his
cousin Raffaele, ended up miserably in prison—and to use the friendship of
Agostino Chigi in Rome to facilitate business gains for loyal supporters in the
city’s territory.
In Siena, meanwhile, the companies of the popolari continued to weaken
in their role as the basic unit of free political life and would soon be replaced
by the contrade (neighborhood districts), which in these years had already
begun to show great skill in organizing large entertainment and civic events
(e.g. hunts, palii). Their skills were already in evidence during the electrifying
first years of the 15th century, for example, when, in 1438, for the Feast of the
Assumption (15 August), they staged an entrance into the Piazza of a “Cart of
Love” in place of the usual and more pious “Cart with Angels”.33
The children of Pandolfo were unable to preserve his legacy. When Pandolfo
died suddenly in 1512, it created a crisis that only found resolution in the kill-
ing of Alessandro Bichi (the leader of the Nine) by the Libertini in 1525 and the
victory of Porta Camollia in 1526 against the troops sent by the Medici Pope
Clement VII. What it inaugurated instead was a new season of exile for the
Nine, who had become friends with the Medici.
After the mock “tyranny” and inconsistencies of Pandolfo’s sons, the inter-
nal political conflicts restarted. Filled with petty squabbles between and with-
in the Monti, foreign powers (including the papacy) thus had time to refine
their plans to seize Siena and its territory, rich thanks to its vast pastures and
wheat crops, but above all strategic due to its ports and proximity to Rome.
The problem of what to do with the nobility, that is, how to recognize its
status, was now strongly felt by the new elites formed within the Monti of the
popolari. How were they to overcome the constraints of tradition in the face
of a broad citizenship, and also be careful not to lose traditional prerogatives?
The Sienese were at each other’s throats, just like in Genoa and Lucca for ex-
ample, due to their attempts to overcome the limits of “large” government.
Appeals to the city to solve disputes became frequent and authoritative, from
Claudio Tolomei (whose Letters were burnt by the government) to Alessandro
Piccolomini.

33 On the emergence of the contrade, see Cecchini, G., “Palio and Contrade: Historical
Evolution”, in A. Falassi and G. Catoni (eds.), Palio, Siena, 1982, p. 309.

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30 Ascheri

Charles V’s dynamism was seen for a long time as a guarantee of salvation
for the Republic, which finally agreed even to host a Spanish military contin-
gent and to start the construction of a fortress. But the internal clashes con-
tinued over the ever-present problem of appointing people to office and the
recognition of a form of hereditary distinction for the families of the riseduti:
the status of nobility, so contrary to tradition. This stalemate, and the inabil-
ity to agree on foreign policy, wore out the leading group, with some of them
appealing to Charles V for extensive intervention. Hence the conflicts that led
instead to the direct collision with the emperor and his ally Cosimo de’ Medici,
and the siege and alliance with France, which sent a military contingent to Siena
under the orders of Piero Strozzi, an opponent of Cosimo, and Blaise de Monluc.
The defeat of the French and Sienese army at Scannagallo (Val di Chiana)
on 2 August 1554 led to Siena’s surrender in 1555, after a very severe siege.
Resistance in the territories which were unanimously supportive of the
Sienese government, that had withdrawn to Montalcino, could not survive the
peace of Cateau Cambresis (1559).34 Siena would become a fief of the Medici.
Irreducible politicians chose the path of exile, as had already happened with
famous religious reformers like Bernardino Ochino, Fausto, and Lelio Socini.
Even the archbishop of Siena, Piccolomini Bandini, known for his prominent
role at the Council of Trent, refrained from returning to Siena; he remained
until his death in the Papal States.
What matters here is to conclude by recalling that the Medicean pax solved
the central political problem of Siena between the 15th and 16th century. The
city could continue to pursue its original vocations, even if within boundaries
now much more contained than before. Art, banking, culture (even scientific
pursuits), and playful competitions became even more absorbing occupations
for the Sienese, once their internal political struggles and aggressive defense
against Florence came to an end. The anxiety of having to protect itself against
Florence faded away, but a shared anti-Florentinism widely persisted, which
ultimately had a positive effect on Siena. It drove Siena to excel as much as pos-
sible in other ways, and helped the city define itself through past glories and
assiduously cultivated myths.35

Translated from the Italian into English by Demetrio S. Yocum

34 For more on Siena in the 16th century, see M. Ascheri (ed.), I Libri dei Leoni: la nobiltà di
Siena in età medicea (1557–1737), Milan, 1996.
35 For more on Siena after the fall of the Republic, see Fusai, L., La storia di Siena dalla cadu-
ta della Repubblica all’età contemporanea (secoli XVI–XX), Siena, 1999; see also Colleen
Reardon’s essay in this volume for more on Sienese cultural progress in the 16th century.

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 chapter 2

The Significance of Montaperti

Bradley R. Franco

Abstract

This essay will focus on the significance of Montaperti in Sienese history. Siena’s vic-
tory over Florence at Montaperti in 1260 marked an important moment of triumph for
the Sienese over their great Tuscan rivals. Despite the fact that Siena’s domination over
Florence lasted less than a decade, this victory became central to Sienese civic identity
over the course of the 15th century and remains important to Sienese identity and
history to this day. Montaperti’s significance can be attributed not just to the military
victory but, more importantly, to the later story that attributed Siena’s victory to its
decision to place itself under the governorship of the Virgin Mary in a feudal gesture
preceding the battle. This essay will examine the evolution of the written chronicles
that describe the donation of the keys to the Virgin before Montaperti, all of which
date to the late 14th and 15th centuries. This essay will argue that the significance of
Montaperti for the Sienese is largely a product of the 15th century, and the story of the
key donation is revealing not about the 13th-century city, but about the values, beliefs,
and ideals of Renaissance Siena.

On Saturday, 4 September 1260, Siena, aided by a coalition of Ghibelline forc-

es, defeated Florence and its Guelf allies at Montaperti, six kilometers east of
Siena on the Arbia River. Owing to the treachery of Ghibellines ensconced
within the enemy ranks, the Florentine army was routed and in the aftermath,
the city of Florence was almost destroyed. The memory of Montaperti casts a
long shadow over the Divine Comedy, as Dante regularly returns to the horrors
of that day when more than 10,000 of his fellow Florentines perished in what
was the bloodiest battle in medieval Italian history.1 In contrast with Florence,
Siena’s victory at Montaperti left them in an unrivaled position in Tuscany. For
perhaps the first time during their long struggle with Florence, the Sienese
could imagine a future where they and not their rivals would emerge as the
dominant state in the region. Yet, within a decade of Montaperti, Siena’s

1 Balestracci, D., “Montaperti fra storia e mito”, in M. Ascheri (ed.), 1260–2010: Per la battaglia di
Montaperti. Discorsi nella ricorrenza dei 750 anni, Florence, 2011, 41–51, esp. p. 43.

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32 Franco

supremacy turned into bitter disappointment when their imperial ally, King
Manfred, died in battle in 1266, casting the future of the Ghibelline party into
doubt. In the bloody aftermath of Manfred’s death and the ugly struggle for
his throne that followed, the Florentines defeated Siena in 1269 at Colle di Val
d’Elsa, and Florence once again was ascendant.2 Never again would Siena chal-
lenge their position of preeminence in Tuscany.
Given that it proved to be a pyrrhic victory for Siena, what explains the fact
that the battle of Montaperti remains the single most famous event in the
city’s storied history? This is not hyperbole. Siena’s medieval and Renaissance
chroniclers devote more ink to Montaperti than they do to entire decades of
Sienese history. The first book ever printed in Siena was La sconfitta di Monte
Aperto, published in 1502, and interest in Montaperti has continued unabated
over the last half millennium, culminating in the publication of scores of arti-
cles and books on the topic and a major scholarly conference to commemorate
the 750th anniversary of the battle just a few years ago.3
As this article will show, the significance and meaning of Montaperti for
the Sienese grew significantly in the two centuries that followed. It was only
in the 15th century, as Siena sought to recover from a series of crises and its
diminished role in Italian politics, that Montaperti took on an outsized role in
the collective imagination of the Sienese. The city’s chroniclers weaved togeth-
er fact and myth to create a foundation legend based upon the events which
preceded the battle of Montaperti. Specifically, the surviving 15th-century
accounts describe how the Sienese, in an act of desperation and faith, formally
submitted their city to the Virgin Mary in an act of feudal subjugation. The
surviving accounts describe how in the run-up to the battle, the bishop and
the leading civic authority, Buonaguida Lucari, walked hand and hand up to
the high altar of the cathedral and knelt before an image of the Virgin Mary and
prayed, “Gracious Virgin, Queen of the sky, mother of sinners, myself included,
I give this city over to you, as I do the entire contado which surrounds it, and
as a sign of this, I give you the keys of the gate of this city”.4 After placing the

2 Schevill, F., Siena: The History of the Medieval Commune, Siena, 2012, pp. 105–07.
3 Pellegrini, E. (ed.), Alla ricerca di Montaperti. Mito, fonti documentarie e storiografia, Siena,
2009; Lo strazio, e ‘l grande scempio da Montaperti all’assedio di Siena, Siena, 2010; Ascheri
(ed.), 1260–2010; Ascheri, M. (ed.), Montaperti: Per i 750 anni dalla battaglia. Aspetti della
guerra e pace nel Medioevo, Florence, 2010. See also Turrini’s excellent essay on the histori-
ography of Montaperti: Turrini, P., “La memoria senese di Montaperti: tradizioni, miti, cro-
nache e storiografia”, in M. Ascheri (ed.), Montaperti: Per i 750 anni dalla battaglia. Aspetti
della guerra e pace nel Medioevo, Florence, 2010, pp. 75–115.
4 Throughout this article, all quotations come from the version of the Montaperti story re-
corded by Niccolò di Giovanni di Francesco di Ventura in his La sconfitta di Montaperto:

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The Significance of Montaperti 33

keys on the altar in a formal gesture of submission to the Virgin, Buonaguida

continued: “I also pray and beg that you will guard it, liberate it, and defend
it against our enemies, the Florentines, and against whosoever may seek to
oppress it, subordinate it or put it to ruin”.5 A notary formally recorded the
city’s submission to the Virgin.6 The accounts assert that it was as a result of
this key offering, supplication, and dedication, that Siena defeated Florence at
Montaperti and became the City of the Virgin.7
As we will see, these 15th-century legendary accounts shaped the historical
memory of the event, transforming it from one important battle in a much lon-
ger history of conflict with Florence, into a watershed moment in Siena’s histo-
ry. Far from being just a military victory, in the chroniclers’ telling, Montaperti
provided proof of Sienese exceptionalism; despite being vastly outnumbered
by the Florentines, their piety, patriotism, and concern for the common good
had led Siena to victory. The accounts of Montaperti became the crowning
Sienese myth of origins, instilling key values in its audience, explaining the
origins of Siena’s special relationship with its patron saint, harkening back to
a golden age of cooperation among the citizenry, and providing a model of
behavior for later generations of citizens regardless of their vocation, age, or
gender, to follow in times of crisis.
To this day, much of the scholarship on Siena continues to assert that in-
stead of being best understood as largely fictionalized foundational legends,
the pre-battle narratives and the ceremony of submission in the cathedral
must have some basis in the historical record.8 In doing so, scholars have
aimed to show that Siena’s relationship with the Virgin changed as a result of
its formal submission to the Virgin preceding Montaperti. One of the stron-
gest pieces of evidence in support of the historicity of the city’s submission
to the Virgin comes from a document which records the formal submission of
the Commune of Montalcino to Siena in the days after Montaperti, and which

Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati di Siena, ms. A. IV. 5, cc. 1r–26r (1442/3). The account has
been translated in Franco, B., The Legend of Montaperti, Siena, 2012, pp. 41–50.
5 Franco, The Legend of Montaperti, p. 47.
6 This detail of the notary recording the donation is not found in Ventura’s version, but comes
from Cronaca Senese (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. 15.6), Bologna, 1935, p. 202. In the
artistic rendering of the key donation that accompanies Ventura’s 15th-century manuscript,
however, a notary is depicted recording the act.
7 On Siena’s relationship with the Virgin, see Norman, D., Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics
in a Late Medieval City State, New Haven, CT, 1999.
8 See Turrini, “La memoria senese di Montaperti”, pp. 75–115; Webb, D., “The Virgin of
Montaperti”, in id., Patrons and Defenders: The Saints in the Italian City States, New York, 1996,
pp. 251–75; Parsons, G., Siena, Civil Religion, and the Sienese, Burlington, VT, 2004, pp. 1–31.

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34 Franco

refers to the Virgin as the “defender and governor of the city” of Siena.9 As this
formula was absent from earlier submissions of towns under Siena’s control,
scholars have suggested that this reference to the Virgin as defensatrix et guber-
natrix demonstrates that the city’s relationship with its patron saint changed
as a result of Montaperti.10
More broadly, in an effort to demonstrate that there is some historical basis
for the formal submission of the city before Montaperti, scholars have tried
to prove that the events of early September 1260 brought about a fundamen-
tal change in the relationship between Siena and its patron saint.11 And in
fact, it is clear that in the century following the battle, the Sienese cult of the
Virgin increased in importance. For instance, within a decade of the battle, the
Sienese commissioned a new image of the Madonna for the cathedral, possibly
in thanks for the city’s victory at Montaperti.12 This image, the Madonna del
Voto, remained on the high altar until 1311, when it was relegated to a side cha-
pel upon the completion and installation of Duccio’s monumental Maestà.13
Shortly thereafter, the Sienese commissioned Simone Martini to paint in fresco
the Virgin in Majesty, depicted as Queen of Siena and surrounded by angels and
saints, for the Sala del Mappamondo of the town hall.14 Additional proof for the
development of Marian devotion in Siena in the aftermath of Montaperti can
be found on the city’s coins, which, from 1279, included the inscription Sena
Vetus Civitas Verginis (Ancient Siena, City of the Virgin).15 Finally, between 1330
and 1351, the Opera del Duomo commissioned Siena’s greatest living artists,
Simone Martini, Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti, and Bartolomeo Burlgarini,
to paint Marian altarpieces depicting the Virgin and one of the city’s four other

9 “… beate Marie semper Virginis, que est defensatrix et gubernatrix civitatis ejusdem …”:
Cecchini, G. (ed.), Caleffo Vecchio del comune di Siena, Florence, 1934. pp. 846–52.
10 See, for instance, Webb, “The Virgin of Montaperti”, p. 259.
11 See Webb, “The Virgin of Montaperti”, pp. 251–75; Parsons, Siena and Civil Religion, pp. 1–31;
Norman, Siena and the Virgin, pp. 1–17.
12 This image, known as the Madonna del Voto, because of the (now discredited) belief that
this was the image before which the Sienese placed the keys of the Virgin in 1260, remains
an important devotional image for the Sienese to this day. For the complex history of this
image, see Parsons, Siena and Civil Religion, pp. 9–10.
13 Agnolo di Tura di Grasso, in Cronaca Senese (henceforth CS), p. 313; CS, autore anonimo,
p. 90.
14 On Martini’s Maestà, see Norman, D., “‘Sotto uno baldachino trionfale’: The Ritual
Significance of the Painted Canopy in Simone Martini’s Maestà”, Renaissance Studies 20
(2006), pp. 147–60.
15 Bufalini, G.A., “Catalogo”, in S.B. De Cario and G.A. Bufalini (eds.), Uomini e monete in terra
di Siena, Pisa, 2001, pp. 246–53.

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The Significance of Montaperti 35

patron saints.16 All of these works suggest that devotion to the Virgin Mary did,
in fact, increase in Siena following the victory at Montaperti.
However, while there was a proliferation of Marian imagery in the decades
following Montaperti, it is difficult to determine what role the victory in 1260
played in the rise of the cult of the Virgin in Siena. As has been demonstrat-
ed, Siena’s relationship with the Virgin Mary pre-dates Montaperti by several
centuries.17 Furthermore, it is far from clear that the proliferation of artwork
depicting the Virgin and Child can be traced to Montaperti and not instead to
broader changes in urban spirituality and far greater investment in the arts in
Siena and, more broadly, in all of the Italian city-states.18 For instance, Florence
too witnessed the proliferation of religious art in the decades after Montaperti,
it too placed its chief patron saint, John the Baptist, on its florin, and did so
decades before Siena.19 Viewed in this context, the explosion of Marian art in
Siena and the inclusion of the Virgin on Sienese currency seems unlikely to
have been the result of Siena’s victory at Montaperti, but instead was part of a

16 Siena’s four local patron saints were Vittorio, Ansano, Crescenzio, and Savino. Simone
Martini, with the assistance of Lippo Memmi, completed his altarpiece, destined for the
altar of St Ansano, in 1332; a decade later, Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti finished their
respective altarpieces for the altars of Crescenzio and Savino. In 1351, the final Marian
altarpiece, painted by Bartolomeo Burlgarini, was placed upon the altar of St Vittorio: see
Norman, Siena and the Virgin, pp. 68–85. On the attribution of the Burlgarini altarpiece,
see Beatson, E.H. et al., “The Saint Victor Altarpiece in Siena Cathedral: A Reconstruction”,
Art Bulletin 68 (1986), pp. 610–31; see also Norman, D., “An Abbess and a Painter: Emilia
Pannocchieschi d’Elci and a Fresco from the Circle of Simone Martini”, Renaissance
Studies 14 (2000), p. 295.
17 In fact, since 913, there has been a church dedicated to Mary on the site where the ca-
thedral stands today: Lusini, V., Il Duomo di Siena, vol. 1, Siena, 1911, p.1. And the Feast of
the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, celebrated on 15 August, had been the most impor-
tant holiday in Siena since at least the beginning of the 13th century. The Ordo Officiorum
Ecclesiae Senensis, which survives in two versions, G.V.8 and G.V.9 in the Biblioteca
Comunale degli Intronati di Siena [hereafter BCS], and dates to the first quarter of the
13th century, demonstrates that the cult of the Virgin was firmly established more than
a half century before Montaperti. The Ordo has recently been edited and published:
Marchetti, M. (ed.), Ordo Officiorum Ecclesiae Senensis, Siena, 1998. On devotion to the
Virgin Mary in the Ordo Officiorum, see chapters cxviii, cxxiii, cxxiv, cxxix, and cxxxii. See
also, Webb, Patrons and Defenders, pp. 271–72; and Turrini, P., “I fili della storia: Contrade
e Palio nelle fonti documentarie”, in M.A.C. Ridolfi, M. Ciampolini, and P. Turrini (eds.),
L’immagine del Palio: storia cultura e rappresentazione del rito di Siena, Siena, 2001, p. 287.
18 See Heal, B., “‘Civitas Virginis’? The Significance of Civic Dedication to the Virgin for the
Development of Marian Imagery in Siena Before 1311”, in J. Cannon, B. Williamson (eds.),
Art, Politics, and Civic Religion in Central Italy, 1261–1352, Aldershot, 2000, p. 296.
19 Brucker, G.A., The Golden Age, 1138–1737, Berkeley, 1998, p. 247.

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broader movement which saw many Italian communes more closely connect
their cities with their patron saints through religious art and imagery.20
Moreover, Sienese statutes dating to just two years after the battle indicate
that the Sienese viewed the victory at Montaperti as the result of the inter-
cession of both the Virgin Mary and St George, the patron saint of Manfred’s
German forces, and more broadly of the Ghibelline alliance. While the city’s
1262 statutes call for the construction of a new chapel dedicated “to God, to
the Virgin Mary, and to the saints” for their role in the city’s “victory over its
enemies”, the Sienese also allocated funds for the construction of a parish
church dedicated to St George.21 Moreover, the statutes refer to San Giorgio
as the “principal defender of the Commune of Siena”,22 suggesting that in the
aftermath of the battle, Mary and George were both seen as crucial sources of
divine aid and protection.
One other promising piece of potential evidence that historians have used
in their claims about the historicity of the key donation does not withstand
close scrutiny. A 16th-century chronicler named Sigismondo Tizio asserts that
around the year 1300, an artist sculpted Siena’s ritual submission to the Virgin
Mary before Montaperti in marble on the façade of the Duomo over the central
portal. According to Tizio, the sculpture, now lost, depicted a kneeling civic
leader in the act of offering the keys of the city to the Virgin enthroned, holding
the Christ child; to the Virgin’s left stood a crowned woman, representing Siena,
reciting the prayer, “Respice, Virgo, Senam, quam signas amenam” (Virgin, care
for Siena, which you make blessed).23 Tizio’s dating of the sculpture to around
1300 is important because if it were correct, the depiction of Buonaguida offer-
ing the keys of the city to the Virgin would represent the earliest known refer-
ence to the key offering in any form and would prove definitively that the story
was in circulation within a generation of the battle. However, while Tizio gives

20 On this point, see Thompson, A., Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125–
1325, University Park, PA, 2005, esp. pp. 235–72; see also Vauchez, A., “Patronage des saints
et religion civique dans l’Italie communale à la fin du Moyen Age”, in V. Moleta (ed.),
Patronage and Public in the Trecento, Florence, 1986, pp. 59–80.
21 “… pro construendo et faciendo fieri, expensis operis Sante Marie, unam cappellam ad hon-
orem et reverentiam dei et beate Marie Virginis et illorum Sanctorum, in quorum solempni-
tate dominus dedit Senensibus victoriam de inimicis …”: Zdekauer, L. (ed.), Il Constituto del
Comune di Siena dall’anno 1262, Milan, 1897, repr. Bologna, 1983, Dist. I, statute 14, p. 29. For
more on Sienese devotion to St George, see Turrini, “La memoria senese di Montaperti”,
pp. 82–84.
22 “potissimum defensorem”: Zdekauer (ed.), Il Constituto, Dist. I, statute 123, p. 54.
23 Tizio, S., Historiae senenses, ed. G.T. Stussi, Rome, 1995, vol. 1, t. 2, part 1., p. 61. This inscrip-
tion is very similar to the inscription found on Siena’s communal seal from 1252, which
reads “Salvet Virgo Senam Veterem, quam signat amoenam”.

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firm evidence that construction of the façade began under Rinaldo Malavolti,
bishop of Siena from 1282–1307, his dating of the sculpture over the central
portal seems to have been rooted in an assumption that the decoration of the
façade took place at the same time.24 Yet as Enzo Carli’s thorough analysis of
the decoration of the cathedral has shown, significant work was done on the
central portal of the façade between 1358 and 1370.25 Moreover, there is no
documented evidence that such an image was commissioned around 1300, nor
does Tizio cite any evidence specifically connected to the image that would
support such a dating. Thus, it seems most likely that Tizio, writing in the six-
teenth century, simply misdated the image by half a century.
A careful analysis of the fifteenth-century written accounts suggests that many
of the details were later interpolations of early versions of the story. For instance,
one of the earliest surviving accounts of the story briefly describes Buonaguida’s
submission of the city to the Virgin in the cathedral, but it makes no mention
of the key offering or of a notary formally recording the act.26 Moreover, no no-
tarial document of the key donation survives, even in a later copy.27 Attempts to
confirm other details of the story are also discouraging. Despite the prominence
of civic leader Buonaguida Lucari in the chronicles, there is simply no evidence
outside of the Montaperti accounts that such a man by this name ever lived.28 All
of this does not, of course, prove that the ceremonial submission and key offer-
ing did not take place in 1260. But the fact remains that there is no evidence that
the story was known in the century following Montaperti, nor is it clear that the

24 Several scholars, including Turrini and Carli, have attributed this sculpture to Giovanni
Pisano, the late 13th- and early 14th-century Pisan artist who oversaw much of the decora-
tion of the façade; however, Tizio does not name Pisano as the sculptor and no scholar
has provided any evidence to support this claim. For the attribution of Giovanni Pisano,
see Carli, E., Il Duomo di Siena, Genoa, 1979, pp. 59–60; Turrini, “La memoria senese di
Montaperti”, p. 87; Di Donato, M.M., “‘Cose morali, e anche appartenenti secondo è luoghi’:
per lo studio della pittura politica nel tardo Medioevo toscano”, in P. Cammarosano (ed.),
Le forme della propaganda politica nel Due e nel Trecento, Rome, 1994, p. 497.
25 Carli, Il Duomo di Siena, pp. 59–60.
26 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano, ms. D 57, fols. 3v–4v; this account, which
Garrison calls “The Montaperti Account, Type I”, has been published in Garrison, E.B.,
“Sienese Historical Writings and the Dates 1260, 1221, 1262 Applied to Sienese Paintings”,
in id., Studies in the History of Mediaeval Italian Painting, Florence, 1960–62, p. 31.
27 Siena, Archivio di Stato di Siena (hereafter ASS), Diplomatico Riformagioni, 1259 May,
n.a. 705; see Lo strazio, e ‘l grande scempio da Montaperti, p. 30. For a full examination of
the documents connected to Montaperti that do survive, see the work of Ceppari, M.A.,
“Battaglia di Montaperti—Repertorio delle fonti più antiche e meno note. I documenti
del duecento”, in Pellegrini, E. (ed.), Alla ricerca di Montaperti. Mito, fonti documentarie e
storiografia, Siena, 2009, pp. 71–117.
28 See CS, Paolo di Tommaso Montauri, p. 201.

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38 Franco

battle was remembered as a particularly significant event in the city’s history im-
mediately following Montaperti. No art depicting the event was commissioned.
The ceremony of the key offering and submission to the Virgin was not reen-
acted, even in times of great peril for the city, such as during the Black Death or
the political crises of the second half of the fourteenth century; nor were any of
the surviving chronicles which describe the events of Montaperti in significant
detail written within a century of the event.
When taken together, the evidence does not support the notion that the
Sienese viewed Montaperti as a defining event in the years following the bat-
tle. But why would they have? Owing to Siena’s crushing defeat at Colle di Val
d’Elsa less than a decade later and the city’s subsequent alliance with Florence
and the Guelf cause, Montaperti was actually not a seminal event in Siena’s
history; in fact, only in Florence did the memory of Montaperti remain potent
in the decades that followed.29 Instead, it was only in the fifteenth century, at
a time of renewed hostilities with Florence, that Montaperti, and in particular,
the story of the key offering to the Virgin, became central to Sienese memory,
identity, and history.
To understand how the ceremony of ritual submission and the events of
Montaperti came to play such an outsized role in the Sienese popular imagi-
nation, we must briefly sketch Siena’s history in the centuries that followed
Montaperti. Already by 1260, despite lacking a port or an adequate water
supply, Siena had established itself as one of the richest cities in Italy. Since
the early thirteenth century, the city had been dominated by its leading fami-
lies and their banking firms. In the thirteenth century, the Piccolomini and
Buonsignori served as prominent papal bankers, and other powerful Sienese
magnate families, including the Tolomei, Malavolti, and Salimbeni, also made
much of their fortunes in finance.30 Sienese merchants and property owners
benefited from the city’s location on the Via Francigena and its control over
another key portion of the pilgrimage route south of the city.31 As a result of its

29 Duccio Balestracci, “Montaperti fra storia e mito” in M. Ascheri, 1260–2010: Per la battaglia
di Montaperti, pp. 41–51, esp. 43.
30 Cassandro, M., “La banca senese nei secoli XIII e XIV”, in F. Cardini et al. (eds.), Banchieri
e mercanti di Siena, Rome, 1987, pp. 124–31; English, E.D., Five Magnate Families of Siena,
1240–1350, Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1982; English, E.D., Enterprise and Liability
in Sienese Banking, 1230–1350, Cambridge, MA, 1988; Mucciarelli, R., I Tolomei banchieri di
Siena. La parabola di un casato nel XIII e XIV secolo, Siena, 1995; Carniani, A., I Salimbeni,
quasi una signoria. Tentativi di affermazione politica nella Siena del ‘300, Siena, 1995.
31 Pesciolini, G.V., “La Via Francigena nel contado di Siena XIII–XIV”, La Diana 8 (1933),
pp. 118–55; Moretti, I., “La Via Francigena”, in R. Barzanti, G. Catoni, and M. De Gregorio
(eds.), Storia di Siena: Dalle origini alla fine della repubblica, Siena, 1995, pp. 41–54;

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The Significance of Montaperti 39

economic power and burgeoning population, Siena was a formidable rival of

thirteenth-century Florence.
However, in the aftermath of its defeat at the hands of the Florentines
in 1269, Siena’s political landscape shifted dramatically.32 In 1277, the mer-
chant class successfully curbed the power of the city’s magnates by ban-
ning members of the wealthiest urban casati from high public office.33 This
new oligarchy of merchants abruptly turned its back on Siena’s traditional
Ghibelline allegiances, instead aligning itself with Florence and the other
Guelf cities.34
The rise of the government of the Nine in 1287, composed primarily of the
merchant class, ushered in an era of monumental construction and political
stability that was almost unrivaled in contemporary Italy. Over their seven-
decade reign, the Nine oversaw the construction of the Palazzo Pubblico and
the Torre del Mangia, the expansion and decoration of the cathedral, the pub-
lication of the first Italian communal constitution written in the vulgate, the
expansion of the city walls, the construction of new aqueducts which brought
water to the Piazza del Campo, and the commissioning of Lorenzetti’s frescoes
of Good and Bad Government, as well as those great Marian masterpieces by
Duccio and Simone Martini.35 At the same time, the Nine were also repressive
oligarchs who excluded all but the city’s merchants from government and re-
sponded harshly to any kind of public protest, whether it was from the guilds
or magnate families.36

Moretti, I., “La Via Francigena”, in R. Barzanti, G. Catoni, and M. De Gregorio (eds.), Storia
di Siena: Dalle origini alla fine della repubblica, Siena, 1995, pp. 41–54; Bezzini, M., Strada
Francigena-Romea. Con particolare riferimento ai percorsi, Siena, 1996.
32 Balestracci, D., “From Development to Crisis: Changing Urban Structures in Siena be-
tween the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Centuries”, in T.W. Blomquist and M.F. Mazzaoui
(eds.), The “Other Tuscany”: Essays in the History of Lucca, Pisa, and Siena During the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries, Kalamazoo, MI, 1994, p. 202.
33 In all, 53 families were banned in 1277: see Waley, D., Siena and the Sienese in the Thirteenth
Century, Cambridge, 1991, pp. 77–96.
34 Bowsky, W.M., A Medieval Italian Commune: Siena Under the Nine, 1287–1355, Berkeley,
1981, pp. 160–74.
35 On the expansion of the city walls, see CS, Agnolo di Tura di Grasso, pp. 410 and 412. On
Siena’s impressive system of bottini, see Kucher, M.P., The Water Supply System of Siena,
Italy: The Medieval Roots of the Modern Networked City, New York, 2005. On the constitu-
tion of 1309–10, see Ascheri M. and Papi, C., Il ‘Costituto’ del Comune di Siena in volgare
(1309–1310): Un episodio di storia della giustizia, Siena, 2009. On the art commissioned by
the Nine, see Norman, Siena and the Virgin.
36 Bowsky, A Medieval Italian Commune, pp. 129–38.

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40 Franco

Along with the Nine’s use of the arts and architecture as political propaganda
and their willingness to violently suppress political dissidents, one additional
reason for the Nine’s stability can be traced to the support of the local church.
Each of Siena’s bishops, beginning with the elevation of Rinaldo Malavolti to
the episcopal throne in 1282 until the death of Giocomo di Giglio Malavolti in
1371, came from Siena or the surrounding area, and when Siena faced crises
that threatened to overthrow the regime of the Nine, it was often the city’s
bishops who helped to keep the peace. For example, when an earthquake
struck Siena in 1320, the Nine turned to Bishop Donosdeo Malavolti, who held
special masses and led civic processions until the tremors subsided and order
was restored.37 In 1325, when communal authorities found themselves unable
to put down a major violent uprising by the Tolomei family, Bishop Donosdeo,
according to a contemporary chronicle,

summoned the priests and friars of the city and, with a cross borne be-
fore them, they entered the Campo and passed through the middle of
the fighting … At the bishop’s entreaties, and those of the priests and fri-
ars, the fighters began to let themselves be separated so that the fighting
ceased.38

Events such as these illustrate the central role that episcopal authority could
play when led by men with a vested interest in the city, in restoring order and
legitimating the ruling regime.
At the same time, these rebellions and crises suggest that behind the façade
of stability, Siena was quite fragile. Beginning in the 1340s and continuing for
the rest of the century, Siena faced a series of calamities. The city was hit par-
ticularly hard by the Black Death, losing approximately half of its population.39
Plague would visit the city at least five more times over the next half century,

37 CS, Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, p. 382.

38 CS, Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, p. 416: “Unde il vescovo di Siena ordinò co’ li preti e frati de
le regole di Siena, co’ la croce inazi venero in Canpo, e comincioro a passare per mezo
de la batagl[i]a, e così moltiplicaro i preti e frati co’ la detta croce. La detta battagl[i]a si
cominciò a lassare e spartire con pregarie che facea il detto vescovo con tutti i preti e frati,
in modo al tutto essa battagl[i]a finì e spartironsi”: trans. Dean, T., The Towns of Italy in the
Later Middle Ages, Manchester, 2000, p. 184.
39 For the best analysis of the devastation wrought on the population of Siena during the
Black Death, see Bowsky, W.M., “The Impact of the Black Death upon Sienese Government
and Society”, Speculum 39.1 (1964), pp. 1–34. After a lengthy analysis of the evidence,
Bowsky argues that “all told, it is not unreasonable to believe that the population loss in
Siena was at least fifty per cent, and probably more” (p. 18).

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The Significance of Montaperti 41

leaving the population at the turn of the 15th century at only a fraction of its
pre-plague level.40 The second half of the 14th century was marked by regular
political upheaval and instability. In 1355, a coalition of magnates and artisans
succeeded in overthrowing the Nine, bringing to an end the second longest-
lasting regime in the history of Italian city-republics.41 Over the next four
decades, the city regularly faced rebellions and uprisings from competing po-
litical factions, with three regimes, the Dodici (1355–68), the Riformati (1368–
85), and the Priori (1385–99), rising to and falling from power.42 Perhaps owing
to the fact that these governments, the Dodici and Riformati in particular, were
fairly democratic in their composition, magnate families were increasingly
unwilling or unable to have their interests satisfied through the political sys-
tem. As a result, the second half of the 14th century witnessed numerous rebel-
lions by several of the city’s magnate families, most commonly the Salimbeni
and Tolomei.43
Economically, Siena faced a number of significant setbacks over the course
of the 14th century. With the collapse of Siena’s banking firms, the great
Florentine family banks came to surpass their Sienese counterparts in wealth,
prestige, and power, once and for all.44 Siena also struggled to keep up with
rival woolen and textile industries, which benefited from Florence’s location
on the Arno. Lacking a natural river, the Sienese did not have access to the
amount of water needed to become an economic center of cloth production.45

40 Caferro, W., Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena, Baltimore, MD, 1998, p. 25.
41 Only surpassed by the Venetian Republic: Bowsky, W.M., “The Buon Governo of Siena
(1287–1355): A Mediaeval Italian Oligarchy”, Speculum 37 (1962), p. 368.
42 On the dodici, see Moscadelli, S., “Apparato burocratico e finanze del Comune di Siena
sotto i dodici (1355–1368)”, BSSP 89 (1982), pp. 29–118; and Wainwright, V., “Conflict and
Popular Government in Fourteenth Century Siena: Il Monte dei Dodici, 1355–1368”, in I
ceti dirigenti nella Toscana tardo comunale, Florence, 1983, pp. 57–80. On the Riformati,
see Rutigliano, A., Lorenzetti’s Golden Mean: the Riformati of Siena, 1368–1385, New York,
1991. On the Priori, see Brizio, E., “L’elezione degli uffici politici nella Siena del Trecento”,
BSSP 98 (1992), pp. 50–60.
43 Morandi, U., “Il castellare dei Malavolti a Siena”, in Quattro monumenti italiani, Rome,
1969, pp. 20–23.
44 Pinto, G., “‘Honour’ and ‘Profit’: Landed Property and Trade in Medieval Siena”, in T. Dean
and C. Wickham (eds.), City and Countryside in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy,
London, 1990, p. 83.
45 Banchi, L., “I porti della Maremma senese durante la Repubblica”, Archivio storico italiano,
Vol. 12, n.2 (1870), 39–129. Siena’s unsuccessful attempts to establish a commercial port at
Talamone and its failure to discover the mythical river Diana buried underground, were
both famously mocked by Dante. See Purgatorio, 13.151–53: “Tu li vedrai tra quella gente
vana / che spera in Talamone, e perderagli / più di speranza ch’a trovar la Diana.”

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42 Franco

As a result, the Sienese could only watch as the Florentines came to dominate
all aspects of the cloth industry, solidifying their supremacy within Tuscany.46
If the second half of the 14th century was devastating for Siena’s govern-
ment, population, and economy, it was hardly any better for its Church. With
the death of Giocomo di Giglio Malavolti in 1371, the Sienese lost control of
episcopal elections.47 As a result, over the next half century, Siena’s bishops
were all papal appointees and outsiders who viewed their tenure in Siena as
little more than a career stop on their way to more lucrative Church offices in
other dioceses.48 Instead of being served by native Sienese who had a vested
interest in the city and Church, as the Church had been in the century follow-
ing Montaperti, the bishopric was governed by foreigners who, because they
were appointed by the papacy and were frequently absent from the city, placed
papal interests ahead of those of the Sienese.
Most damaging of all to Siena’s economy and political stability was the dev-
astation wrought by mercenary companies, which struck Siena with alarm-
ing frequency between 1342 and 1399.49 Mercenary raids overburdened the
communal treasury, forcing the government to turn increasingly to desperate
measures to avoid financial ruin. To raise money, Siena relied with ever greater
frequency on loans and overburdened the population with heavy taxation.
The government also traded away the right to collect certain communal taxes
to private companies, in exchange for much-needed cash. By the end of the
14th century, the raids had decimated the Sienese economy, leaving the city
nearly bankrupt, with an unmanageable public debt.50 The collective toll of
the plagues, political uprisings, rebellions by the nobility, and raids, ultimately
proved too much for the Republic. The year 1399 brought an end to Sienese
independence, as the city submitted to the rule of Gian Galeazzo Visconti.
With its submission to the Visconti, Siena, which had been one of the
richest and most populous cities in Italy just a century before, had become
a politically insignificant town with a weak economy, high public debt, and
a dwindling population. The Sienese had endured decades of government

46 Tortoli, S., “Per la storia della produzione laniera a Siena nel Trecento e nei primi anni del
Quattrocento”, BSSP 82–83 (1975–6), pp. 220–38.
47 Cappelletti, G., Le chiese d’Italia: Dalla loro origine sino ai nostri giorni, Venice, 1892, p. 64.
48 Pecci, G.A., Storia del Vescovado della città di Siena, Lucca, 1748, pp. 288–316.
49 Caferro details the impact of the 37 raids on the economy, politics, and morale of Siena,
in Caferro, W., Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena, Baltimore, MD, 1998,
pp. 36–155.
50 Ascheri, M., “Siena. Centro finanziario gioiello della civiltà comunale italiana”, in A. Tomei
(ed.), Le Biccherne di Siena. Arte e Finanza all’alba dell’economia moderna, Rome, 2002,
pp. 14–21.

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The Significance of Montaperti 43

instability, largely resulting from the inability of communal forces to control or

curb magnate violence. With their submission to the Visconti and the appoint-
ment of absentee bishops by the papacy, the Sienese had lost control of their
local political and religious institutions.
Yet, the story of the Sienese Republic did not end with their submission to
the Visconti. In fact, following Gian Galeazzo Visconti’s sudden death in 1402,
Siena regained its independence from Milan.51 The following year, three of the
city’s five political parties formed a coalition based on compromise and shared
interests that would provide much needed stability in the decades ahead.52
This political stability was possible because of the cessation of mercenary
raids, which provided the city with an opportunity to recover economically
and turn their attention to revitalizing the urban fabric.53
Just as the Malavolti bishops had helped the city achieve stability in the
century after Montaperti, Siena’s 15th-century native-born episcopal leaders
would, in fact, figure predominantly in the city’s Renaissance revival, as well.
After suffering from a half century of absentee bishops, Siena’s Church saw
its fortunes improve with the appointment of native Sienese to its episco-
pal throne: first Carlo di Agnolino Bartoli in 1427, followed by Aeneas Sylvius
Piccolomini in 1449.54 Aeneas would shortly thereafter become Pope Pius II,
and, as Pope, he would remember his native city, pouring money into the con-
struction of several impressive and lasting Renaissance buildings in Siena.55 In
addition, he elevated Siena to the position of an archdiocese and canonized
Siena’s most famous holy woman, Catherine di Benincasa, bringing additional
prominence and prestige to the city.56

51 Ceppari, M.A., “La signoria di Gian Galeazzo Visconti”, in R. Barzanti, G. Catoni, and
M. De Gregorio (eds.), Storia di Siena. Dalle origini alla fine della repubblica, Siena, 1996,
pp. 321–26.
52 On the governo trinario, which ruled Siena for most of the 15th century, see Ascheri,
M. and Pertici, P., “La situazione politica senese del secondo Quattrocento (1456–79)”, in
R. Fubini, (ed.), La Toscana ai tempi di Lorenzo il Magnifico: Politica, economia ed arte, Pisa,
1996, pp. 995–1012.
53 Nevola, F., Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, New Haven, CT, 2008, pp. 51–57. See
also Nevola, F., “‘Ornato della città’: Siena’s Strada Romana and Fifteenth-Century Urban
Renewal”, The Art Bulletin 82 (2000), pp. 27–33.
54 Pecci, Storia del Vescovado, pp. 316–19. Bishop Carlo’s last name is sometimes spelled
Bartali.
55 Nevola, Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, pp. 60–89. See also Jenkens, A.L.,
“Pius II’s Nephews and the Politics of Architecture at the End of the Fifteenth Century in
Siena”, BSSP 106 (1999), pp. 68–114.
56 Pecci, Storia del Vescovado, p. 325.

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44 Franco

Closely connected to Siena’s recovery in the 15th century was the propaga-
tion of newly embellished versions of the stories surrounding Montaperti. It
was only during the 15th century, as Siena began the process of recovering from
civic discord, rebellion, absentee bishops, and the ascension of Florence to un-
questioned dominance within Tuscany, that the story of the ritual submission
to the Virgin Mary came to take its fully developed form.57 Over the course
of the 15th century, the tale was embellished with the inclusion of the notary
who recorded the city’s formal submission to the Virgin. In some accounts,
one finds Buonaguida’s speech, delivered in the piazza outside the church of
San Cristoforo and advocating for the ritual submission to the Virgin; the later
chronicles describe the urban procession, led by Buonaguida, the bishop and
the image of the Virgin, in ever greater detail.58 A late 15th-century chronicle
even describes how the Virgin Mary protected Sienese troops during the battle
with her white cloak, providing further proof for the Sienese that they had been
saved through divine intervention as a result of their submission to Mary.59
So popular and meaningful did these embellished stories become in the
Sienese popular imagination that on 24 August 1483, the Sienese did some-
thing truly remarkable: the city’s civic leaders assisted the archbishop, Cardinal
Francesco Piccolomini, in reenacting the city’s ritual submission to the Virgin
Mary in a public ceremony held in the cathedral for the first time.60 Siena had
faced political instability since 1480, and four of the city’s political parties
reenacted the ritual ceremony of submission to the Virgin Mary as a way of
linking their coalition with the extraordinary cooperation by Siena’s leaders
as described in the 15th-century accounts of Montaperti. As the leader of this
newly-formed government laid the keys of the city on the altar before an image
of the Virgin, the archbishop explicated the significance of the ritual and asked
for the Virgin to help unite the Sienese and protect Siena. A notary even re-
corded the official transfer of secular authority to the Virgin,61 and the event

57 For a comprehensive list of surviving Sienese manuscripts that include the story of
Montaperti, see Turrini, P., “I manoscritto delle chronache senesi su Montaperti”, in
E. Pellegrini (ed.), Alla ricerca di Montaperti, Siena, 2009, p. 62.
58 For a discussion of the elaboration of the details of the Montaperti story over the course
of the 14th and 15th centuries, see Garrison, “Sienese Historical Writings”, pp. 23–28.
59 Lisini and Iacometti (eds.), Cronaca senese di Paolo di Tommaso Montauri (Rerum
Italicarum Scriptores, n.s. 15, pt. 6), Bologna, 1931–37.
60 Koenig, J., “Mary, Sovereign of Siena, Jesus, King of Florence: Siege Religion and the Ritual
Submission (1260–1637)”, BSSP 115 (2008), pp. 64–69; Toti, A. (ed.), Atti di votazione della
città di Siena e del senese alla S. S. Vergine madre di G. C, Siena, 1870, pp. 24–32.
61 Koenig, “Mary, Sovereign of Siena”, p. 66.

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The Significance of Montaperti 45

was depicted on the cover of the city’s Biccherna account book for that year.62
By reenacting the key offering for the first time, more than two centuries after
1260, the new political coalition aimed at legitimating their authority by tap-
ping into the collective memory of the Sienese people and their identification
with the story of Montaperti.
By the 15th century, Montaperti had become a symbol of the “Golden Age”
of Sienese history, an era when Siena had rivaled Florence for dominance in
Tuscany, and when the city’s pious ancestors had even managed to defeat
Florence on the battlefield. For those who had lived through Siena’s decline,
largely the result of civic discord and a failure of political and religious leader-
ship, the story of how a united Sienese populace had turned a potential catas-
trophe into a great victory must have seemed miraculous. Just as importantly,
to a population looking to make sense of the city’s recent history and find a way
forward, the story of Montaperti provided a model worthy of emulation. The
stories of Montaperti, as recorded by the city’s chroniclers, offered clear les-
sons to all inhabitants of the 15th-century city, as every class of society played
a role in saving Siena: rich bankers, merchants, artisans, women, the elderly,
clerics, as well as the city’s civic and religious leaders.
Hearing the Montaperti accounts read in public, the Sienese of the 15th cen-
tury would have recognized the existential threat Florence had posed, and the
opportunities such crises offered to those who wished to challenge the status
quo. When the Florentine ambassadors first came to Siena to demand their
capitulation, as described in the chronicles, the Sienese found themselves in
a dangerous position, as they lacked the funds to procure the assistance of
mercenaries needed to reinforce the city’s own armed forces. As we have seen,
frequently in the city’s history, magnates had used their power to undermine
civic unity and exploit potential crises for their own benefit, including the
Tolomei—who instigated at least three rebellions in the 14th century—and
the Salimbeni who were regularly at war with Siena until 1418.63

62 Morandi, U., (ed.), Le Biccherne senesi: le tavolette della Biccherna della Gabella e di altre
magistrature dell’antico stato senese conservate presso l’archivio di stato di Siena, 1964,
pp. 112–13.
63 Bowsky, W.M., “The Anatomy of Rebellion in Fourteenth-Century Siena: from Commune
to Signory?”, in L. Martines (ed.), Violence and Civil Disorder in Italian Cities, 1200–1500,
Berkeley, 1972, pp. 229–72; Cohn, S.K., Lust for Liberty: The Politics of Social Revolt in
Medieval Europe, 1200–1425, Italy, France, and Flanders, Cambridge, MA, 2006, p. 209; CS,
Paolo di Tommaso Montauri, pp. 743–44; Caferro, Mercenary Companies, p. 26.

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46 Franco

Yet, in the 15th-century accounts of Montaperti, at a time of great need for

the city, it was the patriarch of the Salimbeni family, Salimbene Salimbeni,
who came to the aid of the cash-strapped city. Showing great humility,
Salimbene told the ruling regime, known as the Twenty-Four, that though he
was “being presumptuous by rising and addressing” the city’s “honorable and
wise counselors”, his reason for doing so was that he wished to “lend freely
the gold florins” needed to hire the German mercenaries, “for the benefit
of [the] Commune”. Salimbene’s loan was not a simple act of charity, of course,
the Commune would have been required to pay back the money with interest
to the Salimbeni bank. But the implicit message of Salimbene’s gesture was
clear: in this moment of crisis, the leaders of Siena’s great magnate families, as
represented by Salimbene, did not exploit the situation for personal or familial
gain, they instead aligned their family interests with the greater good of the city.
In light of the challenges that the magnate class, including Salimbene’s heirs,
had posed to the city in the century and a half since Montaperti, Salimbene’s
actions, as recounted by the chroniclers, provided an example of the positive
role Siena’s most powerful families could play in a Sienese revival.
The 15th-century accounts also offered important lessons for the city’s mer-
chants and artisans. Much of Siena’s success in the century after Montaperti
was attributable to its commercial success, as merchants and artisans had
supplied the foundation of a healthy urban economy. The merchant class had
played a leading role in the success of the Nine, and Siena’s prosperous middle
class was largely responsible for funding the construction of the city’s urban
monuments and artistic masterpieces. At the same time, there was always a
concern that merchants and artisans, through guild activity, would place their
own self-interests before that of the Commune. And in fact, competition be-
tween merchants and artisans was at the heart of much of the political insta-
bility that followed the fall of the Nine in 1355. Yet, in the 15th-century accounts
of Montaperti, the city’s merchants and artisans played a crucial role in pre-
paring the city for war, by helping to equip Siena’s German allies. Merchants
provided “large amounts of leather” to the Germans “for the protection of their
horses and for themselves”. At the same time, the city’s goldsmiths, tailors,
woodworkers, and cobblers all set to work “swiftly and happily” to produce “the
sought after possessions, knowing that their work would also contribute to the
good of their city”.64 As a result of their efforts, the German troops received
all the equipment and supplies they needed for battle. Thus, the accounts of
Montaperti illustrate the important role that merchants and artisans were ex-
pected to play in civic life: the goods they made and sold directly contributed

64 Franco, The Legend of Montaperti, pp. 45.

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The Significance of Montaperti 47

to the security and wellbeing of the state, and their willingness to devote them-
selves to the public good helped lead Siena to victory.65
The 15th-century accounts of Montaperti also highlight the critical role of
civic leaders in responding to crisis situations. As we have seen, while Siena’s
victory in 1260 had ushered in almost a century of stable government, the fall
of the Nine in 1355 had led to decades of political instability that devastated
the city. Yet, the chronicles provide an important example of how a govern-
ment should function, showing how, in response to the Florentine threat, the
Twenty-Four had acted quickly and decisively, resolving to defend the city’s
freedom and sovereignty. The Twenty-Four then elected an individual capable
of uniting the Sienese, and later that evening, “as if inspired by God himself,
they deliberated admirably together” to establish a plan for battle. The ac-
counts of the deliberations before Montaperti provided a reminder of what
true leadership looked like: government officials putting aside their personal
ambitions and acting in the best interests of the city.
But what are we to make of the extraordinary decision of the Twenty-Four
to grant full authority over the city to a single individual? After all, there is
no evidence in the history of the 13th and 14th-century city that the Sienese
ever took such a step; moreover, the Sienese had long been opposed to single-
person rule and had fought throughout their history to preserve their republi-
can government. The most likely explanation for the election of Buonaguida
Lucari as the leader of the city before the battle lies in his name, which roughly
translates as the “Good Guide of Light”.66 Given all this, it seems most probable
that the chroniclers created this enlightened and righteous model leader of the
city in order to serve as an embodiment of enlightened leadership. After all,
the chronicles state that “he alone represented the will of all of the Sienese”.67
In this role, Buonaguida Lucari calms the assembled masses with a speech in
Piazza Tolomei, leads a penitential procession to the cathedral, and makes the
decision to formally place the city under the control of the Virgin Mary.
The story also highlights the essential role of episcopal authority in the
preservation of the Sienese state. After enduring more than half a century of
papally-appointed, non-Sienese bishops, the story of Montaperti recalled an
era when bishops had been critical to the city’s defense and stability. The story

65 The economic importance of merchants and artisans was noted in Sienese legislation
dating to 1459, which states: “It is known that the guilds and trades are what make the city
rich, populated, and beautiful”: Siena, Archivio di Stato, Statuto 40, fol. 89: cited and trans.
Nevola, “‘Per ornato della città’”, p. 27.
66 Buonaguida in Italian means “good guide”, while Lucari is extremely similar to the Latin
word for light, “luceri”.
67 Franco, The Legend of Montaperti, p. 45.

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48 Franco

makes clear that it was because of the prayers and entreaties of the bishop
and clergy that God and the Virgin first intervened to “move the mind” of
Buonaguida to perform the key offering and ritual submission. The bishop
of the Montaperti accounts is depicted as a critical civic ally, exchanging the
kiss of peace with Buonaguida, and, hand-in-hand with the chief communal
authority, participating in the key offering and submission to the Virgin, ulti-
mately helping procure divine protection for the city and its people.
Moreover, the bishop is depicted as a fierce Sienese partisan, who prayed
that the Virgin Mary would “help in laying low the arrogance and the iniqui-
ty of those cursed dogs, the Florentines”.68 In the lead up to Montaperti, the
bishop played a crucial role in preparing Siena for battle by calling the city’s
clergy to the cathedral and directing them in prayers, leading the citizenry in
several religious processions, celebrating a special Mass, and encouraging the
Sienese to put aside their grievances, all of which helped make Siena worthy of
the Virgin’s mercy. In short, the bishop of the 15th-century Montaperti narra-
tives resembles those Sienese men who had served as the city’s bishops in the
century after the battle, men who were devoted to the city and who, time and
again, had played a crucial role in saving Siena in times of crisis.
More broadly, the story emphasizes that the entire citizenry had a hand
in preparing the city for battle. If the disorder of the late 14th century re-
vealed the ways in which crises often led to chaos and instability, the story of
Montaperti and its emphasis on rituals, prayers, and public contrition, suggest-
ed another way forward. Instead of turning on one another, the crisis of 1260
had united the Sienese against a common enemy. At the bishop’s urging, citi-
zens made confession and forgave one another for their sins; even “the most
offended people sought out their enemies in order to cement a most perfect
and just peace”.69
The chronicles pay special attention to the role of Siena’s “valiant women”
in preparing the city for war. Together with the bishop and clergy, the city’s
women took part in “a large and solemn procession … in which they carried the
relics of Siena [from] the Duomo to all the churches of the city”.70 The “bare-
foot and very modestly dressed” women prayed for the return of their male rel-
atives and “continuously invoked the aid of the Virgin Mary”.71 Through their
prayers, modesty, singing, and acts of contrition, the women of Siena helped
to procure divine assistance. But processions, songs, and rituals did more than

68 Ibid., p. 49.
69 Ibid.
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid.

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The Significance of Montaperti 49

just make the citizenry more pious and deserving of the Virgin’s protection,
they also unified the Sienese in a time of crisis, made them better citizens,
and gave them the strength to defend their city in battle. As a result, according
to the chronicle, “virtually all of the able-bodied citizenry”, regardless of their
profession or status, fought valiantly to defend their city.72
In all these ways, the 15th-century accounts of Montaperti told the story of
how all Sienese, regardless of their status, occupation, or gender, had played a
role in saving the city from certain defeat against a powerful enemy. Because
of their peacemaking, fervent prayer, and devotion to the common good, the
Sienese had made themselves worthy of the Virgin’s protection. For later gen-
erations of citizens who fought to preserve Siena’s independence, their own
identity was firmly rooted in the memory of Montaperti. They were the de-
scendants of pious and courageous Sienese men and women who had made
Siena beautiful, powerful, and worthy of the Virgin’s protection. By following
the example of their ancestors, they must have believed that they could restore
Siena to its rightful place among the great cities in Italy.
By reenacting the submission to the Virgin Mary in 1483, Siena’s political elite
attempted to capture the popular imagination by using the Montaperti foun-
dational legend in order to rally popular support for the new government.73 In
the decades that followed, the Sienese fought mightily to preserve their inde-
pendence in the face of the wars that rocked Italy beginning in 1494.74 On three
additional occasions, when the city faced grave crises that threatened its inde-
pendence, Sienese authorities would again reenact the key offering and ritual
submission to the Virgin in the cathedral, showing just how deeply rooted in
the Sienese collective imagination the memory of Montaperti had become.75
Ultimately, however, Siena lost its independence when the troops of Emperor
Charles V of Spain took the city in 1555, before selling it to the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, Cosimo de’ Medici, in 1557.76 Just shy of 300 years after its great vic-
tory over Florence at Montaperti, Siena became part of the Florentine state.

72 Ibid.
73 On the key donation of 1483, see Koenig, J., “Mary, Sovereign of Siena”, pp. 64–69; Toti
(ed.), Atti di votazione, pp. 24–32. The complicated political history of the late 15th century
is described by Shaw C., “Politics and Institutional Innovation in Siena (1480–98)”, BSSP
103 (1996), pp. 9–102; and in id. BSSP 104 (1997), pp. 194–307.
74 Hook, J., Siena: A City and its History, London, 1979, pp. 172–95.
75 The other occasions were: 1526, 1550, and 1555. On the donations of 1526 and 1550, see
Koenig, J., “Saving Siena: A Renaissance State’s Religious Response to Political and Military
Crisis”, BSSP 11 (2004/2005), pp. 40–204.
76 Parsons, Siena, Civil Religion, and the Sienese, pp. 32–33; Hook, Siena, pp. 194–95.

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50 Franco

To this day, the battle of Montaperti remains the most significant event in
the city’s history, a potent reminder of another age. Though there is no evi-
dence to support the claim that the Sienese placed themselves under the pro-
tection of the Virgin in a formal gesture of ritual submission in the cathedral
on 2 September 1260, for more than 500 years now, this foundation legend has
shaped the way in which the Sienese view themselves, their community, and
their relationship to the divine. Whatever the historical reality, Montaperti will
forever recall that moment when noble and pious Sienese, regardless of gen-
der, occupation, or class, achieved supremacy over Florence and became the
City of the Virgin.

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 chapter 3

“Per queste cose ognuno sta in santa pace et

in concordia”: Understanding Urban Space in
Renaissance Siena
Fabrizio Nevola

Abstract

This chapter offers a longue durée history of Siena’s urban development from the
14th century through to the early years of Medici domination (c.1300–1600). As is
well known, Siena offers a precocious example of urban design legislation around the
Piazza del Campo, which included paving, zoning rules, and rulings on the aesthetics
of buildings facing onto the piazza. Such planning rules spread to encompass much
of the city fabric through the 15th century, so that when the Medici took over the city,
there is evidence of their surprise at the way urban improvement was enshrined as a
core civic duty. While a focus of the chapter will look at urban planning legislation and
its effects on the evolving architecture of the built fabric over nearly three centuries, it
will also consider how public urban space was used. Here too, there are continuities in
the ritual practices that activated and inscribed meaning on the squares and streets as
well as religious and secular buildings and monuments. It will be shown then that, as
Bernardino da Siena’s commentary on Lorenzetti’s famous frescoes show, the built city
is integral to the social interactions of its citizens.

When I was in Florence I reminded Your Excellency in the name of these

Gentlemen [the citizens of Siena], that there was a need to repave the
streets of this city, which are for the most part in disrepair on account
of negligence and the impossibility to attend to them in the past. And I
told you that here the custom is as is also recorded in the written statutes,
that the materials—that is the bricks—should be paid for by the own-
ers of the houses that front on the streets, while the labor of the workers
should be paid for from the public purse. You consequently ordered that
work should commence. This did not happen because of the expenses
committed to your Lordship’s other requirements. Now, on account of
the fact that it seems to me that the streets are deteriorating daily, result-
ing in great public shame, I wanted again to draw this to your attention,

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52 Nevola

in order that you might order the work to be done when you so desire.
At the same time I wish to warn you that that the treasury will be much
burdened by this, on account of the fact that the process of beautification
will start from the main street, which is called the strada Romana, then
the street that leads to the cathedral, and subsequently to the other most
used streets.1

Thus wrote Agnolo Niccolini, the Medici governor in Siena, to Duke Cosimo
de’ Medici in January 1564, less than a decade following the city’s conquest by
the troops of Emperor Charles V (1555) and eventual transfer to Medici con-
trol in 1557.2 As emerges from the account, years of war had left their mark
on the city’s infrastructure, with the brick-paved streets damaged and uneven.
Niccolini’s correspondence also provides further details regarding local pav-
ing practices—today visible in the paving of the piazza del Campo—of lay-
ing large bricks (mezzane) in a herring-bone pattern, which was susceptible to
damage if it was not maintained, as the bricks could easily slip out of place.3
What is remarkable about the document however, and the subsequent cor-
respondence that records an ongoing dialogue between the governor and the
duke, is that the traditional cost-sharing strategy for urban improvement and
maintenance, by which costs were shared between residents and the public

1 Archivio di Stato, Firenze (henceforth ASF), Mediceo Principato, 503, f. 185 [19 January
1563/64] letter from Agnolo Niccolini to Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici: “… Quando fui a Firenze
ricordai a V. Ecc.za Ill.ma in nome di questi Gentilhuomini, che sarebbe di bisogno riam-
mattonar’ le strade di questa città, che sono per la maggior’ parte guaste per la negligenza et
impotenza dei tempi passati. Et le dissi che qui si era sempre osservato come ne apparivano
anche le ordinationi scritte, che la materia, cioè le mezzane, fussino pagate da li patroni de
le case, l’opera de maestri dal Pubblico. Lei allora si contentò che vi si dessi principio. Il che
non si è fatto per le spese occorrenti nelli altri seritii suoi. Hor’ parendomi che le vadino ogni
giorno in disordine maggiore, con indegnità pubblica, gliene ho volsuto di nuovo inducer’
a memoria, a fine che le comandi quanto le piacesse, con advertirla con sì gravarà molto la
Depositaria, perche si andrà faccendo abellagio con incominciar’ dala strada principale, che
è la Romana, e poi quella di Duomo, et successivamente le altre più frequenti …”. All transla-
tions are my own.
2 Donati, B., “Niccolini, Agnolo”, in Bianconi, L.G., (ed.), Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli
Italiani, vol. 78, Roma, 2013: consulted online www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/agnolo-niccolini
(accessed 20 December 2016).
3 ASF, Mediceo Principato, 1871, f. 84 [9 August 1565] letter from Agnolo Niccolini to Duke
Cosimo I de’ Medici: “Non lassero anche con questa occasione di redurle a memoria il rasset-
tamento delle strade della città, che sono in estrema destruttione, massime le principali della
Via di Firenze, di Roma et del Duomo, così per non essere da molto tempo in quà rassettate,
come per dissolversi facilmente questo modo dell’ammattonarle per coltello, che subbito che
se ne rompano o se ne toggano due o tre mezzane, l’altre facilmente si svolgono, come hanno
già fatto qui per tutto, non essendo state attese da molti anni in qua.”

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Understanding Urban Space in Renaissance Siena 53

authorities, continued to be observed in spite of the city’s loss of indepen-

dence. In his answer to Niccolini, Duke Cosimo confirmed his approval of this
cost-sharing policy and stated his wish that the work should be started “for the
beautification and benefit of the city and utility of all residents”.4 The spirit of
Cosimo’s comments provide a further line of continuity from the city’s civic
past, where the collective benefits of public spending on infrastructure and
amenities were regularly described in terms of the same formulation of public
good as defined in terms of beauty and utility. It was these same ideals that had
originally been expressed in Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s famous frescoes in the Sala
dei Nove of the Palazzo Pubblico (Fig. 3.1). While significant political changes
altered systems of governance, transformed institutions, and eventually sub-
jected the city to external power, a lasting policy that expressed collective re-
sponsibility for urban form was a distinctive characteristic of Siena over the
longue durée of at least three centuries.
It is of course well known that Lorenzetti gave visual expression to a series of
ideals of urban form and civil society that had been codified in the city’s stat-
utes from the 13th century, and most significantly in the vernacular Costituto
of 1309.5 From as early as 1169, Siena’s central public space was associated with
trade and markets, and the city government supported this through acquisi-
tion of land to enlarge the piazza and boost this commercial vocation, while at
the same time beginning to provide a distinctive form to the topographically-
determined shell-shaped Campus fori.6 While trade was a key vocation for the
space, its aesthetic appearance was also tightly controlled. Paving of the Piazza
del Campo was initiated in 1262, well before the city hall was built, and was
completed in the early 14th century, when a succession of legislative measures
improved the ambience of the area by prohibiting various trades from the

4 ASF, Mediceo Principato, 219, f. 267 [3 February 1563/64], letter from Duke Cosimo I de’
Medici [in Pietrasanta] to Agnolo Niccolini, “Ponetelo in esecutione per ornamento e ben-
efitio di detta città e per commodo degli habitatiori.”
5 The definitive edition is Il Costituto del Comune di Siena volgarizzato nel MCCCIX–MCCCX,
ed. M.S. Elsheikh, Siena, 2002; for a recent collection of essays on the statutes, see Giordano,
N. and Piccinni, G. (eds.), Siena nello specchio del suo costituto in volgare del 1309–1310,
Pisa, 2014.
6 See Tuliani, M., “Il mercato del Campo ed il commercio ambulante a Siena dal XIII al XV
secolo”, in id. (ed.), La millenaria storia del mercato di Siena. Il commercio ambulante da pi-
azza del Campo a viale XXV aprile, Siena, 2010, pp. 13–17 See Hub, B., “‘Vedete come è bella
la cittade quando è ordinata’: Politics and the Art of City Planning in Republican Siena”, in
T.B. Smith and J.B. Steinhoff (eds.), Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena,
Farnham, 2012, pp. 63–68.

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54 Nevola

market square on the grounds of aesthetics and hygiene.7 The statues of 1309
furthermore established that the piazza should not be used to store building
materials, straw or hay, and even regulated to prevent “chairs, or work-benches
or any other movable goods” from occupying any more than 2 braccia from the
front of buildings facing onto the square. Aesthetic considerations were even
more to the fore in commanding that all new buildings erected with facades
on the piazza should follow the model of the newly built Palazzo Pubblico, an
unprecedented ruling that established the city hall as the stylistic centerpiece
of the principal civic public space (Fig. 3.2).8
The Campo set the benchmark for well ordered urban space. As the civic
centerpiece it benefitted from a sequence of monumental interventions,
from the Palazzo Pubblico (from 1297) to its prominent bell tower of the Torre
del Mangia (from 1325), the chapel consecrating the entire piazza from the
Cappella del Campo (from 1353), the magnificent stone fountain of the Fonte
Gaia (from 1409), and the notaries’ loggia (from 1423).9 As we have seen, legisla-
tion carefully regulated commercial activities on the piazza and ensured that it
was kept clear and well ordered. These legal provisions were enforced by vari-
ous officials (custodi) whose specific task it was to police the piazza to ensure
that it was well maintained, to oversee the market, and to check that traders
did not engage in prohibited activities, such as the slaughter and butchering
of livestock.10 Thus, we can observe that just as built form and architectural
monumentality were valued, so too were the very public commercial functions
of the market piazza that was immediately adjacent to the governmental heart
of the city. A spatial dynamic between the productive base of the polity and

7 Zdekauer, L. (ed.), Il Constituto del Comune di Siena dall’anno 1262, Milan, 1897, repr.
Bologna, 1983, dist. III, rubric 47. For a selection of documents on the Campo, see
Nevola, F., “Ordering the piazza del Campo in Siena”, in K. Jansen, J. Drell, and F. Andrews,
Medieval Italy: A Documentary History, Philadelphia, 2009, pp. 261–64; Braunfels, W.,
Mitteralterliche Stadtbaukunst in der Toskana, Berlin, 1953, with documentary appen-
dix. Max Grossman has recently proposed a precedent for the relationship of the city
hall and Campo in the original layout of the Palazzo Tolomei and its adjacent piazza, in
Grossman, M., “A Case of Double Identity: The Public and Private Faces of the Palazzo
Tolomei in Siena”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 72 (2013), pp. 62–65.
8 Nevola, “Ordering the Piazza”, pp. 261–64; Elsheikh, Costituto, dist. III, rubrics 37, 40–43.
9 For a review of these main monuments, see Benton, T., “Three Cities Compared: Urbanism”,
in D. Norma (ed.), Siena, Florence and Padua: Art, Society and Religion, 1280–1400, New
Haven, CT, 1995, pp. 7–28; and Nevola, F., Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, New
Haven, CT, 2008, chapter 1. For recent work on the notaries loggia, see Fattorini, G.,
“Gentile da Fabriano, Jacopo della Quercia and Siena: the ‘Madonna dei banchetti’”, The
Burlington Magazine 152 (2010), pp. 152–61.
10 See Tuliani, “Il mercato del Campo”, pp. 17–18, for 13th-century custodi and 1309 provision
for two guards.

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Understanding Urban Space in Renaissance Siena 55

the institutions that articulated communal power was therefore inscribed into
the physical and social ordering of this central urban space. Moreover, both the
symbolic language of architecture and the practical actions of policing by gov-
ernment officials, tightly controlled that space and maintained order through
surveillance. That this was a longstanding government priority is confirmed
in the revived civic statutes of 1545, reiterating the need to “police the public
order of the piazza so that no conflicts should arise there between those that
come there to sell their goods”.11
It is precisely this vision that is conjured up in Lorenzetti’s view of the city
at peace, and indeed by the contrasting negatives, in the view of the city at
war that faces it across the Sala dei Nove.12 For example, the city at war reveals
an urban landscape where the physical environment shows evident signs of
disrepair, with many buildings damaged and building materials dumped in
the street; these, as we have seen above, were precisely aspects that the city
authorities sought to avoid. In turn, given the situation of implied civil un-
rest, the public space that fills the foreground is ostentatiously occupied by
city officials policing the streets (albeit that it is implied they are exercising
their powers unjustly). The allegorical figure of timor (fear) presides over the
city gates, which are shown to be solid and controlled by an armed guard.
Thus, while in this view of the city the forces of surveillance and control are
turned against the interests of the public good, it is nonetheless important to
note that they are visually codified through the same principles and personnel
that the statues established to protect those spaces and ensure the securitas
(safety) that is encoded in the view facing it across the room. Here, in the city
at peace, it is again the streetscape that provides a vision of the practical out-
comes of the regulations and good government of the city’s elected rulers. As
with the discussion of the Campo above, it is trade and commerce that stands
out in this remarkably industrious public space, where various trades can be
observed in the numerous botteghe, while raw materials and livestock move

11 Vigni, L., “‘Perché la piazza sia carica di pollami, piccioni, ravaggiuoli, caci e frutti
d’ogni sorta …’: Organizzazione e problematiche del mercato in piazza del Campo dal
Cinquecento ai primi anni dell’ottocento”, in M. Tuliani (ed.), La millenaria storia del mer-
cato di Siena. Il commercio ambulante da piazza del Campo a viale XXV aprile, Siena, 2010,
pp. 39–41, cites the 1545 statute: “invigilare al buon ordine della piazza e che in quella tra
le persone che vi vengono a vendere non ne seguino sconcerti”; the full statute is pub-
lished in Ascheri, M. (ed.), L’ultimo statuto della Repubblica di Siena (1545), Siena, 1993.
12 These frescoes have received extensive scholarly attention, some of which is reviewed in
Nevola, Siena: Constructing, pp. 5–8; see also Campbell, C.J., The Commonwealth of Nature.
Art and Poetic Community in the Age of Dante, University Park, PA, 2008, whose discus-
sion of the complementarity of the two scenes adds a subtle new reading to their usually
polarized opposition.

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freely through the permeable diaphragm of the city’s gates and the productive
rural landscape beyond. The hand of government is here less visible, although
it is ever present and expressed in the orderly conduct of everyday life that is
documented by the scene.
While these frescoes appear to offer two distinct views of the city, they nev-
ertheless both speak to the same set of ideals and underpinning principles:
that urban form was a visual expression of good government, and that legisla-
tion and its enforcement ensured certain behaviors and practices in relation to
the built environment. Such concerns were not restricted to the area around
the Piazza del Campo, however. Special attention was afforded to various ele-
ments of the city’s infrastructure, from the walls and gates that enclosed the
urban community and regulated access to it, through to the elaborate system
of underground aqueducts (the bottini) and monumental fountains that pro-
vided the most precious amenity of water, for both personal and industrial
needs.13 So much was this the case that there was a perception that such pro-
vision was a reason for just civic pride, as expressed in February 1397, when
the city officials stated that “your city has always been the most delightful and
clean in the whole of Tuscany, and with the most beautiful fountain, on ac-
count of which all foreigners that come here wish to see the Fonte Branda.”14
The city authorities were also largely responsible for financing the city’s
main religious and charitable institutions, from the cathedral to the famed
hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, as well as regularly providing material sup-
port for the religious orders and their new convent buildings.15 And yet, just as
the hand of the comune appears to have touched these most vital and visible
of the city’s built elements, so too they also maintained a constant attention
for its public spaces, and a particular regard for streets and alleyways. From at
least 1290, a group of building professionals—the Viarii—had officiated over
the management and maintenance of the streets; within the walls they had a
particular remit to ensure that the main streets were paved, and to attempt to
limit the filth and dirt that secondary unpaved streets brought into the city

13 See Nevola, Siena: Constructing, pp. 12–27 for a more detailed survey of infrastructure
(urban armature).
14 Balestracci, D. and Piccinni, G., Siena nel Trecento. Assetto urbano e prassi edilizia, Florence,
1977, p. 17: “La vostra città è sempre stata la più dilectevole e necta città di Toscana e
co’ la più bella fonte, per la qual cosa tutti è forestieri che ci venghono vogliono vedere
Fonte Branda” (Archivio di Stato, Siena (henceforth ASS), Consiglio Generale, 198, fol. 39,
2 February 1397).
15 Balestracci, D. and Piccinni, G., Siena nel Trecento, pp. 103–12; also Bowsky, W.M., A
Medieval Italian Commune. Siena Under the Nine, 1287–1355, pp. 260–98 for a discussion of
“civic religion”.

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center.16 Numerous interventions throughout the 14th century sought to widen

streets, to provide greater access to light, and where possible to correct align-
ments of facades to create more regular pathways. All these modifications,
which actively affirmed rights over the public realm, were understood to ex-
press most clearly a pervasive sense of the “order and rule of the entire city”.17
Streets and public spaces were thus an important venue for the formulation
of civic values and the ideals of the bene comune, and it was within the frame-
work of the rights and duties of citizenship that the principle was established
that residents who benefited from street improvements should participate in
a share of the associated costs.18 These policies, well established by 1309, were
reaffirmed in both legislation and enacted polices throughout the 15th cen-
tury for the maintenance of streets, as well as for the day-to-day activity and
costs associated with street-cleaning.19 Furthermore, by the early 15th century,
preventative legislation that, for instance, had originally prohibited private in-
dividuals from invading public space by building or storing goods on publicly-
owned land, was extended by increasing the penalty for infringement to the
expropriation of offending properties by the government.20 A further step
was taken when the same powers of expropriation were extended to buildings

16 Balestracci and Piccinni, Siena nel Trecento, p. 41 quote the first statute collection of the
VIarii: “strate civitatis Senarum sunt siliciate et quedam vie sunt que mistunt in stratis et
intrant et non sunt siliciate ob que deturpantur strate ita quod sozzura et lutum ipsarum
viarum redeunt in stratam” (ASS, Viarii, 1, r. cxxii, fol. 23). For further discussion of the
work of the office see Nevola, Siena: Constructing, pp. 13–18.
17 Balestracci and Piccinni, Siena nel Trecento, p. 45 focus on the improvement of the
streets “a dare a tucta la città ordine e regola” (citing ASS, Consiglio Generale, 160, fol. 37
[22 December 1357] on the improvement of the via del Casato). See also Ciampoli,
D. and Szabó, T. (eds.), Viabilità e legislazione di uno stato cittadino del Duecento. Lo Statuto
dei Viarii di Siena, Siena, 1992.
18 Balestracci and Piccinni, Siena nel Trecento, p. 48: “semper consideratione habita quod cui
plus commode offertur ex ampliatione … plus solvat, et cui minus commode consequitur
minus solvat” (citing ASS, Consiglio Generale, 143, fol. 32, 23 Oct 1349). See also comments
on the participation of citizens in the enactment of public policy, in Bortolotti, L., Le città
nella storia d’Italia, Siena, 1983, pp. 43–46.
19 ASS, Statuto di Siena, 47, fol. 140 (23 September 1415): “debba provvedere che le strade et
vie della cipta non se guastino ma quelle provvedere di fare mantenere et acconciare come
vedranno essare di bisogno”; ASS, Statuto di Siena, 2, fol. 286r–v (17 February 1443/44): “De
stratis et viis” officials to ensure that “provveduto che la citta stia netta et monda e senza
brottura alcuna”; and fol. 287r–v (15 June 1469): “per li antiqui statuti di Siena i quali ancho
oggi si observano provveduto che chi assalta e robba alla strada caggia in pena arbitraria
dello officiale”. See ASS, Consiglio Generale, 231, fol. 268 (9 March 1466) on renewed pow-
ers and duties of the viarii.
20 Nevola, Siena: Constructing, pp. 51–53; also discussed by Turrini, P., “Per honore et utile de
la città di Siena,” Il comune e l’edilizia nel Quattrocento, Siena, 1997, pp. 43–81.

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identified as being in poor repair and “causing great damage and shame to
the city.”21 A new government office, the Petroni, was established to identify
properties and enforce the legislation, with a single surviving volume of their
records, listing over 200 derelict buildings identified between 1448–1500 and
reporting on the restoration work that they were able to enforce.22 The signifi-
cant principle that the activity of the Petroni reveals, is a shift from the iden-
tification of public property and its maintenance away from the open spaces
of streets and piazzas, to a more all-encompassing vision that considered the
image of the city to be shaped by the collective effect of private property as
much as by the city’s public spaces and monuments.
So then, when the preaching friar and later saint Bernardino of Siena gave
his sermons on the Piazza del Campo in 1425, he was able famously to comment
on the images represented in Lorenzetti’s frescoes: “and turning to the image
of peace, I see merchandise all around, I see dancing, I see buildings being
restored … and on account of these things everyone is in blessed peace and
harmony”.23 The image to which he referred was nearly a century old, and yet
it continued to be meaningful to the Sienese viewing public. While some schol-
ars have preferred to view the frescoes as precisely representing the Campo,
no topographic specificity is provided; instead the fresco, like Bernardino’s re-
marks, set out a framework for understanding how social practices and the
built environment contributed to ensure that the polity might enjoy a life in
pace et in concordia.24 During the 14th century the principal location in the city
where such values were “performed” and enforced was the public space of the
Campo, though by the following century Siena’s rulers were intent on extend-
ing their management of the urban environment beyond the civic square. The
work of the Petroni sought to improve the city’s housing stock, by intervening
to enforce the restoration of buildings that had been abandoned by their own-
ers, who in many cases sought to make a small profit by selling off the building
materials from their derelict houses.25 Maintenance of the everyday housing
stock—for Lorenzetti as for Bernardino—was an indicator of the city’s

21 Turrini, “Per honore et utile de la città di Siena”; ASS, Biccherna, 1060, fol. 2r–v (18 April 1444):
“grande danno e vergogna alla cipta”.
22 Ibid.
23 Bernardino of Siena, Le prediche volgari. Predicazione del 1425 in Siena, ed. C. Cannarozzi,
Florence, 1958, 2.266; cited in Donato, M.M., “La ‘bellissima inventive’: immagini e idee
nella Sala della Pace”, in E. Castelnuovo (ed.), Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Il buon governo, Milan,
1995, p.36: “voltandomi a la pace, vego le mercanzie andare atorno, vego balli, vego racco-
nciare le case … per queste cose ognuno sta in santa pace et in concordia.”
24 Nevola, Siena: Constructing, pp. 5–12 for analysis of Bernardino’s account of the frescoes
and discussion of subsequent changes to the fresco, which include the addition of the
Duomo.
25 ASS, Biccherna, 1060, fol. 2r–v.

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prosperity and good government. Thanks to the work of the Petroni a large
number of houses and palaces, as well as the public spaces around them (all
too often also occupied by rubble and building materials), were cleared up at
their owners’ expense.
There is some evidence to suggest that the policies enforced by the Petroni
may have been directly connected to plans to beautify the city around the
time that the Council of Pavia, officiated by Pope Martin V, was relocated to
Siena (from 1423), although more broadly their policies gave expression to the
government’s growing concern for the appearance of the city as a whole.26
Following the return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome, throughout the
15th century Siena came increasingly to be a transit point for pilgrims and
elite travelers of all sorts (emperors, kings, popes, ambassadors, as well as mer-
chants) on their way to and from the Eternal City.27 These travelers, users of
one of the most significant pilgrimage routes of pre-modern Europe, the Via
Francigena, were increasingly understood by the Sienese authorities to be in-
strumental in communicating the fame and identity of the city abroad, and
as such it was at least in part for their benefit that many urban improvement
policies of the 15th century were introduced and enforced. It is indeed surpris-
ing to note the frequency with which the enabling legislation and decisions of
the city’s government offices refer not just to the declared aim to beautify the
city, but that it was outside visitors as much as local residents who were the
intended beneficiaries of such improvements. Furthermore, the most compel-
ling evidence that points to the fact that there was an active policy to favor the
part of the city that was most visible to the eyes of outside viewers, is the fact
that the majority of interventions were focused along the main artery that cuts
through the city from the Porta Camollia in the North to the Porta Romana in
the South. This central thoroughfare, the urban section of the Via Francigena
(known in Siena as the Strada Romana) emerged through the latter part of
the 15th century as the priority for government-led urban improvements spear-
headed by the appropriately named ufficiali sopra l’ornato.28

26 Nevola, Siena: Constructing, p. 51; Turrini, “Per honore et utile”, pp. 43–81.
27 Numerous processions and visits to Siena are discussed in Nevola, Siena: Constructing.
A valuable source remains Provedi, A., Relazione delle pubbliche feste date in Siena negli
ultimi cinque secoli, Siena, 1791.
28 I have written extensively about the work of the Ornato and will here limit the foot-
notes to specific examples discussed in the text; for a full discussion see Nevola, Siena:
Constructing, pp. 91–145; and Nevola, F., “‘Ornato della città’: Siena’s Strada Romana and
Fifteenth-Century Urban Renewal”, The Art Bulletin 82 (2000), pp. 26–50; also Pertici, P.,
La città magnificata: interventi edilizi a Siena nel Quattrocento, Siena, 1995; Hub, “Vedete
come è bella”, pp. 71–72, proposes precedents for such activity managed through the tax
office of the Biccherna, following Braunfels, Mitteralterliche Stadtbaukunst, pp. 40, 96–97.

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The Ornato was an office of nine men whose main purpose was to enforce
policies for the improvement of the urban fabric and, in particular, to encour-
age (and to some extent oblige) private property owners to renew their prop-
erties following certain criteria of ornato (beauty or decorum). Established in
1458, perhaps following the advice of Pope Pius II Piccolomini, their remit was,
in their own words, “to work incessantly and oblige all citizens without excep-
tion to improve the civic image (honore publico) and renew the city’s appear-
ance by appropriate and beautiful works.”29 This they appear to have done for
over a quarter of a century, with a notable energy directed at the removal of
jetties or overhanging balconies that projected out from the facades of build-
ings above street level. The Ornato had no budget, but they could appeal to the
government on behalf of property-owners in order to secure partial subsidies
for the building interventions that they recommended. Almost without excep-
tion, the subsidies that they were able to leverage were fairly small as com-
pared to the overall cost incurred for rebuilding an entire house facade, the
almost inevitable consequence of removing balconies of this sort.
From as early as 1309 statute regulations had legislated against balconies
with very few practical results, so that the Ornato interventions are particu-
larly interesting, as they mark a significant change in the enforcement of
government-mandated urban improvements that required a financial outlay
by private individuals.30 It is clear that subsidies alone are not enough to ex-
plain the widespread application of Ornato decisions, and we need instead to
look at the rhetoric that surrounded the process of urban improvement that
they favored, in order to consider the meaning of ornato and how it was ap-
plied. The term “ornato” defies an easy translation, for it coincides with both an
aesthetic value of beauty and decorum, but also a collective qualitative judge-
ment defined by the ideal of the well ordered and dignified city, where beauty
is a civic value that overcomes the shame of squalor and disrepair. “Ornato”
therefore can perhaps be understood to have a moral quality, much in the same
way that it has been argued that “magnificentia” (magnificence) was an under-
pinning value that fueled the building boom of private palace-construction in
Quattrocento Florence.31 While the values of magnificence also applied to elite

29 ASS, Concistoro 2125, fol. 39, 18 December 1465; cited also by Pertici, La città magni-
ficata, p. 89. For the office’s enabling legislation, see ASS, Statuto di Siena, 40, fol. 137,
11 October 1458. See further, Nevola, Siena: Constructing, pp. 98–100.
30 Elsheikh, Costituto, dist. III rubric 5. See also Friedman, D., “Palaces and the Street in
Late-Medieval and Renaissance Italy”, in J.W.R. Whitehand and P.J. Larkham (eds.), Urban
Landscapes, International Perspectives, London, 1992, pp. 69–113, esp. pp. 74–86.
31 As formulated in Jenkins, A.D.F., “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage of Architecture and the
Concept of Magnificence”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute 33 (1970), 162–70.

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palace patronage in Siena, the qualities associated with the concept of “ornato”
were far more socially inclusive and far-reaching. In fact, the Ornato officials’
full title was “ufficiali sopra l’ornato della città”, which identified their remit
quite specifically as touching the entire city. The deliberations of Siena’s great
council are packed with decisions to enact the officials’ recommendations that
would increase “ornato” and counteract the shame (vergogna) derived from
buildings left in a state of disrepair.32
Petitions mediated by the Ornato officials involved elite patrons such as the
Spannocchi or Piccolomini, but more often identified the ordinary housing of
unexceptional citizens for improvement, especially when these were located
on the Strada Romana or the street leading from the central Campo up to the
cathedral precinct. The primacy assigned to these streets was clear from the
outset, and is constantly repeated in petitions that refer to these areas in terms
of their visibility, such as in a document of December 1465 that described the
need to focus work on the “street of Camollia, because visitors to the city see
that street more than any other.”33 A few years later, in February 1469, it was the
house of Giovanni di Pietro on the Strada di Camollia (the northern portion of
the Strada Romana) that was identified for improvements as it risked collaps-
ing and was “a reason for great public shame to the city as it is close to the gate
of Camollia.”34 Giovanni was one of many to receive a subsidy to renew the
facade of his house, and the combination here between the language of public
shame (vergogna and a related term often used: dishonor, disonore) and the
location of the house close to one of the city’s main gates, speaks clearly to the
very public ideal of “ornato” that underpinned these policies.
Under the aegis of the Ornato officials, a concerted policy was pursued for
the renovation of housing stock along the Strada Romana and via di Città,
which removed jetties, balconies and other wooden appendages from house
facades and renewed the street with brick-built houses as well as many new
elegant palaces.35 The spatial implications of this policy are clear. Where
previously the primary focus of government policy for urban beautification

Hub, “Vedete come è bella”, pp. 73–77, proposes a theologically informed reading of urban
beautification as striving for the ideals of the civitas De described by St Augustine.
32 See the volumes of ASS, Consiglio Generale, e.g., Deliberazioni, 231, fol. 100 (116), of
26 March 1466, for the demolition of overhangs near San Giorgio “erano vergogna di tutta
quella contrada maxime essendo la Streada Romana”.
33 ASS, Concistoro, 2125, fol. 39 (18 December 1465); quoted in full in Nevola, Siena:
Constructing, p. 99. See also Pertici, La città magnificata, p. 89.
34 ASS, Concistoro, 2125, fol. 86 (8 February 1468/69): “minaccia ruina … molto vergognosa
ala citta et allentrata dessa porta Kamollia”.
35 For a detailed treatment, see Nevola, Siena: Constructing, pp. 91–145.

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had been on the civic centerpiece of the Piazza del Campo and its religious
counterpart around the cathedral, the work of the Ornato extended the gov-
ernment’s remit to shape the built form of the primary artery that cut through
the city, connecting the center to its principal gates. There can be little doubt
that Ornato activity pinpointed the Strada Romana, with a spike in their ac-
tivity in the 1460s primarily directed at overhang-demolitions.36 This activity
was supplemented with a series of zoning provisions that altered the commer-
cial makeup of the street, discouraging noisy or filthy industries (such as pan-
makers and butchers) from working along the Strada, just as they provided
incentives for luxury retailers (such as goldsmiths, wool, and silk merchants)
to locate their shops there.37
Zoning regulations altered the distribution of trades operating on Siena’s
main street, showcasing luxury products that appealed to mobile elites and
projected an image of industry and prosperity, while the Ornato renovations
contributed to a radical architectural overhaul of that same street. As can be
observed from a map of Ornato interventions (Map 3.1), it was the entire course
of the Strada Romana that was modified, making it the city’s main showcase,
lined with elegant new palaces and well maintained houses. This process co-
incided with a growing attention to civic ceremonial rituals and, in particular,
the Renaissance revival of the classically-inspired triumphal entry. Perhaps not
surprisingly, it was along the Strada Romana that elaborately presented entry
ceremonies were staged for a succession of visitors, including Pope Pius II,
King Charles VIII of France, and the Emperors Frederick III, Maximilian, and
Charles V, among others. While elaborate ephemeral constructions, including
Roman-style triumphal arches, were a regular feature of these ceremonies, it
was the permanent built fabric of the renewed street that formed the primary
setting for these entries. Likewise, just as ephemeral heraldic displays honored
the visitors, permanent sculptural imagery was subtly deployed along the street
by the Sienese authorities to project civic and collective identity. Coinciding
with the work of the Ornato, a series of she-wolf sculptures were erected on
columns in significant parts of the city as well as on the gates, communicating
thus quite clearly Siena’s classical origins and connections with Rome, while

36 Nevola, Siena: Constructing, p. 209 for a table based only on documented cases in ASS,
Concistoro, 2125. Numerous others can be traced from the Consiglio Generale and other
records.
37 For additional evidence and examples, see Nevola, F., “‘Più honorati et suntuosi ala
Republica’: Botteghe and Luxury Retail along Siena’s Strada Romana”, in B. Blondé,
P. Stabel, J. Stobbart, and I. Van Damme (eds.), Buyers and Sellers: Retail Practices in
Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Turnhout, 2006, pp. 65–78.

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at the same time providing a clear civic cohesion to the city’s renewed main
street (Map 3.2).38
Through offices such as the Ornato and the Petroni, Siena’s government
was thus able to harness the duties of citizenship to propel and finance an
extensive process of urban renewal. Whether through penalties such as the
threat of expropriation, or the more subtle process of peer pressure exercised
on entire neighborhoods to ensure that all participated and accepted the duty
of house-maintenance, the concept of ornato della città was pursued as an ac-
tive government policy. There can be little doubt that members of the urban
elite benefitted from these policies through tax benefits, land concessions, and
other incentives that supported their ambitious plans for grand new domestic
palaces.39 By contrast, it is all too easy to overlook the myriad minor inter-
ventions on the more everyday domestic housing stock of the city that were
an equally important result of those same policies. It is the combined effect
of the grand acts of architectural patronage as well as these more prosaic in-
terventions that stand out as formulating a distinctive process. The civic val-
ues associated with “ornato” in 15th-century Siena should thus be understood
to have underpinned a process of collective patronage, whereby all citizens
were expected to contribute to the shared endeavor of urban renewal and
beautification.
Urban space in Siena, as it was pictured by Lorenzetti in the frescoes of
the Palazzo Pubblico, and described by San Bernardino in his sermons on the
Piazza del Campo, can therefore be understood as a built expression of the ide-
als of good government, consciously fashioned by careful planning decisions
that were overseen by dedicated officials. While the city’s political instability
is the subject of other contributions to this collection, it is nonetheless clear
that the most dramatic break from the communal tradition that prevailed
in the city from the 13th century was the period of Novesco ascendancy from
July 1487, leading to the brief signoria of Pandolfo Petrucci (d. 1512) and his
heirs (to 1525).40 As has been widely noted, the processes of decision-making
and government changed significantly during this period, with a narrowing of

38 Nevola, Siena: Constructing, pp. 140–42 and 147–55; Caciorgna M. and Guerrini, R., “Imago
Urbis. La lupa e l’immagine di Roma nell’arte e nella cultura senese come identità storica
e morale”, in B. Santi and C. Strinati (eds.), Siena e Roma. Raffaello, Caravaggio e i protago-
nisti di un legame antico, Siena, 2005, pp. 99–118.
39 Numerous instances are documented in Nevola, Siena: Constructing.
40 This period of Sienese history has been the subject of numerous studies by Christine
Shaw, Giuseppe Chironi, Philippa Jackson, and Petra Pertici among others; a detailed
study of the architectural and urban development through the period from 1487 is in
Nevola, Siena: Constructing, pp. 157–207.

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the executive and increased reliance on the extraordinary powers of the Balìa,
a body closely identified with the tight oligarchy that surrounded Petrucci. This
relatively short-lived institutional shakeup had far reaching consequences for
Siena’s place in the fast-changing geopolitics of the Italian peninsula, but also
altered significantly the processes of collective patronage that had given built
expression to the civic ideals that shaped the city for over two centuries.
Two outstanding and representative urban-scale projects of the period are
the renewal of the via del Capitano, a street leading from Piazza Postierla to the
cathedral, and the via del Casato, a primarily residential street on the south-
ern edge of the Piazza del Campo. What the two projects have in common
is that they were renewed in the decades following 1487, largely through the
patronage of individuals closely associated with the new ruling group. While
at first sight these projects may appear to have adopted comparable strategies
to those employed for the Strada Romana, they should instead be understood
as exclusive developments that led to the creation of elite residential enclaves
of palace streets. This was especially the case at the via del Capitano, a mixed-
use street up to the latter part of the 15th century, where the grand Pecci Palace
flanked much less prestigious properties belonging to the nearby hospital of
Santa Maria della Scala, which rented these out on life-leases to employees and
other deserving citizens.41 Following the return to Siena of the Nove in 1487,
many of the hospital properties were forcibly sold off to individuals closely
associated with the city’s new government.42 Thus, Giacoppo Petrucci secured
the site for a new palace “built from the foundations” on the corner of the ca-
thedral square, buying six houses from the hospital, which included proper-
ties occupied by a deacon at the hospital, Antonio Alberti of Orvieto, a canon
named Pietro Antonio di Gheri, as well as the house of the artist Neroccio di
Bartolomeo. His neighbor on the street was Antonio Bichi, a central figure of
the new elite, who also secured a site by forcing the hand of the widow and
heirs of the Santa Maria della Scala physician Alessandro Sermoneta, as well
as through property sales by the cathedral. Further along the street at Piazza
Postierla, Borghese Borghesi also benefitted from advantageous land conces-
sions by the cathedral for his new palace, while the immensely wealthy banker
Agostino Chigi also secured property rights and permits for a new palace in
1503 (Map 3.3). Evidently the rapid redevelopment of the via del Capitano as
a street lined with the palaces of Siena’s new elite was achieved by a process

41 ASS, Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala, 172. (Usufrutti, depositi, preste) for leases.
42 For these examples and the corresponding documents, see Nevola, Siena: Constructing,
pp. 178–83; see ASS, Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala, 172, fol. 90 and Ospedale Santa
Maria della Scala 528, fol. 94 for sales to Giacoppo Petrucci.

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of forced acquisitions that transferred into private hands properties that had
previously been held as assets belonging to public institutions. Just as these
institutions had come under the direct control of committees drawn from the
city’s new elite, so the new street that emerged can be understood as an expres-
sion of the transformed dynamics at play in the city.
The via del Capitano stands out as the clearest example of how political
change altered the dynamics of urban renewal, arresting a continuous and col-
lective civic urban process that had operated from the 13th century, and replac-
ing it with a system that favored the interests of a small ruling group. The street
is constituted as an exclusive space, where property ownership was achieved
thanks to the exercise of power, and where palace architecture provided a uni-
fying site and style for the new elite. While less dramatic, the situation in the
via del Casato appears to have been similar. The Casato had an established
position as a preferred residential street for many of the city’s leading families,
partly at least as it was centrally-located and had easy access to the commer-
cial and political center around the Campo. Following the return of the Nove
in 1487, there is some evidence of property turnover in the street, as returning
noveschi were able to buy up properties there that had been confiscated from
exiled opponents of the new regime.43 More significantly, at some point after
1488 the street appears to have become more desirable for elite residents, and
by the early 1500s it had clearly become a center for the city’s bankers, with well
documented palaces belonging to the Chigi, Venturini, Benassai, Ghinucci,
and probably also the Spannocchi. Tax evidence further suggests that in the
years around 1500 the street became a significant focus for Ornato-mediated
renovations, with tax returns of 1509 showing nearly 30 per cent of residents
on the street (31 out of 115) involved in renovating their homes or palaces.44
While no documentary evidence has emerged to shed light on why the Ornato
officials pinpointed the Casato for improvement after 1487, it seems plausible
to suggest that the street was identified as a new residential enclave for mer-
chant and banking elites connected to the new regime and, as such, the Ornato
intervened to support the process of its quite rapidly-executed renovation.
Such an interpretation would conform to comparable uses of the principle
of “ornato” to improve other enclaves exclusively associated with the Novesco
regime and the Petrucci. Among these, the most significant was the reorder-
ing of the urban context of Pandolfo Petrucci’s palace on via del Pellegrino

43 Further discussion and sources in Nevola, Siena: Constructing, pp. 184–87.

44 In this instance the evidence for ornato activity is reported in tax records where individu-
als record liabilities incurred as a result of construction work resulting from ornato deci-
sions, as opposed to the evidence originating from official ornato records.

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66 Nevola

(adjacent to the Baptistry) by means of a series of zoning restrictions, overhang

demolitions and street-straightening policies, enforced from September 1507
“pro maiori etiam ornamento publico.”45 These modifications to the street
connecting the Palazzo del Magnifico (as Pandolfo’s palace was known) to
the nearby Piazza del Campo sought to create an axial alignment between the
seigneurial residence and the traditional site of Siena’s political center in the
Palazzo Pubblico. Combined with unexecuted plans (from 1508) to encircle
the Campo with a portico that would have masked the civic buildings with a
homogenous classicizing facade, these urban interventions reveal the underly-
ing politics of city planning, by revealing the new ruler’s ambition to reorient
the locus of power in the city to the Petrucci residence. Such plans were short
lived however, and with the death of Pandolfo and the political demise of his
weak son Borghese (1514), the focus of Petrucci power returned to the via del
Capitano residence adjacent to the cathedral, a building whose associations
with government meant that it was chosen as the Medici governor’s palace fol-
lowing Siena’s loss of independence.46
With the end of the Petrucci signoria, Siena returned to republican rule
(1525), albeit as a minor player in the complex European military and geopo-
litical struggles that were being fought in Italy during this period. The city’s
independence, celebrated with the successful defense of the city from the
Florentines at the battle of Porta Camollia (1526), came increasingly to be ar-
ticulated through spending on fortifications.47 While Domenico Beccafumi’s
frescoes for the Sala del Concistoro in the Palazzo Pubblico revisited the civic
ideals that underpinned Lorenzetti’s frescoes of almost two centuries earlier,
Baldassarre Peruzzi returned to Siena from Rome to take up the post of ca-
thedral architect, leading various interventions that renewed the ideal of civic
religion through publicly-funded patronage at the Duomo.48 However, grow-
ing financial pressures on the public purse to meet the considerable costs of

45 ASS, Balìa 253, fol. 240 (16 September 1507); discussed in Nevola, Siena: Constructing,
p. 202.
46 Morviducci, M., “Dai Petrucci alla Provincia. Il Palazzo del Governatore come sede del
potere a Siena”, in F. Bisogni (ed.), Palazzo della Provincia a Siena, Rome, 1990, pp. 55–108.
47 Hook, J., “Fortifications and the End of the Sienese State”, History 62 (1977), pp. 372–87;
and Adams, N. and Pepper, S., Firearms and Fortifications: Military Architecture and Siege
Warfare in Sixteenth Century Siena, Chicago, 1986.
48 Rubinstein, N., “Political Ideas in Sienese Art: the Frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti
and Taddeo di Bartolo in the Palazzo Pubblico”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes 21 (1958), pp. 179–207; Fattorini, G. and Sliwka, J., “Domenico Beccafumi and the
Sienese tradition”, in L. Syson, et al. (eds.), Renaissance Siena: Art for a City, London, 2007,
pp. 296–99; Huppert, A.C., Becoming an Architect in Renaissance Italy. Art, Science and the
Career of Baldassarre Peruzzi, New Haven, CT, 2015, pp. 33–35.

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fortification of both the city and contado were undoubtedly the primary focus
of government budgets and policy throughout the period leading up to the
final loss of independence. As city architect from 1527–35, Peruzzi’s principal
activity was that of designer of fortifications, intended both to secure the city
from external aggression, but also to prevent a return of the Novesco faction
to power.49
The history of Siena’s urban development in the three decades between the
end of the Petrucci signoria and the wars that led to its loss of independence
and transfer to the Medici duchy, remains to be written. Nevertheless, the
grand civic projects for the cathedral and city hall which aimed to re-establish
the patterns of civic patronage that had prevailed through its earlier republi-
can past, were matched by the reassertion of the city’s legislative framework,
and significantly marked by the compilation of a new set of statutes drawn up
in Latin in 1545.50 These statutes give some indication of the political will to re-
state the values that underpinned the institutions that had shaped the city up
until the Petrucci interlude, overturning those changes that had been effected
during that period. Not only were offices such as the Viarii reconfirmed in their
mandate to manage the city’s street and rural road network, but the role of the
Ornato was also given formal recognition.51 The new statutes expressed the
ambition to renew the ideals and honor of the public weal (“maiestas publici
honoris”) by recasting the city’s legislation in a classical language that echoed
the erudite references in Beccafumi’s frescoes or Peruzzi’s classical reimagin-
ing of the cathedral.52 And yet, as was noted at the outset, behind the classical
language, many of the practices, offices, institutions, and regulations remained
largely unchanged from the 13th and 14th centuries, when principles such as
the cost-sharing arrangements for street maintenance and improvement had
first been established.53 Thus, when Niccolini noted in 1565 that “according to
the laws of this city, it is the practice that private individuals pay for the materi-
als, and the public purse pays for the labor”, he referred to a long-documented

49 Adams and Pepper, Firearms and Fortifications, pp. 57–58; Huppert, Becoming an Architect,
pp. 36–40. Adams, N., Baldassarre Peruzzi: Architect to the Republic of Siena, Ph.D. thesis,
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1977, remains unrivalled for its archival re-
search and interpretation.
50 Ascheri, M. (ed.), L’ultimo statuto della Repubblica di Siena (1545), Siena, 1993.
51 “De viariis et eorum officio”, (I. 213; quoted from Ascheri (ed.), L’ultimo statuto della
Repubblica di Siena (1545), pp. 120–21), and “Ornatum civitatis pro viribus attendentes,”
(IV. 81; quoted from Ascheri (ed.), L’ultimo statuto della Repubblica di Siena (1545), p. 404).
52 As observed by Mario Ascheri, in Ascheri M., “Siena nel primo Cinquecento e il suo ultimo
statuto”, in id. (ed.), L’ultimo statuto, p. xxix (quote from 1545 statues, IV.17).
53 Ascheri, “Siena nel primo Cinquecento”, pp. xxix–xxxvi for continuities in spite of the
translation into Latin.

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practice that had been both transmitted and renewed throughout the city’s
long republican history.54 Though a seemingly minor legislative detail, this
practice enshrined a key principle of the Sienese Republic, that the city was a
built expression of good government, and that consequently contributing to
the “ornato della città” was a duty enjoined on every citizen.

54 ASF, Mediceo Principato, 1871, f. 84 [9 August 1565]: letter from Agnolo Niccolini to Duke
Cosimo I de’ Medici: “secondo li ordini di questa città, erono consueti li privati mettere la
materia, cioè le mezzane, et il pubblico l’opera.”

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 chapter 4

Saint Catherine and Siena

Jane Tylus

Abstract

This chapter considers the many ways in which the life of Catherine Benincasa (1347–
80) intersected with that of Siena. Using at its point of departure the phrase coined by
historian Ernesto Sestan to characterize medieval Siena some 50 years ago—a “daugh-
ter of the streets”—this essay explores how Catherine too spent much of her life “in
the streets”. These were the streets of Siena, for sure, but also those of southern France,
Tuscany, and Rome, in order to pursue her spiritual and political missions. Catherine’s
career thus embraced ever broadening circles. The following pages will take up that
career, while focusing primarily on the various neighborhoods of Siena and its terri-
tory, where Catherine had greatest influence, along with the many individuals whose
lives she touched.

The parchment cover for a file in the Sienese Archive, dated April 1526, depicts
Catherine above one of Siena’s best-known buildings, the Palazzo Pubblico
(Fig. 4.1).1 She holds her characteristic lily in her right hand, while with her left
she opens a book to the words Libertas Vivat: long live liberty. It seems an odd
choice of phrase for a pamphlet confirming the comune’s donation of candles
to a convent. But, as Patrizia Turrini notes, the Republic of Siena was suffering
one of its periodic crises vis-a-vis the city to the north, to be resolved, albeit
only temporarily, with a victory over papal and Florentine troops in July. “This
is thus a strong call to civic unity in the hopes of preserving a common goal
of liberty”, writes Turrini. And it is “an equally strong call to Saint Catherine
to protect her native city, represented by its Palazzo Pubblico”, a protection
that in most circumstances would be entrusted to Mary, Siena’s patron saint.2
Could there be any more forceful way of depicting Caterina Benincasa’s rela-
tionship with Siena?

1 In Ceppari, M.A. et al., Caterina da Siena e la sua famiglia: la devozione e la santità, Siena,
2012. The image was used for the cover of the volume and can also be found on p. 72. Patrizia
Turrini wrote the entry for the document on pp. 69–71.
2 Ceppari et al., Caterina da Siena, p. 71.

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70 Tylus

This is also a Catherine who, in real life, was not always as comfort-
able a fit in Siena as intimated here, as she glides in on her cloud above the
Campo to ensure a freedom that would definitively end less than three de-
cades later, when Florence entered Porta Camollia in triumph. Born a year
before the Black Death hastened Siena’s decline as a major banking power
and ended one of the most stable governments it had ever known, Catherine
never experienced Siena’s golden age. So how did this newly-struggling
city shape who Catherine was, and what she accomplished, in her brief
33 years, and perhaps more importantly, what she failed to accomplish? In turn,
how was Siena changed by the presence of this young, strong-minded woman?
In a period when holy men and women were canonized relatively quickly—
Thomas Aquinas, Francis, Clare of Assisi, and even Bernardino of Siena, born
the year of Catherine’s death—Catherine had to wait 80 years, and then only
when a Sienese, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, became Pope Pius II. Did she only
in retrospect become Catherine of Siena? A Catherine whose public activities
made her suspect in the eyes of the state and whose mystical fervor led some
to charge her with heresy, whose itinerant life took her out of Siena for months
at a time, and who died in Rome, where she is buried in Santa Maria sopra
Minerva. In short, what was her claim on the city, she who said so many times
in her writings, “siamo viandanti e pellegrini”: we are wanderers and pilgrims,
and hence, without a true earthly home?3 And what, in turn, were her city’s,
and citizens’, claims on her?
As Paolo Nardi wrote in a breathtaking essay—entitled like this one, al-
though in Italian, “Santa Caterina e Siena”—there is an enormous bibliography
on the subject of Catherine, her “famiglia” and her city during her “brief and
turbulent existence”4 My own essay modestly offers itself as supplemental to
Nardi’s magisterial work, which moves deftly among archival sources and re-
cent scholarship to chart Catherine’s many intricate relationships with Sienese
figures, as well as Siena’s involvement in her canonization. These brief remarks
will use Catherine’s letters and the physical city itself as a point of departure,

3 There are over 40 examples of her use of the word pellegrino and its variant forms. See, for
just one example, her letter to the Sienese Monna Stricca: “noi siamo pellegrini e viandanti in
questa vita, e senza alcuna stanza di tempo corriamo verso il termine della morte”: Catherine
of Siena, Le lettere, ed. D.U. Meattini, Milan, 1987, p. 582. English versions of the letter, with oc-
casional revisions, are from Catherine of Siena, The Letters of Catherine of Siena, ed. S. Noffke,
4 vols., Tempe, AZ, 2000–08.
4 Nardi, P., “Santa Caterina e Siena”, in A.B. Romagnoli (ed.), Virgo Digno Coelo: Santa Caterina
e la sua eredità, Rome, 2015, p. 215. Also see the series of excellent articles by Scott, K., espe-
cially “Urban Spaces, Women’s Networks, and the Lay Apostolate in the Siena of Catherine
Benincasa”, in E.A. Matter and J. Coakley (eds.), Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern
Italy, Philadelphia, 1994, pp. 101–19; Tylus, J., Siena, City of Secrets, Chicago, 2015, pp. 172–82;
and Vauchez, A., Caterina da Siena: Una mistica trasgressiva, trans. L. Falaschi, Rome, 2016 for
other recent accounts of Catherine’s life and involvement in Siena.
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charting the ever-widening gyres of Catherine’s career as she moved from her
father’s workshop in Via dei Tintori, to the city’s spiritual center in the Spedale,
to the towns in Siena’s fertile countryside, and ultimately out of Sienese ter-
ritory forever. The saint’s ultimate mission, that is, lay far beyond Siena’s
walls. Yet, as she left for Provence to persuade a French pope to go to Rome—
and then for Rome to help another pope defend his troubled papacy—she
was embodying one of the most salient aspects of Siena’s history: its iden-
tity, as Ernesto Sestan put it, as a “daughter of the streets”.5 And, as her let-
ters and activities attest, Siena and the Sienese were never far from her mind,
nor she theirs.
Perhaps the most prominent feature of Catherine’s neighborhood lay at the
bottom of the road where her father, a dyer, had his shop and family home:
the Fontebranda, one of the very few sources of water for a city positioned
awkwardly on three hills and far from major rivers. It was the center of ar-
tisanal activities and a robust commercial life, teeming with tanners, butch-
ers, and dyers along with washerwomen and servants. As recent research by
Thomas Luongo and Paolo Nardi confirms, far from being a lower-class family
living on poverty’s edge, the Benincasa had considerable social and economic
standing.6 Jacopo Benincasa, Catherine’s father, was connected not simply to
the artisans’ guild but to political elites, and several of his sons would become
involved in the government of the Dodici in the 1360s. The family was thus an
active player in Siena’s political life, at least until 1371 when the Riformatori
forced the Benincasa brothers out of Siena, leaving Catherine, her mother, and
sisters behind.7
But the church of San Domenico looming above this neighborhood was
more alluring to Catherine than the local fountain. Catherine’s family’s parish
church was Sant’Antonio Abate, regrettably destroyed in the 1930s when the
Casa di Santa Caterina was expanded in honor of Catherine’s elevation to pa-
tron saint of Italy. The modest church to a modest saint—Sant’Antonio cared
for the very animals who were slaughtered at Fontebranda—was overshad-
owed by San Domenico, built on land dedicated by the wealthy Malavolti fam-
ily after Saint Dominic visited Siena in 1216. The friars would go out through
the gates Catherine used to travel to her family holdings in the countryside;
her cousin and first confessor, Tommaso della Fonte, was a Dominican who
evidently encouraged Catherine to commit her life to Christ. Catherine would
have preferred the life of a preacher, but had to satisfy herself with becoming

5 Sestan, E., “Siena avanti Montaperti”, Bulletino Senese di Storia e Patria 68 (1961), p. 151.
6 Luongo, F.T., The Saintly Politics of Catherine of Siena, Ithaca, NY, 2006.; Nardi, P., “Sant’Antonio
Abate in Siena: la parrocchia di Santa Caterina, con note sulla famiglia Benincasa”, Quaderni
Cateriniani 127–28 (2009), pp. 11–20.
7 For details see Luongo, Saintly Politics, pp. 206–10.
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a mantellata, or a Dominican tertiary, defying her parents’ expectations that

she marry.8
While San Domenico today is a shell of its former self, having been gut-
ted to serve, among other things, as an arsenal for the Spanish, there is still a
semblance of the chapel of the volte in the back, where the mantellate would
gather for mass behind a grate long gone, and which preserves the earliest
known portrait of Catherine, painted by her follower Andrea Vanni. Her hand
lightly touches the lips of a young well-dressed woman kneeling before her in
prayer. The mantellate were lay women from various social classes, including
Siena’s aristocracy, and Catherine’s membership within the group as of 1368
is attested by surviving documents. From this group of widows and married
women—Catherine was the lone virgin—came her earliest scribes, whose let-
ters written on behalf of the future saint date from the early 1370s. It is quite
possible that they taught her to read and perhaps, eventually, write;9 Siena
had one of the highest literacy rates in Europe, and many of these Dominican
women were obviously well educated, including “Cecca”, widow of the noble
Clemente Gori, and the wealthy Alessa dei Saracini. They sign their names
and occasionally add their own endings, as in this tender phrase from a let-
ter to two Dominican friars preaching in Pisa for the Lenten season in 1374:
“Careless Alessa would like to tuck herself into this letter to be able to come
to you”.10 Another early letter suggests that by May of that year, Catherine was
already in demand by other holy women in her city. She politely declines the
request of the abbess of the Convent of Santa Marta that she pay a visit to her
nuns, instructing her instead to temper their desire for her presence “with the
sweet yoke of God’s son”.11 And it was not only holy women who wanted her.
In the same letter where Alessa desires to be with the friars in Pisa, Catherine

8 For details on the early life, see Raymond of Capua, Legenda, trans. C. Kearne, The Life of
Saint Catherine of Siena, Wilminton, 1980; and Lehmijoki-Gardner, M. (ed.), The Miracles
of Catherine of Iacopo da Siena, trans. D. Bornstein, New York, 2005. Gardner, E., Saint
Catherine of Siena: A Study in the Religion, Literature, and History of the Fourteenth Century
in Italy, London, 1907, is still a valuable resource.
9 See Tylus, J., Reclaiming Catherine of Siena, Chicago, 2009, for an argument regarding the
strong likelihood of Catherine’s literacy.
10 Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 1, p. 41; “Alessa negligente si vorrebbe volentieri invollere in ques-
ta lettera per potere venire a voi”; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 1222.
11 “… col giogo soave del Figliuolo di Dio”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 1, p. 51; Meattini (ed.),
Lettere, p. 1062. There was another formidable group of holy women in Siena who may
also have been foundational for Catherine’s religious formation: some 200–300 female
hermits, as Allison Clark Thurber notes in her essay “Female Urban Reclusion in Siena
at the Time of Catherine of Siena”, in C. Muessig, G. Ferzoco, and B.M. Kienzle (eds.),
A Companion to Catherine of Siena, Leiden, 2012, pp. 47–72.

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notes that Pope Gregory XI has sent to Siena his “representative”—“il suo
vicario”—and confessor to the “countess who died in Rome … to say that
I should offer special prayer for him and for holy Church”.12 The countess is
Birgitta of Sweden, and this is the first indication that there was interest in
Catherine taking on Birgitta’s legacy, and perhaps carrying out her long-lost
dream of having the papacy return to Rome.
Alongside other mantellate, Catherine would walk through Siena’s streets,
attend Mass at San Domenico, and spend considerable time in the building
that dominated the hill to Camporeggio’s south: the Ospedale di Santa Maria
della Scala, founded in the 11th century. Siena’s position on the Via Francigena
made it a popular waystation for pilgrims, and by the Trecento there were doz-
ens of ospizi both within and without the city’s walls. The life of service that
so attracted Catherine was exemplified in the Spedale (as it was and is referred
to in the Sienese dialect), which offered not only lodging for pilgrims but sus-
tained care for the poor, orphans, and the sick from oblates and volunteers
within its increasingly capacious walls. It is here too where the Compagnia
della Vergine Maria, one of the oldest confraternities in Italy, had its home.
Members first gathered in the caves where Sant’Ansano supposedly concealed
himself from the Romans, and from which he was dragged to his death in
the 4th century. Built above those very caves, the Spedale housed the vaults
where the Compagnia carried out its rituals of prayer, chants, and flagellation.
Although women could not be official members, Catherine became something
of a spiritual leader for this group that included some of Siena’s most distin-
guished citizens: the noble Neri di Landoccio Pagliaresi, one of her first male
secretaries; members of the powerful Malavolti and Piccolomini families; and
Stefano di Corrado Maconi, related to Pope Alexander III and a forceful advo-
cate for Catherine’s canonization after her death.13 Catherine’s two surviving
letters to the Compagnia are among her most poetic. Both refer to the chari-
table role that the laity played in the Spedale. Surrounded by the sick and the
dying, especially in times of plague, it was not difficult to recall that life was
short: “All you have, then, is this point of time that is present to you”; don’t
waste it in pursuit of honors or “grandezza”.14 Most importantly, one should
observe God’s commandment: “so we [should] love our neighbors as we love

12 “ció fue il padre spirituale di quella Contessa che morí a Roma”: Noffke (ed.), Letters,
vol. 1, p. 40; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 1220.
13 For more information on members of Catherine’s famiglia and on the Compagnia gen-
erally, see Luongo, Saintly Politics, chapter 4: “Pious Networks and Political Identities”,
pp. 123–56.
14 “Hai adunque solo questo punto del tempo che t’é presente”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 2,
p. 312; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 1523.

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ourselves … friends and enemies” alike, the very friends and enemies who filled
the halls of the Spedale above.
We learn about these Sienese places not so much from Catherine’s letters,
but from the hagiographies of Tommaso Caffarini and Raymond of Capua, as
well as the vivid Miracoli di Caterina di Iacopo da Siena di Anonimo Fiorentino;
the latter written in or around 1375, and which details Catherine’s early years.
We see her at the gate of San Ansano when she decides to flee as a child, in San
Domenico, in the Casa di Misericordia, in the Spedale—where her brothers re-
ceived asylum during political revolts—and in her own home, where she gives
wine to paupers. Catherine’s work at the Spedale and her growing reputation
for saintliness—evident, as we have already seen, in the invitation from the
abbess at Santa Marta and the visit to Siena of Birgitta’s confessor—galvanized
the circle of both men and women, lay and religious, the famiglia for which
Catherine was the mamma. And a circle that became, as F. Thomas Luongo has
observed, “simultaneously a spiritual association and a political movement”.15
This “double allegiance” is discernible in some of Catherine’s first document-
ed trips outside of Siena, even as they were also connected directly to the
Dominicans. She travels to the convent of Montepulciano and the church of
Sant’Agnese, where the body of Saint Agnes herself favorably responded to
Catherine’s prayers by nudging her with her foot. She is summoned to Florence
for questioning in the chapter room of Santa Maria Novella regarding possibly
unorthodox activities and assigned a new confessor: the Neapolitan Raymond
of Capua, future Provincial General of the Dominicans, and future hagiogra-
pher of Catherine. Her return to Siena in the summer of 1374 coincided with
the arrival of a new plague. The author of the Miracoli recounts her miraculous
healing of the rector of the Casa della Misericordia and the death of Catherine’s
brother and seven of his children, along with Catherine’s own illness. The year
1375 found her in Pisa, where an ambassador of the Queen of Cyprus will speak
to her about the Crusade, where she inserts herself in the midst of troubled
negotiations between the Church and the Italian republics, including Florence
and Siena, and where she receives the stigmata while praying before a crucifix.
In 1376, after Florence is placed under interdict by the pope, Catherine travels
again to Florence and then on to Avignon with a number of her Sienese follow-
ers, to meet with Gregory XI. There she presses him to return to Rome, as well
as to forgive Italy’s stubborn republics, and to launch a new crusade. She would
be successful with the first cause, considerably less so with the other two.

15 Luongo, Saintly Politics, p. 135.

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These trips out of Siena are spiritual journeys with manifestly political pur-
poses, with important implications for Siena and an international community
alike. A new crusade might ease factionalism within Europe, while the return
of the pope to Rome was near and dear to the hearts of Sienese bankers, who
stood to gain from the pope’s proximity, and Siena itself from new hordes of
pilgrims. But as she moved out beyond the city, the Sienese did not always
react positively to what would appear to many as merely the meddling of a
muliercula (a little woman16), one—as she claims to the “Difensori” of Siena,
the city’s primary governing body—who always places “God’s will ahead of any
human will”. For, she goes on, “I am certain … you would not want me to violate
God’s will in order to do that of human beings”.17 On the one hand, Sienese am-
bassadors refer to her as “Caterina santa da Siena” when reporting in June 1375,
on the mission entrusted by Catherine to Raymond, to convince mercenary
John Hawkwood to stop laying waste to the Tuscan countryside and dedicate
his life to the crusade she hoped was imminent (he did not; it was not).18 But
during her visit to Pisa later that year, the Sienese began to become concerned
about her unofficial work protesting against the antipapal league, of which
Siena had become a part. As she writes to Tommaso della Fonte: “To think the
world is opposing us!” She nonetheless refuses to come back to Siena despite
Tommaso’s request.19 She refuses again in a second letter, noting her desire to
join the early Christian martyr St Lucy on the battlefield: “She was so in love …
that she ran with courageous enthusiasm to make a sacrifice of her body”.20
But one of the most trying times for the relationship between city and fu-
ture saint occurred not when Catherine went to Pisa or Florence or Avignon,
but during several months in the Val d’Orcia in Sienese territory, spent with
the powerful Salimbeni family in their holdings at the “Rocca” near Bagno
Vignoni. Suspected of siding with—and being manipulated by—a family long
involved in nefarious attempts to tilt political dynamics in their favor, Caterina

16 It is useful to keep in mind that Giovanni Colombini, a Sienese and founder of the Gesuati
order in the 1350s, had been exiled for his “comunismo cristiano”, and Catherine was evi-
dently a frequent visitor of the Benedictine convent of Santa Bonda, where Colombini
had lived and died after his exile: see comments in Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 1000.
17 “ponendo sempre la volontà di Dio innanzi a quella degli uomini”: Noffke (ed.), Letters,
vol. 2, p. 376; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 386. The second phrase translated in Noffke is not
in the Italian edition.
18 See Nardi, “Santa Caterina e Siena”, and Letter 140 to John Hawkwood.
19 “Pensando che ‘l mondo è contrario a noi”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 1, p. 195; Meattini (ed.),
Lettere, p. 833.
20 “siccome fece quella dolce innamorata di Lucia … che corse con animo virile a fare sacri-
fizio del corpo suo”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 1, p. 197; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 835.

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writes the “Difensori of Siena”, already quoted above, that she’s “sorry about
the energy and effort my fellow citizens are spending in worrying and wagging
their tongues over me”.21 To Salvi di Pietro, a Sienese goldsmith and member
of the Compagnia della Vergine in Santa Maria della Scala, she notes that “the
citizens of Siena are acting shamefully in believing or imagining that we are
about to be contriving plots in the lands of the Salimbeni or anywhere else in
the world”.22 The comune insisted that Catherine return to Siena and, as with
Tommaso, she refused, claiming that she must stay on to help the monastery
of Sant’Agnese and reconcile two warring branches of the Salimbeni clan. She
is more forthright in the second letter, arguing that she is in the Val d’Orcia for
the very good of Siena itself: “The other [members of the famiglia] and I have
sought and continually are seeking your spiritual and material welfare … I love
you more than you love yourselves. And I love peace and your security as much
as you do”.23
It is hard to know what she meant by the health or “salute” of “i miei cit-
tadini” (my citizens) or that of her city, a city she continually insists is first
and foremost “la città dell’anima nostra”, the city of our soul.24 It is precisely
this tension between the corporeal and spiritual cities that at least one of her
projects in the Val d’Orcia may have been addressing. Earlier that year, with
the comune’s overwhelming approval, she had founded a Dominican convent,
Santa Maria degli Angeli (the same name Saint Francis had given to his church
at Porziuncola), having persuaded one Nanni di Ser Vanni Savini to donate his
abandoned fortress called Belcaro just a half mile west of Siena’s walls.25 On
Easter Monday of 1377, she left the neighborhood of Fontebranda and went
out towards the Tressa in procession with her famiglia and Sienese dignitaries
to officially inaugurate the new convent. The language of her petition to the
comune that Catherine herself had prepared is of interest: “only women will

21 “Increscemi nell’affanno e della fatica che i miei cittadini hanno nel pensare e menare la
lingua verso di me”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 2, p. 377; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 387.
22 “Gran vergogna si fanno i cittadini di Siena, di credere o immaginare che noi stiamo per
fare i trattati nelle terre de’ Salimbeni, o in veruno altro luogo del mondo”: Noffke (ed.),
Letters, vol. 2, p. 391; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 681.
23 “Cercato ho io e gli altri, e cerco continuamente, la salute vostra dell’anima e del corpo …
Io v’amo più che non v’amate voi; e amo lo stato pacifico e la conversazione vostra, come
voi”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 2, p. 416; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 380.
24 Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 2, p. 375; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 385.
25 The comune voted 333 to 65 to release the lands for “non-military use” following
Catherine’s preparation of a petition and personal meetings with the Defensori, an indi-
cation not only of her strategizing and perseveranzia (one of the most frequent words in
her letters), but of her already considerable sway in the city. See Nardi, “Santa Caterina e
Siena”, pp. 230–31.

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Saint Catherine and Siena 77

be housed in the convent, who will always pray for the city of Siena and its
inhabitants, and thus you will always be a part of their good works”.26 But she
needed nuns. Thus, while in the Val d’Orcia she worked on getting some of the
Salimbeni women to join. The widow Bandeçça Salimbeni had already com-
mitted to the project, while Elisabetta (Isa) Salimbeni, also a widow, was being
prevented by her brother; hence Catherine writes to Isa, “It will be said to you,
‘Cursed be you who remained silent!’” and insists that she follow in the foot-
steps of her sister and act on her own.27 In turn, she tells the brother, head of
the family since his father’s death, that he has to behave like a “strong knight”,
and learn how to guard the city of his soul, keeping out disorderly emotions
and, most importantly, blessing Isa’s choice.28
Catherine’s last trip, from which she never returned, was to Rome in the
fall of 1378. There she tried to help Urban VI in his battle with the anti-pope
Clemente VII, elected by French cardinals who were intent on returning the
papacy to Avignon. Her letters are singularly devoted to enlisting support for
Urban, as she insists that the Difensori commit soldiers from the comune for
the pope, which they do. She also asks that they express sufficient gratitude
for Urban’s benevolence toward the city as well as for his decision, no doubt
influenced by Catherine, that Siena retain their port at Talamone—Siena’s
only access to the Mediterranean—rather than giving it to Pisa.29 Her letters
to other Sienese in high places, such as Senator Andreasso Cavalcabuoi, has
her returning to the metaphor of the city as a soul, but here she makes the rela-
tionship between that city and the physical one more explicit. Poor leaders fail
to “keep careful watch” over their souls, and as a result, “they will never keep
an eye on the material city over which they have been made lord. So they don’t
protect the universal and common good of the whole city but look out only for
themselves or special interests which serve for their own selfish pleasure”.30

26 “Nel monastero sarebbero state accolte solo le donne, le quali avrebbero sempre prega-
to per la città di Siena e per i suoi abitanti e così tutti i suoi cittadini sarebbero stati a
parte delle loro opere buone”: from the Archivio di Stato’s papers, cited by Meattini (ed.),
Lettere, p. 1028.
27 “Maladetta sia tu che tacesti!”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 2, p. 369; Meattini (ed.), Lettere,
p. 558.
28 “Noi, come cavalieri virili, doviamo resistere, e guardare questa città, e serrare le porte de’
disordinati sentimenti …”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 2, p. 340; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 519.
29 This is Letter 367, in which Catherine also insists that the Sienese stop treating the pope
as a child.
30 “E non avendo l’occhio a sè, non l’avrà mai sopra la città attuale, della quale fosse fatto
signore. E perchè non guarda al bene universale e comune di tutta la città, ma solo a sè
medesimo, o al bene particolare, il quale è per proprio suo piacere …”, Noffke (ed.), Letters,
vol. 4, p. 83; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 447.

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Good Christians make good citizens: her follower Andrea Vanni, who painted
the portrait now in San Domenico, and who became Captain of the Sienese
people in the fall of 1379, is urged to work toward “maintaining justice in
our city, ruling and governing it with good order” and to have special care for
the poor.31
Despite her ceaseless efforts on behalf of the beleaguered papacy and her
own failing health, Catherine remained concerned for the “poor” members
of the famiglia she had left behind. She asks Stefano di Corrado, to whom
she directs no fewer than 12 letters from Rome, to keep an eye on the “other
children as well, and bless them in our name”,32 and she sounds genuinely re-
lieved when she receives a letter from him telling her his brother has been
cured. She asks another “figlio”, Sano di Maco, to report back to her about her
brand-new convent. She even has time to write to her niece Suora Eugenia
about how to behave if guests should ask for her at the grille in her convent
of Sant’Agnese di Montepulciano: she should keep her head down and “be as
wary as a hedgehog!”33
Catherine’s final letter is from mid-February 1380, to her confessor Raymond
of Capua, four months before her death. She asks him to watch over her be-
loved family, as well as her writings: “take care of the book and any other writ-
ing of mine you may find … do with them whatever you see would be most
to God’s honor”.34 The “book” was her spiritual treatise, Libro della divina
Provvidenza, written while she was in the Val d’Orcia in those difficult months
of 1377. This was evidently given at one point to one of the Salimbeni sisters
to read; in a letter written from Florence to the patient Stefano di Corrado in
1378, Catherine claims that Bandeçça has “il libro mio”, and she needs it back:
“if you go there, tell her to send it at once; otherwise tell anyone who is going
there to give her the message. And don’t forget!”35 The book was returned,

31 “Io, con desiderio di vederla in voi e mantenerla nella città nostra, reggerla e governarla
con ordine, dissi che io desideravo di vedervi giusto e vero governatore”: Noffke (ed.),
Letters, vol. 4, p. 274; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 686.
32 “dite a cotesti altri figliuoli e benediteli per nostra parte”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 4, p. 75;
Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 889.
33 “quando ospiti passano—stammi salvatica come uno riccio! Allora chino il capo”: Noffke
(ed.), Letters, vol. 4, p. 193; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 819.
34 “vi prego che il libro e ogni scrittura la quale trovaste di me … ve le rechiate per le mani;
e fatene quello che vedete che sia più onore di Dio”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 4, p. 369;
Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 1194.
35 “Mandai a chiedere alla Contessa il libro mio; e hollo aspettato parecchi dì; e non viene.
E però se tu vai là, di’ che ‘l mandi subito: e tu ordina che chi vi va, il dica, e non manchi”:
Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 3, p. 133; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 921.

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and lovingly preserved, copied,36 and carried with members of the famiglia
as they dispersed after her death. Some went to Venice and some to Germany,
while others remained in Rome. The processo castellano, held in Venice in
1414, was the most serious attempt to examine possible claims for Catherine’s
canonization, but despite the trove of fascinating testimonies that arose from
the trial, nothing came of it.37 In the meantime, in Siena, in the decades pre-
ceding Pius II’s election and canonization of Catherine in 1461—both events
are commemorated in Pinturrichio’s cycle in the Libreria Piccolomini in the
Duomo—Catherine found special attention among a new generation of art-
ists. Lorenzo Vecchietta, long associated with the Spedale, was asked around
1450 to design a large wooden cabinet to hold the Spedale’s relics, exhibited
once a year on 25 March. On one side he depicts Siena’s founders, such as
Sant’Ansano, along with the recently-canonized Bernardino da Siena. There is
one woman: Catherine, still a beata, in prayer before the crucifix from which
she received the stigmata while in Pisa and, it would seem, in silent dialogue
with Bernardino, who gazes down at her from above. The cabinet has been re-
cently returned to the Spedale, placed in the sanctuary which is covered with
Vecchietta’s fading frescoes illustrating the Apostle’s Creed and Mary in the
role of the Madonna della Misericordia, protecting the Sienese people.

The image of Catherine floating above the Palazzo Pubblico might remind
one not only of Mary, but of another female figure depicted inside the Palazzo
Pubblico itself: Securitas from Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Effetti del Buon Governo.
She is above not the Campo but Siena’s southernmost gate, the Porta Romana,
and hence above the road that led Catherine out to Montepulciano; to the
Salimbeni’s holdings in the Val d’Orcia; to the farms in Cuna and San Quirico
d’Orcia that fed thousands in the city; to Rome. As we know from the banner
that unfurls below her, Securitas keeps the traveler safe, whether an aristocrat
who goes out for a day of recreation with his falcons, or the struggling peasant
laboring just outside Siena’s massive walls. Yet, she can only do her work if the
citizens do theirs: “Every man will walk freely (‘cammina libero’), each one can

36 The Biblioteca Comunale in Siena is, not surprisingly, a treasure trove for Catherine’s writ-
ings, including five of the extant seven original letters. The so-called Pagliaresi collections
of the letters can be found in ms I.VI.14 and ms I.VI.12, while the Caffarini collections are
mss T.II.2, T.II.3, and T.11.10. For more details, see Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 1, pp. 317–46;
and Theseider, E.D., “Il problema critico delle lettere di Santa Caterina da Siena”, Giornale
storico della letteratura italiana 69 (1933), pp. 117–278.
37 See the documents related to the trial in Laurent, M. (ed.), “Il Processo Castellano”, in
Marie-Hyacinthe Laurent (ed.), Fontes vitae S. Catharinae Senensis historici, vol. 9, Milan,
1942.

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make his own way as long as this Comune will preserve this Lady [Securitas] as
its ruler”.38
As John Hamilton has written, the idea of securitas embodies the central
idea of cura (care), and hence caring for all of those in and outside of the city,
in Siena’s vast, fertile holdings.39 Any resemblance to Securitas on the 1526
cover is probably unintended. But it is suggestive in helping us characterize
Catherine’s relationship to her city as one of protection. Securitas was for all
who went in and out of Siena’s walls, a going in and out imitated by the pilgrims
who came to the Spedale, by members of Catherine’s famiglia, by the itinerant
Dominicans, and by Catherine herself. In the course of these constant itinerar-
ies she kept ferocious watch over others. The 1526 image of Catherine at a mo-
ment when the city’s health was indeed in danger, captures that care; and it is
not, as we have seen, a depiction at odds with a Catherine who tells Stefano di
Corrado to alert the members of the Signori to “commit themselves … for God’s
honor and for the spiritual and temporal good of the city”.40 Or as Catherine
wrote from the Val d’Orcia, when tensions with the city were at their height,
“Whether the devils want it or not …”, devils who may well be her own citizens,
“… I will do my best to use my life for God’s honor and the salvation of souls
throughout the whole world, and especially for my city”.41
Such commitment was exemplified by her physical work and watching
over the ill in the Spedale, in addition to her many missions throughout Italy
and France. It is best appreciated today in the letters that have been the focus
of these remarks, where she again and again will claim that she cares more
for her correspondents than they do for themselves. From humble wives and
mothers—such as one Monna Panasilea whom she tells to be a “mother of
[her children’s] souls as well as their bodies”42—to the Difensori of Siena and
Andrea Vanni, she is solicitous for those in places and situations where she can-
not physically be. She did not hesitate to address Messer Pietro de’Marchese
del Monte, a senator with whom she was apparently close, with the stern

38 For a brilliant analysis of the Lorenzetti frescoes, see Starn, R., Ambrogio Lorenzetti: The
Palazzo Pubblico, New York, 1994.
39 Hamilton, J., Security: Politics, Humanity, and the Philology of Care, Princeton, 2013.
Lorenzetti’s frescoes play a prominent role in his first chapter.
40 “Molto gli grava, per mia parte, che gli piaccia affidarsi in questo fatto per onore di Dio
e utilità della città spiritualmente e temporalmente”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 4, p. 320;
Meattini (ed.), Lettere, pp. 922–23.
41 “io mi impegnerò di esercitare la vita mia nell’onore di Dio e la salute dell’anime per tutto
quanto il mondo, e singolarmente per la mia città”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 2, p. 196;
Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 681.
42 “madre dell’anima e del corpo”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 2, p. 626; Meattini (ed.), Lettere,
p. 584.

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recommendation that he make himself a “true rector of justice”,43 nor to write

in strident terms to one Frate Giusto of Monteoliveto about graciously wel-
coming the new priore: “don’t resist the Holy Spirit!”44 She can be overwhelm-
ingly intimate, surprisingly harsh. Hers is the constant, even ruthless care of
an occasionally overwrought but always well-meaning mother. If you don’t
pledge allegiance to Urban VI, she tells the Difensori, “you will not be fulfilling
my desire”.45 While she speaks frequently of love—she signs off most of her
letters with “Gesù dolce, Gesù amore”—hers is a tough love, whether offered to
her own mother, whom she tells to stop worrying about her, the Salimbeni fam-
ily, or prisoners languishing in the dungeon in the lowest levels of the Palazzo
Pubblico. Was there any walk of life she did not try to touch?46
Catherine could be politically efficacious, although many of her attempts
failed, and even her convent survived for only two decades. But her longer-
lasting legacy was to turn Siena into a spiritual center in its own right, a place
for pilgrims to visit rather than to pass through, thanks to the fact that she
had been such an exemplary pilgrim in her own right. Her fame eventually
outstripped that of Bernardino da Siena and, at any rate, unlike this Franciscan
from Massa Marittima, she was from Siena, a town that cares very much about
whether you are born within its walls. Following her canonization, a chapel in
San Domenico was built to preserve her head, brought from Rome by Raymond
of Capua in 1385. Following her declaration as patron saint of Italy in 1939,
her home became a sanctuary; John Paul II visited San Domenico as a pilgrim
in 1980, shortly after becoming Pope, and a decade after Catherine was made
Doctor of the Church. As patron saint of the European Union she now can be
said to belong to Europe: the citizen of the world she perhaps aspired to be.

43 “vero rettore della giustizia”: Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 436. In another letter (170) she
asks him to look into the case of a young man who has been threatening the nuns in
the Benedictine monastery of Santo Michele Angelo da Vico, about a mile from Siena.
As Noffke suggests, it is notable that she specifically requests that the young man not be
executed for the crime, as would normally be the case: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 2, p. 37.
44 “Non dovete, e io so che non volete, far resistenzia allo Spirito Santo”: Noffke (ed.), Letters,
vol. 2, p. 357; Meattini (ed.), Lettere, p. 1314.
45 “altrimenti non è il desiderio mio, che desidero che siate servi fedeli alla santa Chiesa,
obbedienti a papa Urbano VI”: Noffke (ed.), Letters, vol. 4, p. 322; Meattini (ed.), Lettere,
p. 394.
46 Her Sienese dialect provides another kind of legacy, as avowed by two strong partisans
of that dialect, Scipione Bargagli, writing in the 17th century, and Girolamo Gigli in the
18th century; the latter compiled a Vocabolario cateriniano attesting to Catherine’s im-
portance in matters of language. See the recent edition of Girolamo Gigli, Vocabolario
cateriniano, ed. G. Mattarucco, Florence, 2008, and for background on Gigli, see Tylus,
Reclaiming Catherine, chapter 1.

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82 Tylus

At the same time, she never ceased referring to Siena as “la mia città”. A “daugh-
ter of the streets” as well as of decades of political and economic instability,
she shrewdly, brilliantly, recognized the necessity of looking outward in order
to be calm and stable within, of balancing the local and national, even univer-
sal forces that had always shaped and impinged on what was finally a small,
fractured city in need of constant care: the Pope’s, the Difensori’s; hers, God’s.

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 part 2
Art and Religion

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 chapter 5

“Beata quella città della sua patria!”: Siena’s

Religious Culture and Carthusian Monasticism

Demetrio S. Yocum

Abstract

Fourteenth-century Tuscany was among the most receptive regions for the expansion
of the Carthusian order. Siena represented a unique case as it was the only city with
three charterhouses within its territory, the only instance in the entire history of the
order: Maggiano, Belriguardo, and Pontignano. This chapter sheds light on the impact
that the Carthusians had on Siena’s literary and religious culture. In particular, it recon-
siders a lesser known religious figure Pietro Petroni (1311–1361), a Sienese Carthusian
monk from Maggiano. Petroni’s unorthodox visionary and prophetic activity leads to
new insights on late-medieval Carthusian engagement in the world, on the one hand,
and, on the other, to relevant aspects in the life and work of some of the most promi-
nent religious and cultural figures of the time, including Boccaccio, Petrarch, Giovanni
Colombini, and Catherine of Siena.

During the 14th century the Carthusian order reached the height of its power
and prestige and became one of the most influential religious orders in
Western Christendom.1 Compared to the previous two centuries, characterized

1 Fruit of the widespread spirit of the Church and monastic reform that swept Europe in the 11th
and 12th centuries, the first group of Carthusians, led by Bruno of Cologne (1080–1101), estab-
lished their hermitage, similar to the desert fathers’ laura, in the valley of Chartreuse. There
they led a semi-eremitical lifestyle dedicated mainly to prayer and manual work. The scholar-
ship on the Carthusians’ early history is vast. For an introduction to some of the relevant is-
sues regarding the history of the order, see Leclercq, J., et al., A History of Christian Spirituality,
London, 1968, pp. 150–61. See also Degand, A., “Chartreux,”, in F. Cabrol and H. Leclercq (eds),
Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, vol. 3.1, Paris, 1907, pp. 1045–71; Vacant, A.
et al., (eds.), Dictionnaire de Teologie Catholique, vol. 2 Paris, 1939, pp. 2294–97; Viller, M.,
Cavallera F., and de Guibert, J. (eds.), Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique: doc-
trine et histoire, Paris, 1932–1995, vol. 2, pp. 705–76; and Laporte, M. “Grande Chartreuse”, in
A. Baudrillart et al. (eds.) Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, Paris, 1912,
pp. 1088–1107. See Bligny, B., Saint Bruno, le premier chartreux, Rennes, 1984; and his arti-
cles: id., “Les Chartreux dans la société occidentale du XIIe siècle”, Cahiers d’Histoire 20.2

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86 Yocum

by relative growth, mainly in France, and experimentation with its propositum

vitae—primarily through a more active involvement with church governance—
the 14th century saw an exponential rise of the order throughout Europe.2 This
thriving period coincided also with a crucial moment in the evolution of the
order, as the Carthusians began to step further away from its more eremitical
past, as envisioned in the founder’s ideal of solitude, characterized by dwell-
ing in remote and barely accessible “deserts”, and a move outward and closer
to the urbanized world.3 This was a time characterized by the development of

(1975), pp. 137–66; id., “L’érémitisme et les chartreux” in C. Violante and C.D. Fonseca (eds.),
L’eremitismo in Occidente nei secoli XI–XII Atti della II Settimana Internazionale di Studio
(Passo della Mendola, 30 agosto–6 settembre 1962), Milan, 1965, pp. 248–70. See also
Thompson, M.E., The Carthusian Order in England, London, 1930; Giuliani, A., La formazi-
one dell’identità certosina (1084–1155), Salzsburg, 2002; Laporte, M. (ed.), Lettres des pre-
miers chartreux, vol. 1, Paris, 1988; Laporte, M., Aux Sources de la Vie Cartusienne, 8 vols.,
Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse, 1960; Louf, A., “Saint Bruno”, Cistercian Studies Quarterly 48.2–3
(2013), pp. 213–24, 353–67. On the definition of the Carthusian order as “ordo eremitico”, see
Laporte, M. (ed.), Coutumes de Chartreuse, Paris, 1984, pp. 63–69; and Andenna, G., “I cer-
tosini e il papato da Onorio III a Bonifacio VIII”, in P. De Leo (ed.), L’Ordine certosino e il
papato dalla fondazione allo scisma d’Occidente, Soveria Mannelli, CT, 2003, pp. 95–147. On
early Carthusian life, see especially the testimonies in Guibert de Nogent, Autobiographie, ed.
E. Labande, Paris, 1981, pp. 66–70; Petrus Cluniacensis, De miraculis libri duo, ed. D. Bouthillier
(Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis 83), Turnhout, 1988, pp. 149–52; Guillaume
de Saint-Thierry, The Golden Epistle: A Letter to the Brethren at Mont Dieu, trans. T. Berkeley,
Kalamazoo, 1980. See also the two repertories: Devaux, A. and Van Dijck, G., Nouvelle
Bibliographie Cartusienne (hereafter NBC), 3 vols., Grande Chartreuse, 2005; Gruys, A.,
Cartusiana: un instrument heuristique, a heuristic instrument, ein heuristischer Apparat, 3 vols.,
Paris, 1976–78; and the volumes in Leoncini, G., Le certose della Provincia Tusciae (Analecta
Cartusiana (hereafter AC), 60), 2 vols, Salzburg, 1991.
2 On this particular period, during which Carthusians started to accept bishoprics, see
Molvarec, S.J., “Vox clamantis in deserto; the Development of Carthusian Relations with
Society in the High Middle Ages”, in S.J. Molvarec and T. Gaens (eds.), A Fish out of Water?:
From Contemplative Solitude to Carthusian Involvement in Pastoral Care and Reform Activity:
Proceedings of the Symposium ‘Ordo pre ceteris commendatus’ held in Zelem, Belgium,
September 2008, Leuven 2013, pp. 13–49. The official narrative stressing the immutability
of the order and preservation of the original propositum, epitomized by the 17th century
motto nunquam reformata quoniam nunquam deformata (“never reformed because never
deformed”), has been more recently challenged by studies focusing on early Carthusians’
“engagement with society, with church governance, with other religious groups, with donors,
and property exchanges”: Molvarec, “Vox clamantis”, p. 14. Based on the list of houses reported
in the NBC, supra fn. 1 Nouvelle Bibliographie Cartusienne, vol. 3, pp. 22–29: 106 charterhouses
were founded in the 14th century, 35 in the 13th century, and 38 in the 12th century.
3 On this aptly named “secular irruption”, see Luxford, J.M., “Introduction”, in id. (ed.), Studies in
Carthusian Monasticism in the Late Middle Ages, Turnhout, 2008, pp. 1–16. See also Molvarec,
“Vox clamantis”, pp. 44–49; and Le Blévec, D., “La papauté d’Avignon et l’ordre des chartreux”,
in P. De Leo (ed.), L’Ordine certosino, Soveria Mannelli, CT, 2003, pp. 149–56, who observes that
in the 14th century the notion of “desert” gradually became synonymous with the individual
cell (p. 151).

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city-states, the emergence of new forms and expression of secular devotion, the
expansion of the mendicant orders and the crisis, better yet, renewal, of coe-
nobitic and anchoritic monastic experiences. As such, the Carthusians’ spiri-
tual zeal, ascetic rigor, and observance attracted powerful rulers and prelates,
including popes, as well as the emerging upper middle classes who chose them
as the most trustworthy intercessors for their souls or, as Claudio Leonardi in-
cisively put it, as “a sort of spiritual alibi”.4 Throughout this remarkable time
for the order, the new charterhouses, tended to be near, or within, major urban
centers. This proximity often meant negotiating the boundaries between sepa-
ration and engagement with society, thus dealing with the increasing influence
of powerful donors as well as Church officials.5 This pattern is evident in the
21 new charterhouses that were established throughout the Italian peninsula
in the 14th century, with the major concentration in the Tuscan region: Farneta,
nearby Lucca in 1338, Galluzzo, a few miles from Florence in 1341, Calci, close to
Pisa in 1367, and La Gorgona, which became a charterhouse in 1373. Siena not
only led the way by seeing the completion of Maggiano (1314–18), the first char-
terhouse in the region but, with its two other foundations that soon followed,
Belriguardo in 1340–41 and Pontignano in 1343, it became the only European
city with more than two charterhouses, the only instance in the entire history
of the Carthusian order.6
The Sienese charterhouses were founded at the time of Siena’s maximum
expansion and splendor. This “golden age” in Siena’s history is generally con-
sidered to begin in 1260, with the memorable victory of the city over Florence
at the battle of Montaperti, and end in 1355, when the oligarchic and Guelph
government of the Nine—referred to as the Nove or Noveschi and formed by
members of the bourgeois and mercantile classes—was replaced by that of a
new governing coalition formed by 12 (the Dodici) prominent members of the

4 Leonardi, C., “Il sepolto di Dio”, in P. De Leo (ed.), L’Ordine certosino, Soveria Mannelli, CT,
2003, p. 382.
5 On this particular aspect of 14th century Carthusian life, see Van Dijk, M., Aelst, J. van,
and Gaens, T. (eds.), “Introduction: Faithful to the Cross in a Moving World: Late Medieval
Carthusians as Devotional Reformers”, Church History and Religious Culture 96 (2016), pp. 4–8;
Tosco, C., “Dai Cistercensi ai Certosini: le arti a confronto”, in R. Comba and G.G. Merlo (eds.),
Certosini e cistercensi in Italia: secoli XII–XV: atti del convegno, Cuneo, Chiusa Pesio, Rocca
de’ Baldi, giovedì 23-domenica 26 settembre 1999, Cuneo, 2000, pp. 115–40; and the articles by
Gelfand, L.D., “A Tale of Two Dukes”, in J.M. Luxford (ed.), Studies in Carthusian Monasticism
in the Late Middle Ages, Turnhout, 2008, pp. 201–24; and Lotz, E., “Secret Rooms: Private
Spaces for Private Prayer in Late-Medieval Burgundy and the Netherlands”, in J.M. Luxford
(ed.), Studies in Carthusian Monasticism in the Late Middle Ages, Turnhout, 2008, pp. 163–78.
6 Santa Maria di Maggiano was founded less than a mile from the Porta Romana, South-East of
Siena; Belriguardo was about two miles west of Siena, and Pontignano a few miles north of
Siena. For more details, see Leoncini, Le certose della Provincia Tusciae, vol. 1, pp. 19, 158, 167.

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nobility and the merchant guilds who governed the city until 1368.7 During
this time, and particularly in the first two decades of the 14th century, Siena
reached the height of its power and grandeur, which found expression in a se-
ries of impressive public initiatives: the Palazzo Pubblico in Piazza del Campo
was completed and inaugurated by the Nove in 1310; Duccio’s painting of the
Vergine, the patroness of the city, had been completed and installed in the
Duomo in 1311; and Simone Martini’s Maestà would be completed soon after
in 1315.8
Yet, behind this golden facade cracks were already showing in a city in the
aftermath of a major economic crisis. The financial collapse of the Bonsignori
family, the founders of the Gran Tavola—without doubt the largest and most
powerful bank in Europe, which by 1309 had to be liquidated for bankruptcy—
marked the beginning of the end for other family-run financial enterprises, like
those of the Tolomei and the Gallerani. The domino effect soon triggered the
“deinternationalization” of Siena’s financial activities with the ensuing loans to
the comune and reinvestment of capital in safer, more local, civic and religious
enterprises. Such projects, together with those mentioned earlier, also includ-
ed the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala, Siena’s largest and most important
hospital, which played a crucial role in the city’s social and religious life.9

7 On Siena’s “golden age” and government of the Nine, see Bowsky, W.M., A Medieval Italian
Commune: Siena Under the Nine, 1287–1355, Berkeley, 1981; Bowsky, W.M., Le finanze del co-
mune di Siena 1287–1355, Florence, 1976; Bowsky, W.M., “Il contesto religioso precedente
a Santa Caterina. La chiesa senese sotto i Nove”, in Maffei D. and P. Nardi, (eds.), Atti Del
Simposio Internazionale Cateriniano-Bernardiniano: Siena, 17–20 Aprile 1980, Siena, 1982,
pp. 37–44; Bowsky, W.M., “The Buon Governo of Siena (1287–1355): a Mediaeval Italian
Oligarchy”, Speculum 37.3 (1962), pp. 368–81; Bowsky, W.M., “The Impact of the Black Death
upon Sienese Government and Society”, Speculum 39.1 (1964), pp. 1–34. See also Giordano,
N. and Piccinni, G. (eds.), Siena nello specchio del suo costituto in volgare del 1309–1310, Pisa,
2014; Moran, G. and Mallory M., “Celebrations Held in Siena During the Government of the
Nine”, Renaissance and Reformation, 19.1 (1995), pp. 39–44; Ascheri, M., “‘Le bocche’ di con-
venti e ospedali di Siena e del suo Stato nel 1360”, BSSP 92 (1985), pp. 323–33, as well as his
essay in this volume.
8 On 14th-century Sienese art, see Norman, D., Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late
Medieval City State, New Haven, CT, 1999; Smith, T.B. and Steinhoff, J.B. (eds.), Art as Politics
in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, London, 2016.
9 For a detailed account of Siena’s financial collapse and the Nine’s shrewd management of the
crisis, see Giordano, N. and Piccinni, G. (eds.), Siena nello specchio del suo costituto in volgare
del 1309–1310, Pisa, 2014, pp. 15–36; and Piccinni, G., “Documenti per una storia dell’Ospedale
di Santa Maria della Scala di Siena”, Summa 2 (2013), pp. 139–66. On the strong ties between
Santa Maria della Scala and Siena’s comune, as well as its crucial role in Siena’s civic and
religious life, see Pellegrini, M., La Comunità Ospedaliera del Santa Maria della Scala e il suo
più antico statuto (Siena, 1305), Pisa, 2005; Pellegrini, M., Chiesa e città. Uomini, comunità e
istituzioni nella società senese tra XII e XIII secolo, Rome, 2004.

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Siena ’ s Religious Culture and Carthusian Monasticism 89

Even before the government of the Nove, Siena’s wealth and fortune passed
through the Via Francigena. Without waterways or ports, like its direct city
rivals Florence and Pisa, the Via Francigena became the city’s most impor-
tant resource.10 Used already in the 7th century by the Lombards and then
the Franks, in time it became the backbone of Siena’s, albeit short-lived, eco-
nomic growth and hegemony.11 Not only was the Via Francigena Siena’s main
trade route toward northern Europe, allowing Sienese merchants and bankers
to reach the prosperous and lucrative north European markets and provide
for the financial needs of kings and prelates, but it was also the main route
toward Rome. This proximity to the papal see meant that cardinals and popes
soon became the principal clients of the Sienese banking houses, thus creating
important financial ties with the papal court. It also meant that the influx of
pilgrims taking the Via Francigena as the main route leading to Rome—and
from there to Jerusalem and the Holy Land—created the need for the build-
ing of churches, hospitals, hospices, and stores that played an important role
in promoting Siena’s economic growth, as well as creating a vibrant religious
atmosphere.
One of the religious phenomena that became particularly conspicuous in
Siena at this time was that of urban reclusion. Such a development was not
only part of the larger eremitical impulses that found new life during this time
throughout Europe, but it can also be seen in relation to an emerging move-
ment in central Italy, particularly noticeable among women. This was living
a life of penitence and prayer but no longer withdrawing to distant, isolated
places, increasingly less safe, but rather remaining within one’s own city, or
close thereof, even living with one’s family.12 As counterintuitive as it may
sound, the city gates, walls, and major roads attracted an increasing number of

10 On Siena’s failed attempt to create its own port on the Tyrrenic coast at Talamone (fa-
mously derided by Dante, Purgatorio 13.148–54), see Pinto, G., “‘Honour’ and ‘Profit’:
Landed Property and Trade in Medieval Siena”, in T. Dean and C. Wickham (eds.), City
and Countryside in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy, London, 1990, pp. 81–91.
11 On the Via Francigena, see Stopani, R., La via Francigena in Toscana. Storia di una stra-
da medioevale, Florence, 1984, p. 63; Balestracci, D. and Piccinni, G., Siena nel Trecento.
Assetto urbano e prassi edilizia, Florence, 1977, pp. 21, 44; Redon, O., Lo spazio di una città:
Siena e la Toscana meridionale (secoli 13.–14.), Siena, 1999, p. 63.
12 For a detailed treatment of this topic, see Thurber, A.C., “Female Urban Reclusion in Siena
at the Time of Catherine of Siena”, in C. Muessig, G. Ferzoco, and B.M. Kienzle (eds.),
A Companion to Catherine of Siena, Leiden, 2012, pp. 47–72; Sensi, M., “Anchorites in the
Italian Tradition”, in L. Herbert-McAvoy (ed.), Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe,
Woodbridge, 2010, pp. 62–90; Zarri, G., “Aspetti dell’esperienza eremitica femminile: una
tipologia di lungo periodo”, in P. De Leo (ed.), San Bruno di Colonia un eremita tra Oriente e
Occidente, Soveria Mannelli, CT, 2004, pp. 197–210; Casagrande, C. Religiosità Penitenziale
e città al tempo dei comuni, Rome, 1995; and Gianni, A. (ed.), Santità ed eremitismo nella
Toscana medievale: atti delle giornate di studio: 11–12 giugno 1999, Siena, 2000.

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recluses. Living off alms and regular contributions—which in Siena and other
cities were made and regulated by the comune—urban recluses were a familiar
presence amid the hustle and bustle of city life. By the end of the 14th century
Siena had more recluses within its urban territory than any other Italian city,
and second only to Rome.13
In effect, the Tuscan region had become the center of new forms of ere-
mitical life since the second half of the 13th century, and Siena’s surroundings
were considered the “heart” of this widespread phenomenon.14 All around the
Sienese countryside, rich in caves and forests, hermits and other religious indi-
viduals called to a life of penance and solitude, found their dwelling.15 In time,
these individuals, or small communities, were gradually compelled to form
congregations and communities under a common rule, and in the majority
of cases they had to choose between the Augustinian or Benedictine rules.16
While the mendicant orders thrived within the city limits, several monastic
and eremitical communities surrounded Siena’s territory; those closer to the
Benedictine monastic tradition included the Silvestrines at Santo Spirito, the
Camaldolese at Galignano, and the Olivetans, founded in 1313 by the Sienese
Giovanni di Mino of the noble Tolomei family.17 While among those follow-
ing the Augustinian rule were the Augustinians of Lecceto and Montecchio
and the Servites of Monteriggioni.18
The widespread practice of urban reclusion in Siena, combined with the
strong eremitical presence in its surrounding territory, may in part explain
the appeal that the French Carthusian order had on their Sienese patrons

13 Thurber, “Female Urban Reclusion”, pp. 51–52.

14 On this topic, see in particular Alessi C. and Fanti, C. (eds.), Lecceto: e gli eremi Agostiniani
in terra di Siena, Cinisello Balsamo, MI, 1990.
15 On Sienese territory, see Redon, Lo spazio di una città, pp. 61–87.
16 For a detailed account of the gradual centralization of eremitical movements, see
Andrews, F., The Other Friars: The Carmelite, Augustinian, Sack and Pied Friars in the
Middle Ages, Woodbridge, 2006.
17 For a detailed discussion of 14th-century Sienese religious life, and the origins of the
Olivetans, see Pellegrini, M., “Vita religiosa e società a Siena al tempo delle origini di
Monte Oliveto”, in V. Cattana and M. Tagliabue (eds.), Da Siena al « desertum » di Acona.
Atti della giornata di studio per il VII centenario del ritiro di Bernardo Tolomei a vita peni-
tente ed eremitica (1313) (Italia Benedettina 42), Cesena, 2016, pp. 1–42; Cattana, V., and
Tagliabue M., Momenti di storia e spiritualità olivetana: secoli XIV–XX (Italia Benedettina
28), Cesena, 2007.
18 On the religious institutions in Siena at the time, see A. Mirizio and P. Nardi, (eds.), Chiesa
e vita religiosa a Siena: dalle origini al grande giubileo, Siena, 2002, especially the articles
by Wilhelm Kurze, “I monasteri nella diocesi di Siena fino al XII secolo”, pp. 49–64; and
Michele Pellegrini, “Istituzioni ecclesiastiche, vita religiosa e società cittadina nella prima
metà età comunale”, pp. 101–34.

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who, as we will see, belonged primarily to prominent magnati families.19 The

Carthusians had found in the combination of eremitical life, mitigated by
certain elements of coenobitic life, their distinctive trait. Together with the
Camaldolese, they represent the best example of the institutionalization of
eremitical impulses that, even at the height of Europe’s embrace of coenobitic
monasticism, had never completely disappeared.20 As with the other monas-
tic families settled in the Sienese contado, the Carthusians’ relationship with
Siena’s bustling urban life was marked by separation but also by proximity, as
we will see.
As the driving force of these two major developments, the religious and
the political-economic, the Via Francigena would no doubt be the ideal start-
ing point for an account of the historical circumstances and socio-economic
conditions that led to the establishment of the Carthusian order in Siena.21
However, this study will take a different route as it focuses less on the history of
the founding and development of the three Sienese charterhouses, already ex-
amined in previous studies, to lead instead toward an understanding of Siena’s
religious culture through the vernacular literature produced at the time, which
the Carthusians played a relevant role in inspiring and shaping.22 In order to
do so, I will revisit a well known episode involving Pietro Petroni, a Carthusian

19 For the strong protagonism of the magnati family in Siena’s ecclesial affairs, see Pellegrini,
“Vita religiosa e società a Siena”, pp. 10–20.
20 On the resurgence of eremitical monastic life throughout medieval Italy and Europe
between the 10th and 13th centuries, see Caby, C., “De l’ermitage à l’ordre érémitique?
Camaldules et chartreux, XI–XII siècles”, in A. Girard, D. Le Blévec, N. Nabert (eds.),
Saint Bruno et sa postérité spirituelle (Analecta Cartusiana 189), Salzburg, 2003, pp. 83–96;
Picasso, G. and Tagliabue M. (eds.), Il monachesimo italiano nel secolo della grande crisi,
Cesena, 2004.
21 There is a theory that the founder of the Carthusian order, Bruno of Cologne, participated
in the Council of Piacenza (1095), from where he was sent to Siena by Urban II to urge
the Sienese to reject their ties with the antipope Clement III, and while there, to exhort
the Sienese to join the First Crusade. This is unfounded, however, and based on a mistake
perpetrated by early modern chroniclers of the order. On the topic, see Laporte, M., Aux
sources de la vie Cartusienne, vol. 1, Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse, 1960, pp. 229–31. Cf. in
Mancini, O., and Vannini A., Cartusiae prope senas: Le certose in terra di Siena. Siena, 2013,
pp. 18–19.
22 For a brief introduction to the three Sienese charterhouses, see Di Martini, V. and
Montefusco, A. (eds.), Certose e certosini in Europa, Naples, 1990. See Leoncini, G., Le cer-
tose della Provincia Tusciae, where the focus is on the art, architecture, and spirituality of
the order. The most comprehensive historical study to date is that of Giuliani, G., L’ingresso
e l’affermazione dell’Ordine Certosino in Toscana nel secolo XIV, Ph.D. thesis, University of
Pisa, 2011. On Sienese religious writers, see in particular Petrocchi, G., Scrittori religiosi
del Trecento, Florence, 1974; and for further literature, see Misciattelli, P., Mistici senesi,
Siena, 1914.

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monk from Siena, and two of the “Three Crowns” of Italian literature: Giovanni
Boccaccio and Francesco Petrarca (the other being Dante).23 I argue that this
odd encounter, often overlooked or underplayed by scholars, requires more
nuance and context as it brings to light not only the important humanist de-
bate on the value of poetry, but also some of Siena’s most significant religious
figures, whose vernacular work helped to establish Siena as the main radiating
center of religious poetry and prose in the late Middle Ages. Moreover, it offers
a fascinating view of late medieval monasticism, in particular of Carthusian
life, which ultimately emerges as less solitary and secluded, and more partici-
patory in the vibrant cultural and intellectual exchange of the era, than what
the canonical historiographical tradition has proposed.24
Our journey therefore starts with the fascinating, yet elusive, Sienese reli-
gious figure Pietro Petroni, a Carthusian monk of the charterhouse of Maggiano,
who was later declared Blessed by the Church. Interestingly enough, Petroni’s
story is intertwined with that of the foundation of the same charterhouse of
Maggiano where he became a monk in 1328–29, and lived the rest of his life.
His family, one of the most affluent and prominent in Siena, had their home in
the terzo of San Martino, the area of Siena that prospered especially after the
Via Francigena became a major trade and pilgrimage route.25 Members of the

23 On Petrarch and the Carthusian order, see Yocum, D.S., Petrarch’s Humanist Writing and
Carthusian Monasticism: the Secret Language of the Self, Turnhout, 2013. On Petrarch’s
relevant role in promoting the expansion of the order in Treviso and Venice, with and
through his good friend Ildebrandino Conti, and the latter’s connection with the found-
ers of Pontignano and Belriguardo, see Tagliabue, M., “Ildebrandino Conti: Un amico del
Petrarca tra Monte Oliveto e la Certosa”, in L. Bertazzo and A. Rigon (eds.), Arbor ramosa:
Studi per Antonio Rigon da allievi amici colleghi, Padua, 2011, pp. 557–80.. On Petrarch’s
connections with the Olivetan order, and his “unknown brother” Giovannino, see
Billanovich, G., “Un ignoto fratello del Petrarca”, Italia medioevale e umanistica 25 (1982),
pp. 375–80; and Tagliabue, M. and Rigon, A., “Fra Giovannino fratello del Petrarca e mo-
naco olivetano”, Studi Petrarcheschi n.s. 6 (1989), pp. 225–55.
24 For an overview of the historiographic literature on the order and the myths often per-
petrated by scholars within and outside the Carthusian order, mainly emphasizing an
idealized solitary life separated from the social contexts in which the Carthusians lived,
see Giuliani, A., La formazione dell’identità certosina (1084–1155), Salzsburg, 2002, pp. 3–42;
and Molvarec, “Vox clamantis”, pp. 13–49.
25 Pellegrini, M., “Petroni, Pietro”, in A.M. Ghislaberti (ed,), Dizionario Biografico degli
Italiani 82 (2015), ad vocem. See also Bowsky, A Medieval Italian Commune, p. 17. The pal-
ace of the family where most likely Pietro was born is still in Via Pantaneto, which is
almost a prolongation of the Via Francigena. On the Petroni’s residence and coat-of-arms,
see Maccherini, G., “Gli stemmi di Palazzo Petroni in Pantaneto”, Accademia Dei Rozzi /
Reale Accademia Dei Rozzi <Siena> (2003), vol. 19, pp. 9–13. On the terzo of San Martino
and the Via Francigena, see Piccinni, Siena nel Trecento, p. 44.

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Petroni family took part in the government of the Nove.26 However, the fam-
ily’s most prominent member at the time was Riccardo Petroni, born around
1250, a jurist and professor of law of distinction, who played an important role
in the redaction of the Liber sextus decretalium.27 Boniface VIII made him a
cardinal and then vice-chancellor of the Roman Church. Before his death, and
by testamentary disposition, Cardinal Petroni endowed the city of Siena with
four new monasteries: San Michele di Quarto for the Cistercians, two convents
near Porta Romana for Poor Clares and Dominican nuns, and the charterhouse
of Maggiano.28
That the Carthusians were particularly on the cardinal’s mind is evinced by
the larger donation he bequeathed for the building of the charterhouse, com-
pared to the other three monasteries.29 His interest in the Carthusians may
have been inspired by his frequent visits to European cities with important
charterhouses, the best known of which was Villeneuve, near Avignon. He
may have also been influenced by his close ties with several members of the
Anjevin dynasty, especially in Naples where he taught civil law, and Clement V,
the last pope with whom he closely collaborated.30 Both Anjevin monarchs
and Clement V encouraged the spreading of the Carthusian order throughout
Europe.31 The fact that Cardinal Petroni participated in the Council of Vienne

26 Bowsky, “The Buon Governo of Siena”, pp. 373, 376–80. See also Giuliani, “‘L’ingresso e
l’affermazione’”, pp. 78–82.
27 See Nardi, P. Petroni, R., in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 82 (2015), ad vocem.
28 Cardinal Petroni died in nearby Genoa. His remains, however, were brought back to
Siena where they found final rest in Siena’s cathedral, and were interred in the splendid
monumental wall tomb by Tino da Camaino (c.1318). On Petroni’s death, see Gigli, G.,
Diario Sanese: In cui si veggono alla giornata tutti gli Avvenimenti piu ragguardevoli spet-
tanti si allo Spirituale, si al Temporale della Citta, e Stato di Siena; Con la notizia di molte
Nobili Famiglie di Essa, delle quali è caduto in acconcio il parlarne, Parte Prima. Lucca, 1723,
pp. 83–84. For a modern edition of Petroni’s will, see Bignami Odier, J., “Le testament du
Cardinal Richard Petroni (25 janvier 1314)”, Papers of the British School at Rome 24 (1956),
pp. 142–57. See also Giuliani, “L’ingresso e l’affermazione”, pp. 92–97. On Tino’s tomb,
see Benay, E.E. and Rafanelli, L.M., Faith, Gender and the Senses in Italian Renaissance
and Baroque Art: Interpreting the Noli me tangere and Doubting Thomas, Farnham, 2015,
pp. 42–52; Norman, D., Siena, Florence, and Padua: Art, Society, and Religion 1280–1400.
New Haven, CT, 1995, p. 119.
29 See Bignami Odier, “Le testament”, pp. 149–50. On how another branch of the Petroni fam-
ily, namely Nicolaccio and Francesco, were involved through testamentary disposition
in the consolidation of Maggiano’s property, see Giuliani, “L’ingresso e l’affermazione”,
pp. 102–08.
30 See Nardi, “Petroni, R.”, and Giuliani, “L’ingresso e l’affermazione”, p. 69.
31 The ties of the Petroni family with the Anjevin can be traced back to the 13th century.
On the Anjevin’s patronage of the Carthusian order and the building of the Certosa di

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(1311–12), where the Carthusians were able to defend their often criticized
practices—such as perpetual abstinence from meat—and where their Statuta
Antiqua of 1259 were reconfirmed by papal decree, may have also contributed
to win the cardinal’s approval.32
Bindo di Falcone, the cardinal’s cousin and procurator, acted as testamenta-
ry executor. A jurist himself and apostolic notary appointed to the cathedral of
Cologne, Bindo would later make a substantial donation in 1343 for the build-
ing of another Sienese charterhouse: Pontignano. In his testament, prepared in
1351, he appointed the community of Pontignano as his sole heir and explicitly
ordered that his body be buried there.33
Unfortunately, Pietro Petroni’s life is not as well documented as that of his
famous ancestor, and relies heavily on hagiographical sources, which present
a rather intricate picture. A first account of the events of his life was written in
the vernacular by Petronis’ close followers and friends Giovanni Colombini and
Niccolò Vincenti soon after his death.34 This text was later rewritten in Latin
and published in 1619 by the Carthusian monk Bartolomeo Scala, also known
as Bartolomeo da Siena, whose version was then reprinted by the Bollandists

San Martino in Naples (1325)—which made a strong impact on Niccolò Acciaioli who
would later build the Florentine Certosa del Galluzzo (1341)—see Giuliani, “L’ingresso
e l’affermazione”, pp. 68–70. On Florence’s charterhouse, see Giuliani, “L’ingresso e
l’affermazione”, pp. 68–69, 163–263; Hogg, E.J. et al., (eds.), La Certosa di Firenze: The
Charterhouse of Florence; Leoncini, Le certose della Provincia Tusciae, vol. 1, pp. 108–57;
and Cassidy, B., “Tombs of the Acciaioli in the Certosa del Galluzzo outside Florence”, in
J.M. Luxford (ed.), Studies in Carthusian Monasticism in the Late Middle Ages, Turnhout,
2008, pp. 323–53.
32 On this topic, see Thompson, The Carthusian Order, pp. 103–07; and Falls, D.J., Nicholas
Love’s Mirror and Late Medieval Devotio-Literary Culture: Theological Politics and Devotional
Practice in Fifteenth-Century England, Farnham, 2016, p. 37. Worth noting is also the fact
that in several letters dated 1313, Clement V granted indulgences to all those who would
visit the religious sites founded with Cardinal Petroni’s endowment: Giuliani, “L’ingresso
e l’affermazione”, p. 87. For a detailed treatment of the Carthusian statutes and an edition
of the Statuta Antiqua, see Hogg, J., (ed.), The Evolution of the Carthusian Statutes from the
Consuetudinis Guigonis to the Tertia Compilatio (AC, 99), 25 vols, Salzburg, 1989–93, esp.
vols. 1–2; and Hogg, J., The Statuta Jancelini (AC, 65.1.1), Salzburg, 2016.
33 On Bindo and Pontignano, see Giuliani, “L’ingresso e l’affermazione”, pp. 88–89 and 123–
48; see also Tagliabue, “Ildebrandino Conti”, pp. 561–69.
34 See Petroni, “Un documento inedito”, pp. 130–32; Gagliardi, I., Li trofei della croce.
L’esperienza Gesuata e la società lucchese tra medioevo ed età moderna, Rome, 2005, p. 8.
On Bartolomeo Scala (1571–1652), see Devaux and Van Dijck, (eds.), “Scala, Barthélemy”, in
NBC, vol. 2, p. 322; Gruys, Cartusiana, vol. 1, p. 160. See also Leoncini, G., “Un certosino del
tardo medioevo: Don Stefano Maconi”, Die Ausbreitung kartäusischen Lebens und Geistes
im Mittelalter, vol. 2, pp. 54–107.

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in 1688.35 We do know, however, that in July 1619 Scala sent an abridged version
of his text, in the vernacular, to Adriano Politi for the women in his household
to read. In 1950, a descendant of Petroni found and reprinted this abridged
version.36 Scala’s Latin Vita instead gained popularity in the 18th century with
two illustrated editions in Italian.37
We are no longer in a position to establish the reliability nor the relationship
between Scala’s Latin Vita with Colombini’s original vernacular text, as the lat-
ter is no longer extant.38 However, several sections in both Scala’s Latin ver-
sion and the abridged vernacular one end with phrases such as “as Colombini
reports” or “ in Colombini’s own words”, thus attesting that Scala most likely
relied heavily on Colombini’s original text. Scala’s Vita of another important
Carthusian monk, Stefano Maconi, written in 1626 for his order, confirms the
view that his accounts rely primarily on documentary sources.39
Nevertheless, Colombini’s vernacular text represents a great loss not only
as it could have provided important details of Petroni’s life, but also as a docu-
ment of Sienese vernacular religious culture, of which Colombini was among
the first and most significant exponents. His letters to religious friends and fol-
lowers, written in a simple, vivid, and unadorned style, are among the foremost
examples of Sienese mystical prose that in many ways anticipate the writing of
Catherine of Siena, unquestionably the most innovative and prolific author in
the volgare of this period.40
From Scala’s account we can determine that Petroni entered the charter-
house of Maggiano between 1328 or 1329. Before becoming a Carthusian monk,
and since an early age, he dedicated his time to serving the sick and lepers

35 Acta Sanctorum, Maii, VII, (Antwerp, 1688), pp. 138–232. On the portrait of Petroni on
p. 195 and its comparison with Andrea Bonaiuti’s rendering of the image, see Offner, R.,
Steinweg K., Boskovits M., and Gregori, Mina, (ed.) A Critical and Historical Corpus of
Florentine Painting, Florence, p. 38.
36 Petroni, “Un documento”, pp. 130–43.
37 Simoncelli, T., Vita del B. Pietro Petroni Senese Monaco Cartusiano, Venice, 1702; Dinbani, G.,
Vita del Beato Pietro Petroni sanese monaco, del sacro Ordine Cartusiano, esposta in rime
dal Dinbani P.A., Venice, 1762. Both editions are available online through Google Books.
38 On doubts regarding in particular Scala’s reliance on Colombini’s text for the episode
of Boccaccio, see Traversari, G., “Il beato Pietro Petroni senese e la conversione del
Boccaccio”, Rassegna Pugliese 22 (1905), pp. 76–81. According to Traversari, Scala’s only
source was Petrarch’s letter.
39 It is reasonable to suggest that, as prior of Maggiano and Pontignano, Scala had access
to sources no longer extant, especially after the suppression of the order in 1784. See
Leoncini, Le certose della Provincia Tusciae, vol. 1, pp. 169–70.
40 On Sienese mystical prose, see Petrocchi, La letteratura religiosa del Trecento, pp. 10–13
Colombini, G. and Misciattelli, P., Le lettere del Beato Giovanni Colombini da Siena,
Florence, 1923, pp. 3–23.

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at San Lazzaro’s hospital outside Siena.41 At the still early age of 15, he was
exceptionally admitted as member of the diciplinati of the Compagnia della
Madonna sotto le volte dello Spedale di santa Maria della Scala, the oldest and
most prestigious lay confraternity documented at Santa Maria della Scala,
where his fame as saint spread far and wide.42
But Petroni’s name is to this day best remembered for the role he played in a
well known episode in the life of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–75), the celebrated
author of the Decameron. The story goes as follows: between 1361 and 1362,
Boccaccio received an unexpected visit by a young man, Gioacchino Ciani,
a close follower of Petroni who had recently passed away. On his deathbed,
Petroni revealed to Ciani a series of prophecies regarding several important
political and literary figures, and before his last breath, he entreated Ciani to
go and forewarn them all. Among these notable figures was also Boccaccio.43
Scala offers a detailed account of the prophecy addressed to Boccaccio. After
arriving in Florence, Ciani visited Boccaccio and revealed to him:

… the dangerous state of his soul, and also all the secrets and thoughts of
his heart, his sinful life, the nefarious influence that his treachery and dis-
honest and lascivious poems had on the world leading souls astray; and
therefore, having been sent by God who spoke by the mouth of Blessed
Petrone, he exhorted him to change his life and abandon his studies of
poetry, otherwise in a short time he would die.44

41 Petroni, “Un documento”, p. 135.

42 For a brief history of the confraternity, see Ceppari, M.A., (Archivio di Stato di Siena), Le
pergamene delle confraternite nell’Archivio di Stato di Siena (1241–1785): regesti, Siena, 2007,
p. 145. See also Gagliardi, I., I pauperes yesuati tra esperienze religiose e conflitti istituzion-
ali, Rome, 2004, pp. 40–78; and Gagliardi, I., “Relations between Giovanni Colombini, his
Followers and the Sienese ‘Reggimento Civile’ (1355–1450)”, BSSP 120 (2013), pp. 190–99.
43 According to Scala, Ciani delivered Petroni’s prophecies to Joanna I, queen of Naples, the
papal court at Avignon, and the monarchs of England and France (most likely Edward III
of England, and John II of France): Petroni, “Un documento”, p. 137. According to Gigli,
Petroni was able to settle several disputes among sovereign powers: Gigli, Diario Sanese,
p. 219. Petrarch mentions the same itinerary in his letter to Boccaccio: Dotti and Nota,
Le senili, vol. 1, p. 68.
44 “… scoperse il pericoloso stato dell’anima sua, e gli scoperse parimenti tutti i suoi segreti e
pensieri dell’animo, la mala sua vita, l’occasione che arrecava al mondo con la sua dison-
està e co’ suoi disonesti e lascivi componimenti di mal far capitare l’anime e che perciò
da parte di Dio, per bocca del Beato Petrone, l’esortava a mutar vita et a lassare li studi
della poesia, altrimenti gli annunziava fra poco tempo la morte.”: Petroni, “Un documen-
to”, p. 139.

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However, the widespread version of this odd encounter between Ciani and
Boccaccio, reiterated in many histories of Italian literature, is the one written
by Petrarch as a response to Boccaccio’s letter, no longer extant, asking for
advice and reassurance.45 Petrarch describes the episode as follows:

You write that a Pietro of Siena, renowned for his manifest piety and even
more for his miracles, who recently passed away, made many predictions
about many people, and among these some about both of us; and you
go on to say that this was reported to you by the person to whom he had
entrusted it, and you asked him more precisely how the holy man knew
us, though we did not know him; … the messenger replied that … Pietro’s
intention was to do a good deed. Seeing that he could not carry it out …
Pietro beseeched God … to designate substitutes for the undertaking …
Christ himself appeared to him upon whose face he saw all “that is, was,
and is soon to come” …46

I will offer a closer look at Petrarch’s consolatory letter in due course. Suffice
to say here that if Petroni’s prophecy fell on deaf ears, as it did little to pro-
voke anything but a short-lived scare in Boccaccio, it ultimately elicited one of
Petrarch’s most vivid and cogent defenses of, not only the continuity between
Classical and Christian culture, but also of secular letters as a possible path to
Christian salvation.47

45 The letter, Seniles 1.5, was written on 28 May, most likely in 1362, a year after Petroni’s
death on 29 May 1361. Sent from Padua, where Petrarch returned after leaving plague-
ridden Milan, the letter is the first of 18 letters addressed to Boccaccio, and is included in
the first book of his epistolary collection of the Seniles dedicated to Francesco Nelli.
46 “Scribis nescio quem Petrum senensem patria, religione insigni et miraculis insuper cla-
rum virum, nuper obeuntem, multa de multis, inter quos de utroque nostrum aliqua pre-
dixisse; idque tibi per quendam cui hoc ille commiserat, nuntiatum. Ex quo exactius dum
quereres quemadmodum sanctus ille vir, nobis incognitus, nos novisset, sic responsum:
fuisse illi propositum … pium aliquid agere, quod cum implere, denuntiata sibi, augu-
ror, morte, non posset, orasse Deum efficaci et ad celum perventura prece, rebus ydo-
neos vicarios designaret largiretur … Cristum ipsum habuisse presentem, cuius in vultu
‘omnia’ cognovisset: que sint, que fuerint, que mox ventura trahantur …”. Latin text is
from Petrarch, Le senili, eds. U. Dotti and E. Nota, vol. 1 Turin, 2004, pp. 67–68. The English
translation is from, Petrarch, Letters of Old Age: Rerum senilium libri, trans. A.S. Bernardo,
S. Levin and R.A. Bernardo, vol. 1, New York, p. 16.
47 The episode had been used as an explanation for Boccaccio’s later “conversion” in life
and dedication to more edifying studies. See for example Jeffery, V.M., “Boccaccio’s Titles
and the Meaning of ‘Corbaccio’”, The Modern Language Review 28.2 (1933), pp. 194–204.
However, at that time Boccaccio was already a cleric with minor orders (as early as the
end of 1360), and we can infer from some of his letters and will that he took his clerical

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In most of the historical and literary accounts that mention the episode,
Petroni’s prophecy has been primarily regarded as a vivid, if bizarre, anecdote
in Boccaccio’s life, and as an isolated case of overly-religious zeal gone awry.
However, a more careful reading reveals a richer and more vivid picture of re-
ligious and literary life in late medieval Siena, while providing a more nuanced
account of Carthusian monasticism in the 14th century.
First and foremost, Ciani’s visit to Boccaccio shows that Petroni had strong
ties with a group of devoted friends and followers on whom he relied to deliver
his visions and revelations, even after becoming a Carthusian monk. This is
quite remarkable considering the order’s regimen regarding communication
and engagement with the world beyond its walls.48 In both Scala’s accounts,
Petroni used to receive frequent visits from Ciani, Colombini, and Niccolò
Vincenti, but also from other devoted citizens from nearby Siena. His gift of
prophecy and divination and his much sought after spiritual guidance, made
him a well known religious figure at the time, and many considered him a liv-
ing saint.49 A first group of followers may have formed already at the time of
his service at the hospitals of San Lazzaro and Santa Maria della Scala, among
members of the confraternities.50 As reported by Scala, “many people ran to
Maggiano to consult with him, asking for help and prayers to God”.51 Petroni’s
frequent contact with the laity ultimately appears more in line with the modus
vivendi of urban recluses than with that of a community of cloistered monks.52

duties seriously. On this topic, see Kirkham, V., Sherberg, M., and Levarie Smarr, J. (eds.),
Boccaccio: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works, Chicago, 2013, p. xvi; and Battaglia
Ricci, L., Boccaccio, Rome, 2000, pp. 30–32. Overall, the letter is a complex reflection on
authority and “faith”, and it is clear that Petrarch is very skeptical and does not believe the
message is authentic. Moreover, it becomes clear that Petrarch is juxtaposing Boccaccio’s
amazement at Petroni’s prophecy to his own practices of judging authority through
the past.
48 The solitary vocation of the Carthusians is stressed throughout the original statutes for-
mulated by Guigo I (1083–1136) as well as in the Statuta Antiqua, the version of the stat-
utes used up to 1368, when they were replaced by the Nova Statuta (1368). On this topic,
see Laporte, Coutumes, pp. 24–30. See also Hogg, The Evolution of the Carthusian Statutes,
vol. 2, pp. 212–15.
49 Petroni, “Un documento”, pp. 135–37.
50 On the popularity of flagellant confraternities in Siena, see Bowsky, “Il contesto religioso”,
pp. 37–44. See also Gagliardi, I pauperes yesuati, pp. 68–77; and id., “Relations”, pp. 195–98.
51 “gran gente concorreva a Certosa per consigliarsi seco, e dimandare aiuto d’orazioni e
preghi appresso Dio”: Petroni, “Un documento”, p. 135.
52 On recluses’ interaction with the laity within urban contexts, see Casagrande, Religiosità
penitenziale e città al tempo dei comuni, pp. 60–64.

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What matters for our purpose, however, is that Petroni’s spiritual guidance
would leave an important imprint on one of his closest followers, Giovanni
Colombini (1304–67), no doubt one of the most emblematic religious figures
of late medieval Siena. Colombini’s late spiritual conversion in 1355 created
a stir in Siena, especially among the ruling oligarchy of the Dodici, who that
same year had ousted the Nove, to which Colombini himself had belonged.53
Apparently, the reading of the life of St Maria Egiziaca in volgare set in motion
his conversion followed by the public renouncement of his riches—acquired as
a wealthy merchant of the powerful wool guild—and public displays of piety,
reminiscent of Francis of Assisi’s own conversion.54 Other members of noble
Sienese families, including his close friend Francesco Vincenti, soon joined
him; they eventually formed the brigata dei povari, later known as Gesuati on
account of their public chanting and shouting the name Jesus.55 Their radical
message of poverty, penance, and service to the poor was soon considered a
threat to civic life and they were exiled from Siena. The group, whose number
had grown during the years of their exile, later triumphantly returned to Siena
after several years of itinerant ministry in central Italy. Colombini, though,
never returned to Siena, as he died a few miles away from the city.56
As it has been recently pointed out, Petroni played an important role in guid-
ing Colombini to renounce the more histrionic aspects of his penitential life,
often publicly displayed, and embrace a more sober dedication to renuncia-
tion, evangelical life, and service to the poor; in short, a life founded on the ide-
als of simplicitas: namely humility, poverty, and purity of heart.57 In particular,
Petroni’s influence is credited with Colombini’s decision to renounce ordination

53 Both the aftermath of the plague and the socio-political crisis caused by the change of
regime may have played a relevant role in his sudden conversion: Bowsky, “Il contesto
religioso”, p. 38.
54 For a detailed and compelling account of Francis’ life, see Vauchez, A., Francis of Assisi:
the Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Saint, New Haven, CT, 2013.
55 The brigata dei povari was ideologically opposed to the brigata spendereccia, a group of
Sienese idle spendthrifts scathingly described by Dante, Inferno 29.125–32. On the in-
fluence of the Gesuati’s repeating of the name Jesus and San Bernardino’s devotion to
the ideogram IHS, see Russo, L., “Caterina Benincasa e Bernardino da Siena”, Belfagor 12
(1957), p. 126; and Gagliardi, I pauperes, pp. 109–19, 199–213.
56 Colombini died at Acquapendente, on his way back to Siena. On the development of the
order to its final suppression in 1668, see Gagliardi, I pauperes, pp. 265–350, 459–86.
57 “Amatore sopra modo delle virtù christiane, dell’humiltà, povertà, mansuetudine e simili,
per le quali spesso praticava con persone povere”: Petroni, “Un documento”, p. 134. On
simplicitas, see Viller, et al., (eds.), Dictionnaire di spiritualité, vol. 14, pp. 892–914. See also
Gagliardi, I pauperes, pp. 108–09, 385.

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for himself and his followers, even after the group achieved papal recognition
as a religious order in 1367. Petroni may have also played an important role
in inspiring the Gesuati’s dedication to manuscript copying—one of the tra-
ditional activities performed by Carthusians58—and to dedicate themselves
mainly to reading the scriptures, modeled after St Jerome’s famous renuncia-
tion of profane letters, and translating religious texts into the vernacular.59
The flocking at Maggiano of Petroni’s disciples and devout Sienese citizens
seeking prayers and spiritual guidance, nevertheless represented a major dis-
ruption and distraction for the monastic community at Maggiano.60 Since
Guigo I’s redaction of the first Consuetudines of the order, visits to charter-
houses were strongly discouraged.61 Yet, as the order began to create closer ties
with powerful and wealthy patrons and donors during the 14th century, and
their expanding in proximity to urban centers, such rules no doubt became
harder to enforce, thus creating the conditions for closer involvement with the
laity. Apart from the spiritual necessities and demands which no doubt this
proximity created, the more eremitical aspects of the Carthusian propositum
were often compromised by the growing need to deal with worldly matters in
the form of interfering patrons and Church officials who had their say in many
aspects of the life of a Carthusian community.62 This development no doubt
had to do with the increasing esteem that the order gained among the nobil-
ity and ruling elites, which inaugurated a trend soon emulated by the urban
gentry across much of Europe.63 Charterhouses increasingly became symbols

58 According to the hagiographic sources, Petroni’s well known refusal to receive sacred or-
ders out of humility, prompted him to cut his index finger as a sign of being unfit for such
a holy task. The episode could have been conflated with another saintly model pursued
by the Gesuati, St Mark the Evangelist who, according to tradition, cut his thumb to be
exempted from saying mass. This tradition is reported in Morigia, P., Paradiso dei Gesuati,
Venice, 1892. See Colombini and Misciattelli, Le lettere, p. 11.
59 On this topic see Gagliardi, I pauperes, pp. 108, 162–72, 260–61 and 268. The order, dedicat-
ed to St Jerome, had their house in the Church of San Girolamo in Siena. On Jerome’s fa-
mous “anti-ciceronian dream”, see St Jerome, Select Letters of St. Jerome, trans. F.A. Wright,
Cambridge, Mass, 1963, no. 22.30.
60 As reported in one of Colombini’s letters, there may have been a group of pious women
gravitating around Petroni as well. See Colombini and Misciattelli, Le lettere, p. 43.
61 See Laporte, Coutumes, pp. 206–09, 218–21.
62 See Morgan, D.A.L., “The Charterhouse of Cadzand and the Serendipities of Empire”, in
H. Pryce and J. Watts (eds.), Power and Identity in the Middle Ages: Essays in Memory of
Rees Davies, Oxford, 2007, pp. 168–70.
63 On the “symbiotic” relationship between Carthusians and the nobility, see Martin, D.,
“‘The Honeymoon was Over’: Carthusian between Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie”, in J. Hogg
(ed.), Die Kartäuser und ihre Welt—Kontakte und gegenseitige Einflüsse, AC vol. 62, tomus 1,
1993, pp. 66–99; and Gruys, Cartusiana, vol. 2.

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of their benefactor’s power and self-glorification while still alive, and family
mausoleums, with the assured intercession of the monks’ prayers, thus ensur-
ing the wellbeing of their souls after death.64 The Carthusians’ close ties with
the noble and powerful certainly guaranteed certain privileges, not least the
purchase and protection of the land they owned, which was often the cause
of legal disputes and open hostility with local farmers and landowners. In the
case of the Sienese charterhouses, the comune itself guaranteed protection
from claims on their properties advanced by nearby landowners and cities.65
But this balancing act between worldly pressures and semi-eremitical lifestyle
did not always go smoothly; problems could surface at the very early stages of
a new foundation. A good case in point was the building of the third Sienese
charterhouse, Belriguardo. It was never completed due to the interference of
the local bishop, family disputes regarding Niccolò Cinughi’s will, and the in-
volvement of the same Carthusians of Maggiano, who were in desperate need
of financial support themselves.66
Perhaps more importantly, Petroni’s unorthodox pastoral ministry conflict-
ed with the ideal of sainthood pursued by an order whose traditional motto
was “to make saints, not to publicize them”.67 Mostly withdrawn from the
world, and typically averse to publicity of any kind, the reticent Carthusians
had not much to offer for models of sanctity. Exalting an everyday saintliness,
as opposed to the spectacular displays of miracles easily exploited by hagiogra-
phers and capable of attracting crowds of pilgrims, the order’s ideal of sanctity
was more a matter of conforming one’s life to the will of God and keeping God
in one’s heart, rather than in pursuing expensive processes of canonization for
some of its members.68
In Scala’s account, there are two significant episodes pointing to the ten-
sions that Petroni’s saintly reputation among his followers created for his com-
munity at Maggiano: at his deathbed and some time after his burial. Both are

64 On the increasing role of intercessory prayer for the souls in purgatory in late medieval
Europe, and its impact on the spread of the Carthusian order, see Gelfand, “A Tale of Two
Dukes”, p. 217.
65 Giuliani, “L’ingresso e l’affermazione”, pp. 152–54.
66 On Belriguardo, see Giuliani, “L’ingresso e l’affermazione”, pp. 109–23. See also Tagliabue,
“Ildebrandino Conti”, pp. 563–69.
67 “Non sanctos patefacere, sed multos facere”, see Boglioni, P., “Miracolo e miracoli
nell’agiografia certosina delle origini”, in P. De Leo (ed.), San Bruno di Colonia un eremita
tra Oriente e Occidente, Soveria Mannelli, CT, 2004, p. 151.
68 On Carthusians’ approach to sanctity and canonization, see Bligny, Saint Bruno,
pp. 106–07; Martin, D., “Carthusians, Canonizations, and the Universal Call to Sanctity”, in
P. De Leo (ed.), San Bruno di Colonia un eremita tra Oriente e Occidente, Soveria Mannelli,
CT, 2004, pp. 197–215; and Martin, “Carthusians, Canonizations”, pp. 31–49.

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worth recounting. In Scala’s account, Colombini, Scala’s direct source Ciani,

and other close followers, were at Petroni’s deathbed and were making final
arrangements to kidnap Petroni’s body so it could be brought to Siena where
it could be properly venerated by the entire city. But the monastic commu-
nity was able to foil the plot, and Ciani and Colombini were no longer allowed
to visit.69
This attempt to ensure that Petroni’s body was not buried at Maggiano may
have certainly been devised by Petroni’s close followers because they soon re-
alized that any attempt to advance his cause for canonization, or venerate the
saint, would have clashed with the Carthusians’ wish to preserve the obser-
vance of their monastic practices and protect their community from drawing
large crowds of people to Maggiano.70 What we do know from the sources,
however, is that even though the community was able to bury Petroni in the
cemetery at Maggiano, the news of his death spread through a series of ap-
paritions of Petroni himself to nuns at Santa Marta (where a cousin of Petroni
was a nun), at Santa Petronilla, and elsewhere around Siena. Petroni eventually
appeared to Colombini himself, and while in ecstasy, Colombini heard the fol-
lowing divine revelation, almost an injunction to pursue the canonization of
his friend and advisor: “Blessed is that city of his homeland! Blessed are those
who will be devoted to this beloved of mine and blessed are those who will
seek his protection as they will find peace and rest for their souls.”71
It comes as no surprise that Petroni’s death did not prevent Sienese citizens
from visiting the cemetery at Maggiano where he was buried, and where many
miracles were reported thanks to his intercession over the following 60 years.
The community then, in 1421, “to avoid any occasion of scandal” secretly ex-
humed the body, which was found to be incorrupt.72 Once the news spread,
the community was no longer able to contain the flood of visitors who wanted
to see the venerable body, among whom there was also the famous Franciscan
friar and preacher Bernardino da Siena.73 The sources go on to report that, two

69 Petroni, “Un documento”, p. 138.

70 “parendo a loro che [il corpo del Beato Petrone] in Certosa non istesse bene, sì come
in Siena; dove sarebbe venerato per la sua santità”: Petroni, “Un documento”, p. 138. On
the Carthusian burial rite, see Laporte, Coutumes, pp. 188–97; Hogg, The Evolution of the
Carthusian Statutes, pp. 149–54; Bligny, Saint Bruno, pp. 106–107.
71 “Beata quella città della sua patria! Beato chi haverà in devozione questo mio diletto e
beato chi gli si darà in protezione poiché trovarà quiete e riposo all’anima sua”: Petroni,
“Un documento”, p. 139.
72 Petroni, “Un documento”, pp. 140–41.
73 Petroni, “Un documento”, p. 141.

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years later, Bernardino preached about the miracles performed by Petroni, in

Venice, so convincingly that soon the city had its own charterhouse.74
In the end, the prior was able to stop the series of miracles and visits to the
holy site when he ordered the dead Petroni to stop performing miracles, lest
the influx of people disturb their peace, and Petroni, even in death, obeyed the
orders of his superior.75 The body was then buried at a site known only to the
Carthusian community.76
If similar hagiographic accounts regarding Carthusians circulated in me-
dieval and modern times to stress the order’s separation from society, in the
case of Petroni they also represent yet another indication of the close contact
between late medieval Carthusians and the laity, which further challenges the
traditional image of Carthusians as secluded monks unperturbed by world-
ly affairs.77 Moreover, Petroni’s frequent visits with his group of followers at
Maggiano proves that the community was not completely cut off from the re-
ligious life in nearby Siena, and it also points to a range of possible social func-
tions performed by late medieval Carthusian monks that have not been fully
explored, such as spiritual counseling.78
Another relevant aspect of Sienese religious culture that Petroni’s episode
brings to light is the interconnection and mutual influence that existed among
several Sienese spiritual circles associated with charismatic and saintly figures.
At Petroni’s deathbed we find Ciani and Colombini, two of his closest disciples,
but also Santi Romito, who would later become a member of St Catherine’s
famiglia.79 And if Petroni had a strong influence on Colombini and his brigata,
so did Colombini on Catherine and her famiglia, as recent studies have shown.80
The circle comes to a full close with Catherine’s frequent contact with the

74 See NBC, vol. 3, “Venise”, p. 742.

75 The episode recalls similar ones involving, among others, the prior general of the
Carthusian order, Guigo II (1114–93), who was ordered by his successor Dom Jancelinus to
stop performing miracles that had attracted the surrounding people: Boglioni, “Miracolo”,
pp. 151–52.
76 Petroni, “Un documento”, p. 141.
77 See Molvarec, “Vox clamantis”, pp. 13–26.
78 On this topic, see the introduction and articles in Van Dijk, Faithful to the Cross, pp. 1–129.
79 On the relationship between Catherine and Fra Santi Romito, see Nacci, Tommaso di
Cafferino de’ and Tantucci A.A., Supplimento alla vulgata leggenda di S. Caterina da Siena,
che forma il tomo secondo della sua vita, scritta già in lingua latina dal B. Tommaso Nacci
Caffarini, ad ora ridotto nella italiana dal P. Amb. Ansano Tantucci, … Con annotazioni …
opera postuma, Lucca, 1754, pp. 262–63; and Gigli, Epistole 1.1, ed. F. Burlamacchi, Lucca,
1721, p. 748.
80 See especially Porzi, S., “Giovanni Colombini: un modèle de Catherine de Sienne occulté
par ses hagiographes?”, Cahiers d’Études Italiennes 15 (2012), pp. 37–65.

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Carthusian order, whose expansion she helped to promote, and whose spiri-
tual guidance she offered to entire Carthusian communities as well as individ-
ual monks through several of her letters.81 Stefano di Corrado Maconi, one of
her closest disciples and often scribe, would ensure her influence on the order
even after her death.82 As Maconi reported in his testimony in the Processo
Castellano, it was Catherine who, on her deathbed, exhorted him to become a
Carthusian, which he did by joining the community of Pontignano, where, in
just a few years he was elected prior. As a Carthusian, he eventually played a
pivotal role not only as prior general of the Urbanist faction of the order during
the western Schism, but also editing and disseminating Catherine’s writings,
thus spreading her cult throughout northern Europe.83
Sienese spiritual networks were mainly forged through personal encoun-
ters, as was true of Petroni and his followers, but also were shaped through

81 As with the Olivetans, Catherine addressed 13 letters to Carthusians: nos. 4, 39, 55,
141, 150, 154, 187, 201, 287, 315, 323, 331, and 335. The numbering follows the Misciattelli
and Tommaseo edition. As Giorgio Picasso and Francesco Santi have noted, some of
Catherine’s letters to the Carthusians develop important theological reflections on “the
interior cell”, and the primacy of reason. See Picasso, G., “Santa Caterina e il mondo mo-
nastico del suo tempo”, in D. Maffei and P. Nardi (eds.), Atti del Simposio internazionale
Cateriniano-Bernardiniano, Siena, 17–20 Aprile 1980, Siena, 1982, pp. 271–78; Santi, F., “La
scrittura nella scrittura di Caterina da Siena” in L. Leonardi and P. Tifone (eds.), Dire
l’ineffabile: Caterina da Siena e il linguaggio della mistica: atti del convegno (Siena, 13–14 no-
vembre 2003), Florence, 2006, pp. 41–69; Giuliani, “L’ingresso e l’affermazione”, pp. 155–60.
Vivid testimonies by the Carthusians Bartolomeo da Ravenna and Maconi are included
in Centi, T.S., Belloni A., and Laurent M.-H., (eds.), Il processo castellano: Santa Caterina
da Siena nelle testimonianze al processo di canonizzazione di Venezia, Florence, 2009,
pp. xi, xii, xiv, xv, xix, xli, lii, liii, lxiv, lxxi–lxxiii, 53, 64, 72, 79, 82, 255, 256, 257–73, 274, 277.
See also, Baglioni, A., “S. Caterina da Siena e l’Ordine della Certosa”, Inquadramenti storici;
Quaderni Cateriniani 9 (1975), pp. 65–107.
82 On Maconi, see Bartolomeo da Siena, De vita et moribus Beati Stephani Maconi Senensis
Cartusiani, Ticinensis Cartusiae olim Coenobiarchae, Libri quinque, Siena, 1626; Leoncini,
“Un certosino del tardo medioevo: Don Stefano Maconi”, pp. 54–107, in J. Hogg (ed.), Die
Ausbreitung kartäusischen Lebens und Geistes im Mittelalter, AC 63.2; and Luongo, F.T., The
Saintly Politics of Catherine of Siena, Ithaca, NY, 2006, pp. 149–55. As Luongo observes
(p. 140), Maconi and other members of Catherine’s famiglia, mostly scions of Sienese
noble families, were originally from the terzo of San Martino where the Petroni had their
stronghold.
83 On this topic, see in particular Nocentini, S., “The Legenda Maior of Catherine of Siena.”,
in C. Muessig, G. Ferzoco, and B. Mayne Kienzle, (eds.), A Companion to Catherine of
Siena, Leiden, 2012, pp. 339–61; and Claassens, G.H.M., “Ende gaet inder sartroeysen or-
dine. De kartuizers en de Catharina van Siena-cultus in de Lage Landen”, in S.J. Molvarec
and T. Gaens (eds.), A Fish Out of Water?: From Contemplative Solitude to Carthusian
Involvement in Pastoral Care and Reform Activity, Leuven, 2013, pp. 211–30.

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intense literary output in the vernacular.84 Hagiographic texts in the volgare

became increasingly popular, as the genre underwent a significant transforma-
tion in the course of the 14th century. As Claudio Leonardi has pointed out,
hagiographic narratives of “non-canonized” saintly and mystical figures—
commissioned and often written by followers and supporters for more local
and private fruition, and without the direct approval of the official Church—
became a widespread phenomenon.85 While pointing to an intense religious
activity from the “bottom up”, these hagiographical accounts were also a clear
sign of lay devotional practices not entirely brought under ecclesiastical con-
trol, or at least not yet. In this category falls the Vita of Petroni authored by
Colombini, as well as the life of Colombini written by Cristofano di Gano
Guidini, a Sienese notary and one of Catherine’s close followers. Although
both accounts did not survive the test of time, they were later translated and
adapted for more public and official purposes. As noted earlier, Colombini’s
life of Petroni was translated into Latin by the Carthusian Bartolomeo Scala,
and later printed in the Acta Sanctorum. Guidini’s life of Colombini became
one of the sources for Feo Belcari’s Vita del beato Giovanni Colombini (1449),
which was dedicated to Giovanni di Cosimo de’ Medici.86
But the literary form that gave full expression to Siena’s religious experience
was vernacular letter writing. This “lowbrow” genre, whose popularity was cer-
tainly favored by its lack of formal rules and techniques, was used for a variety
of reasons, including the revelation of spiritual truths, spiritual counseling,
confession, and requests for prayers. Traditionally associated with “feminine”
modes of religious practices, expressions, and experiences, the epistolary
genre became instead, in late medieval Siena, fertile ground for crossing and
challenging boundaries between male and female, private and public, and re-
ligious and political discourse. The Augustinian monk Girolamo da Siena’s let-
ters are a good example of spiritual direction primarily intended for female lay
communities or lay tertiaries.87 Similarly, the majority of Colombini’s letters
were addressed to the abbess and the nuns of Santa Bonda whom he would
often visit and where he found spiritual rest and comfort. The long-lasting
spiritual friendship between William Flete—another Augustinian monk at the
hermitage of Lecceto, a few miles from Siena, and a prominent religious figure

84 According to the sources, Petroni wrote letters as well, but none are extant: Petroni,
“Un documento”, p. 138 n. 1.
85 Leonardi, C., Medioevo latino: la cultura dell’Europa Cristiana, Florence, 2004, pp. 650–55.
86 Belcari, F., Vita del beato Giovanni Colombini da Siena, ed. A. Cesari, Verona, 1817, p. 20. See
also Gagliardi, I pauperes, pp. 351–52.
87 See Pignatti, F., “Girolamo da Siena”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 56 (2001),
ad vocem.

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in Siena and Tuscany—and St Catherine was sustained through their episto-

lary correspondence.88
Although Petroni’s letters are no longer extant, both Colombini and
Catherine made extensive use of letter writing.89 Their epistolary communica-
tion with friends and followers, considered among the highest achievements
of Sienese mystical prose, was not only intended to convey spiritual truths,
but was used for very practical reasons: to communicate one’s whereabouts,
wellbeing, and apostolate, and to report relevant news. For this reason, letters
addressed to specific individuals often implied a larger audience and were in-
tended to be copied and disseminated among followers and supporters, thus
reaching beyond their immediate circles.
However, if there is a common thread running through these three figures,
it is no doubt discernible in their visionary, prophetic voice. Prophets receive
divine revelations and visions that are ultimately intended for the faithful.
While the mystical experience is generally confined to an intimate and private
dialogue between God and the soul, which may or may not be communicated
to the outer world, prophets are primarily called to become vessels of divinely
inspired messages directed to the entire community. As Claudio Leonardi has
observed, the prophetic act, however, is less the announcement of a future
event, and more intended as “guidance” for human acts and behavior within
the public and historical sphere. The prophet is therefore a charismatic, public
person whose authority relies only on God, and on his own, often controversial
and unusual, word.90
Petroni, Colombini, and Catherine’s spiritual authority was characterized
by a similar synergy of the prophetic and the political as they not only guided
and converted the faithful to act according to God’s will, but promoted a clear
reformist agenda, both ecclesiastical and socio-political in scope. Already in

88 A comparison of the language used in the epistolari of Colombini and Catherine, through
a quick search of the Opera del vocabolario italiano online corpus, reveals fascinating re-
sults with regard to lexical choices and number of occurrences of specific forms. These
are not only remarkably similar, but ultimately point to a common vision of the sweet
and redeeming (the adjectives dolce and crocifisso are by far the most used adjectives in
both), love of Christ for humanity, and zeal for the conversion of souls; Librandi, R., “Dal
lessico delle ‘Lettere’ di Caterina da Siena: la concretezza della fusione”, in L. Leonardi and
P. Tifone (eds.), Dire l’ineffabile: Caterina da Siena e il linguaggio della mistica: atti del con-
vegno (Siena, 13–14 novembre 2003), Florence, 2006, pp. 19–40; and Gagliardi, I pauperes,
pp. 138–50.
89 On Catherine’s letter writing, see especially Luongo, The Saintly Politics, pp. 56–89.
90 See Leonardi, Medioevo Latino, p. 656.

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Petroni’s “knowledge of hearts”,91 which is another prophetic attribute, we can

discern a reformist mode of intervention and engagement in the religious and
cultural currents of his time. Viewed in this perspective, Petroni’s prophecy
delivered to Boccaccio could be seen as less a fanatical religious act intended
to stir fear in an afterlife punishment for Boccaccio’s profane literary pursuits,
than a call to embrace more sober, religious, and divinely inspired studies.92
Moreover, his unorthodox outreach to the influential and powerful elites, to
whom his prophecies were mainly addressed, clearly anticipates Catherine’s
own bold use of letter writing as a way to “shrink the distance” between her-
self, a semi-illiterate Dominican tertiary, and the most prominent political and
religious leaders of her day, thus crossing traditional socio-cultural boundaries.
If Catherine’s own campaigns for the return of the papacy to Rome, the es-
tablishment of a lasting peace across the Italian peninsula, and the start of a
new crusade against nonbelievers—intended to provide “macropolitical” solu-
tions to a grim and suffering world—are well known, Colombini’s letters, also
reveal a reformist stand and a series of spiritual practices that ultimately, in
their “micropolitical” approach, were capable of sowing resistance and trans-
formation as well.93 His message of evangelic poverty, his cherished “santa
ricca povertà”—reminiscent of, and undoubtedly inspired by, Francis’ own
mystic marriage to Lady Poverty—challenged social structures based on com-
merce and private enterprise that was clearly a threat to the fabric of cities like
Siena, which may have been one the reasons for his banishment.94 Moreover,
his refusal to accept sacred orders for himself and his followers was a clear sign
of resistance against the clericalization of his order, and which most likely was
inspired by Petroni’s own refusal to be ordained.95 Finally, his frequent contact

91 “… dentro la sua cella vedeva e conosceva come se li havesse havute presenti l’operazioni
esterne e conosceva anco l’intime et i pensieri occulti …”: Petroni, “Un documento”, p. 136.
92 Filtered through Petrarch’s letter, however, what seems to emerge more clearly is a cer-
tain kind of intellectual authority which is opposed to prophecy of any kind. This topic
comes up again in other letters written to Boccaccio. Moreover, if Petroni’s involvement
in the spiritual life of his fellow citizens was clearly at odds with the Carthusian cus-
toms, that was not the case for his visionary-prophetic activity. According to tradition,
the order originated from a vision of St. Hugh of Grenoble. See Louf, “Saint Bruno”, p. 216.
On Carthusians and the visionary tradition, see Martin, D., “Carthusians as Advocates of
Women Visionary Reformers”, in J.M. Luxford (ed.), Studies in Carthusian Monasticism in
the Late Middle Ages, Turnhout, 2008, pp. 127–54.
93 For a detailed treatment of Catherine’s politics, see Luongo, The Saintly Politics, especially
pp. 157–202.
94 See Gagliardi, “Relations”, p. 194; Colombini and Misciattelli, Le lettere, pp. 9–10.
95 See n. 58 above.

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and epistolary exchange with the nuns of Santa Bonda questioned and chal-
lenged traditional gender roles, in particular, with regard to spiritual friendship
and counseling.96
The final and perhaps most relevant aspect that emerges from Petroni’s epi-
sode, which scholars have often failed to recognize, has to do with the nature
of the prophecy itself. Far from representing an isolated and inconsequential
attack on the pursuits of secular letters on the part of an overly zealous monk
addressed to Boccaccio, Petroni’s prophecy should be seen as part of a more
encompassing critique that, as revealed in Petrarch’s letter, was intended to
reach several others scholars, including Petrarch himself.97 As such, it tapped
into a growing tension between clerics’ religious authority, with their support
of cultural austerity, and the classical humanism promoted by an increasing
number of scholars. The latter began to assert the distinctive role of humanae
litterae, as opposed to sacrae litterae, or, indeed, acknowledged the importance
of studia humanitatis in the development of studia divinitatis.98
By the time Petroni’s disciple visited Boccaccio, the long-lasting debate
on the virtues, or lack thereof, of poetry had already seen, on the one hand,
Albertino Mussato and Dante’s defenses of poetry as a source of truth and of
the poeta-theologus as capable of revealing such truth, one that is consistent
with the divine truth revealed in Scripture, through poetic language.99 On the
other, the scholastic approach, particularly championed by Dominican friars

96 See Colombini and Misciattelli, Le lettere, p. 19.

97 Dotti and Nota, Le Senili, vol. 1, p. 68: “Nunc, quantum ex tibi dictis elicio, nos duos ali-
osque nonnullos ex hac vita discedens ille vir sanctus vidit, ad quos quedam secretiora
committeret huic sue huiusmodi ultime voluntatis executor industrio, ut tu extimas, ac
fideli.” (“Now here is what I gather from what was said to you: as the holy man [Pietro]
departed from this life, he had a vision of us two and some others, and entrusted some
confidential information for all of us to this executor of his last will whom you believe
conscientious and loyal.”): see Bernardo, on Petrarch’s Letters of Old Age, Seniles, p. 17.
98 On the “collective” nature of Petroni’s prophecy, see Boccaccio, G., Tutte le Opere del
Boccaccio, ed. V. Branca, vol. 1, Milan, 1964, p. 125. The “prophecy” incident may have
had also some bearing on the unconfirmed report, circulating at the time, of Boccaccio
becoming a Carthusian monk at the charterhouse of San Martino in Naples. Francesco
Sacchetti even wrote a sonnet, no. 150 on the topic in Sacchetti, F., Il trecentonovelle, ed.
Antonio Lanza, Florence, 1984, p. 184, that, as Ricci suggests, may have been written dur-
ing Boccaccio’s last trip to Naples in October 1362, after being invited there by Niccolò
Acciaioli. See Cursi, M., Il Decameron: scritture, scriventi, lettori, Roma, 2007, pp. 26, 32.
99 Mussato’s epistolary exchange with the Dominican Giovannino da Mantova took
place in 1315. For a detailed account of the debate, see Garin, E., Il pensiero pedagogico
dell’Umanesimo, Florence, 1958, pp. vii–xxviii. The most recent critical edition of Mussato’s
letters is Mussato, A., Écérinide: Épîtres métriques sur la poésie; Songe, J.-F. Chevalier, (ed.),
Paris, 2000.

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and preachers, defied such claims on the basis of a Thomistic view—somewhat

misconstrued—of poetry as more conducive to vain aesthetic, intellectual
pleasures rather than universal truths, and which thus endangered those
lacking a firm foundation in the Christian faith. With Petrarch’s letters (espe-
cially Familiares 1.8, and Familiares 10.4 to his Carthusian brother Gherardo)
and some of his treatises (particularly the Invective contra medicum, the De
sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia, and the Collatio laureationis), Boccaccio’s
Genealogie deorum gentilium (specifically books 14–15), and later, Coluccio
Salutati’s letters, including his response to the Dominican Giovanni Dominici’s
treatise Lucula Noctis (c.1405), the debate pitting “scholastics” against “human-
ists” reached its more mature and polemical phase.100 During this time, the
emphasis shifted from whether poetry was an authentic scientia, to proving
the compatibility of the classical, pagan, cultural tradition with the moral
demands of the Christian faith.101 Simply put, while for the clerical conserva-
tives pagan texts represented a moral threat for both the learned and unedu-
cated, for the humanist “poets” the imitatio auctorum, namely the assiduous
study of the great classical and pagan authors, was not only crucial for
Christians’ eruditio moralis, but was essential for the educational renewal they
vigorously embraced.
In his letter to Boccaccio, brought about by Petroni’s prophecy, Petrarch elo-
quently presents an impressive range of arguments in favor of pagan learning

100 While admittedly reductive, this clear-cut distinction between the two groups is nonethe-
less a useful hermeneutical tool. Since limitations of space prevent an exhaustive treat-
ment of the topic, suffice it here to say that the contrast between the two groups in reality
is often less discernible. The same positions of those defending poetry were far from uni-
vocal. For example, Petrarch focused his defense on classical poetry (written in Latin),
whereas Boccaccio saw in Dante’s Comedy a worthy example of vernacular poetry capable
of revealing theological truths. Salutati’s defense, inconsistent at best, was focused on
poetry as an art and as part of philosophy and theology. For a useful and concise synthesis
of the debate, see Greenfield, C.C., Humanist and Scholastic Poetics, 1250–1500, Lewisburg,
PA, 1981. See also Billanovich G., Petrarca e il primo umanesimo Padua, 2000, pp. 473–77;
and Trinkhaus, C., In Our Image and Likeness, vol. 2, Notre Dame, IN, 1995, pp. 553–614.
101 The dispute was prolonged in later writings, which include, among others: Ermolao
Barbaro il Vecchio’s polemical response to Fra Bartolomeo da Lendinara; Francesco da
Fiano’s Contra oblocutores et detractores poetarum; and Savonarola’s Apologetico writ-
ten between 1491–94 in reply to a letter by Ugolino Vieri, also known as il Verino. See
Barbaro, E., Orationes contra poetas. Epistolae, ed. G. Ronconi, Florence, 1972. On Fiano,
see Baron, H., The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican
Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny, Princeton, 1966, pp. 301–11. On Savonarola
and Verino, see Girardi, E.N., “L’Apologetico del Savonarola e il problema di una poesia
Cristiana”, Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica 44.5 (1952), pp. 412–31; See also Foster, K.,
“Christ and Letters: the Religion of Early Humanists”, Blackfriars, vol. 44 no. 514 (1963),
pp. 148–56.

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110 Yocum

and secular letters. With surgical precision, he distinguishes between the two
main causes of Boccaccio’s distress: the foretelling of his death, and the pro-
hibition to cultivate poetry. Regarding the first, Petrarch reminds Boccaccio
of our mortality; the only positive side is that it leads to another life: “What
is Christ, if not the death of the body and the life of the spirit? So let us die
together with Him that we may live with Him.”102 As for the second part of
Petroni’s prophecy, Petrarch articulates a defense of “poetice studium”, main-
taining that religious superstition should not stand in the way of reason, virtue,
and faith. Moreover, he reminds Boccaccio that in old age, literature and poetry
are the only comfort and pleasure left before death, as classical and Christian
authors have shown (Cato and Augustine among others). He then goes on
to remark that while there are many “who have attained the highest saintli-
ness without literature”, he knows of “no one excluded from it by literature”.103
But perhaps more importantly, Petrarch observes that without the knowledge
and eloquence learned from the classics, the Fathers of the Church would not
have been able to do justice to Christianity and defend it against heresies.
In short, Petrarch reassures Boccaccio by writing: “We must not be scared
away from literature either by the exhortation to virtue or by the pretext of
approaching death.”104
Petroni’s prophecy no doubt put Siena on the map of one of the most sig-
nificant debates of the time. On a more superficial level, his attempt to convert
Boccaccio to more worthy literary pursuits, thus influencing the course of the
Italian literary cultural tradition, may be seen as one last attempt for Siena,
entrenched in its traditionalist piety and populist religiosity, to gain the upper
hand on its rival Florence, whose embrace of classical learning was already
opening the door to the Renaissance.105 But of course the picture is more com-
plex than that. A good case in point emerges with the same preaching of that
other towering Sienese religious figure, Bernardino da Siena, who in his popu-
lar sermons would go on to offer similar views on pagan texts (mainly Ovid)
as those of his compatriot Petroni, and rail against Boccaccio’s “bestialità”

102 Dotti and Nota, Le Senili, vol. 1, p. 82: “Quid est Cristus nisi mors corporis, spiritus vita?
Et ideo commoriamur cum Eo ut vivamus cum Eo.” Bernardo, Letters of Old Age, Seniles
vol. 1, pp. 17–18.
103 Dotti and Nota, Le Senili, vol. 1, p. 96: “Scio multos ad sanctitatem eximiam sine literis
pervenisse; nullum literis hinc exclusum scio”. English translation in Bernardo, Letters of
Old Age, vol. 1, p. 25. “Literature” is intended here as Latin letters in general.
104 Dotti and Nota, Le Senili, vol. 1, p. 90: “Non sumus aut exhortatione virtutis aut vicine
mortis obtentu a literis deterrendi.” English translation in Bernardo, Letters of Old Age,
vol. 1, p. 23.
105 Connected to this may also be the linguistic disputes at the time regarding Latin vs. the
vernacular, but that is a topic for another study.

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Siena ’ s Religious Culture and Carthusian Monasticism 111

(like the Corbaccio), but while also praising the work of Dante, Petrarch,
and Salutati.106
Following Petrarch’s argument that classical literature shaped the most ef-
fective and brilliant Christian apologetic writing, we are in a position to argue
that without the contrasting voices coming from these traditionalist clerics
some of the most well-known humanist scholars might not have written their
influential defenses of the values of classical learning and, more broadly speak-
ing, of secular letters, with all the implications that this entails.107 Therefore,
not only do we have in Petroni an important representative of Sienese religious
culture, who played a role in inspiring a distinctive vernacular religious litera-
ture, but in his prophecy we can also discern one of the voices that helped to
shape the ideals and values that inspired Renaissance humanism.
Seen from this perspective, a final and ironic twist in Petroni’s story is worth
mentioning. As Victoria Kirkham has recently shown, a descendant of our
Petroni, the letterato Abbot Riccardo Petroni (born c.1680)—known as the
Inviluppato among his fellow members of the Accademia degli Intronati—
in 1731 rewrote five tales from Boccaccio’s Decameron, and in blank verse!
Intended “as exercise or entertainment”, Abbot Petroni’s five novelle108 may
have made our 14th-century Carthusian monk turn in his grave at the sight of
his descendant spending most of his time versifying Boccaccio’s tales and writ-
ing poetry (7000 verses in all). But, as this reassessment of Petroni’s too easily
pigeonholed figure aims to show, perhaps not, especially if he was also able to
foresee his pious descendant transposing in verse a homily by Clement XI, and
trying his hand at Dante’s terza rima with a pastoral epistle written by Siena’s
archbishop Alessandro Zondadari.

106 This, however, did not prevent him from using, through a variety of strategies of reappro-
priation, several tales from the Decameron as homiletic exempla, see: Maldina, N., “Lettori
devoti. Boccaccio e la cultura religiosa tra Medioevo e Rinascimento”, in G.M. Anselmi
(ed.), Boccaccio e i suoi lettori: una lunga ricezione, Bologna, 2013, pp. 229–42; Bernardino
da Siena, Le prediche volgari, ed. C. Cannarozzi, Florence, 1940, pp. 311–12.
107 I am referring in particular here to Coluccio Salutati’s epistolary exchange with Giovanni
da San Miniato (a Camaldolese monk) and his response to Giovanni Dominici (a
Dominican). It is also true that many of these defenses were self-initiated or internal to a
specific group that was debating a certain kind of poetics.
108 I am indebted here to Victoria Kirkham exhaustive study of Abbot Petroni’s poetics, in
Kirkham, V., “The Decamerone in Arcadia: Riccardo Petroni’s Blank Verse Anthology of
1731 (University of Pennsylvania, MS. COD. 348)”, Studi sul Boccaccio 41 (2013), pp. 339–77,
esp. p. 348.

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112 Yocum

5.1 Note on the Text

Excerpt cited from Petroni, V., “Un documento inedito sul beato Petrone
Petroni certosino,” BSSP 56 (1949), p. 139. A previous version of this article was
delivered in 2013 at the conference “The Monk, The Priest, The Nun”, organized
by the Italian Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Among the
friends and colleagues gathered for the occasion who offered valuable sugges-
tions and insights, which have been incorporated throughout, I would like to
thank in particular Victoria Kirkham and David Bowe. Special thanks are also
due to David G. Lummus and Stephen J. Molvarec S.J. who have helped me im-
prove this essay. Unless otherwise noted, translations are mine.

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 chapter 6

The Marian Altarpieces of Pietro and

Ambrogio Lorenzetti

Sheri F. Shaneyfelt

Abstract

The brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti (active c.1306–45 and c.1317–48, respec-
tively), working in Siena in the first half of the Trecento, emerged from the circle of
Duccio di Buoninsegna (active 1278–1318) to become true innovators in the history of
Sienese painting. They dominated the city artistically and received the most important
local commissions after the departure of their contemporary Simone Martini (active
1315–44) for Avignon, France in the mid-1330s. This essay will focus on the Marian al-
tarpieces that the Lorenzetti painted for ecclesiastical and civic patrons in their native
Siena. As Mary was considered the protector saint of the Sienese Republic, known as
the Vetusta Civitas Virginis, “the Ancient city of the Virgin”, there were a large num-
ber of altarpieces produced by leading artists dedicated specifically to her. While the
grandest and most famous among these is certainly Duccio’s Maestà, the Lorenzetti
also created inventive single and multi-paneled works in various formats, both for the
cathedral and for the urban religious orders, as well as for the Commune. An analysis
of these pictures will provide a greater understanding of Siena’s artistic heritage, pat-
terns of art patronage, and particular devotion to the Virgin, while broadening our
knowledge of the city’s unique visual culture, focusing on the 14th century.

In order to better understand the role of the Lorenzetti brothers and to con-
textualize their place in the development of Sienese painting, it is necessary to
consider its history.1 The earliest painter working in the city whose name and
style are known with some certainty was Guido da Siena (active c.1260–80s),
who is thereby usually considered the first named “Sienese artist”. Examples
of panel painting before c.1250 are few, and by unknown masters, thus the im-
portance ascribed to Guido as a founder of the Sienese school, despite uncer-
tainty regarding the dating and authorship of some of the works associated

1 My sincere gratitude to Christopher M.S. Johns for his careful reading of an earlier draft of
this essay.

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114 Shaneyfelt

with him. One of the lynchpins of his style is the so-called “Dossal no. 7”, rep-
resenting The Madonna and Child with Saints Francis, John the Baptist, John
the Evangelist, and Mary Magdalene, dated to the 1270s based on a partially
damaged inscription.2 The altarpiece, horizontal in orientation and gabled, is
of the type thought to have been invented by Guido. It was originally in the
Church of San Francesco, in Colle di Val d’Elsa near Siena, and was significantly
larger, with two additional saints to either side that were likely of particular
relevance to the Franciscan order.3 Another influential altarpiece by Guido is
the so-called Palazzo Pubblico Madonna, a large panel depicting the Madonna
and Child enthroned with angels that was originally placed on the high altar
of San Domenico in Siena, and was recently returned to a chapel within the
church. It is inscribed with the name of the artist and a date, 1221, that has
been convincingly argued not to represent the date of execution, which should
be set at c.1270–80, but rather the death of St Dominic himself in that year, an
event of significant chronological importance to the Sienese Dominicans who
would have worshipped at this altar.4
As demonstrated by these two works by Guido da Siena for the Franciscans
and Dominicans, the religious orders were among the most important patrons
of art in Trecento Siena. The principal orders in the city included not only the
two aforementioned, but also the Augustinians, Servites, and Carmelites, each
of which would have been established in a particular parish.5 Devotion to the
Virgin Mary was an integral part of religious practice for the members of all
of these orders, and they are thought to have extended and greatly promoted
her veneration in the city, even beyond the long-standing dedication of the
city’s cathedral to her originating the century prior.6 Our analysis of Marian
works by Sienese masters, especially those by the Lorenzetti, will thereby nec-
essarily include a number of distinctive commissions from these religious or-
ganizations, in addition to the high-profile series of works intended for Siena
Cathedral and for the civic entities of the Palazzo Pubblico (the city’s town
hall) and the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala.

2 Stubblebine, J.H., Guido da Siena, Princeton, 1964, p. 8, and pp. 24–27, cat. no. 2. The altar-
piece is in the Siena Pinacoteca: see Torriti, P., La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena: i dipinti dal
XII al XV secolo, Genoa, pp. 26–27, cat. no. 7.
3 Stubblebine, Guido da Siena, pp. 8, 24.
4 Stubblebine, Guido da Siena, pp. 30–42, cat. no. 4a; Van Os, H., Sienese Altarpieces, 1215–1460:
Form, Content, Function, 2 vols., Groningen, 1984, pp. 26, 28–29. The panel was much repaint-
ed by Duccio’s workshop in the early 14th century.
5 Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces, p. 21.
6 Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces, p. 21.

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The Marian Altarpieces of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti 115

Guido da Siena’s most notable successor in Siena was Duccio da Buonin­

segna, the most important and influential artist of the early Sienese School.
Duccio, along with the Florentine artist Cimabue (c.1240–1302), is considered a
founder of Western European painting. Duccio’s great masterpiece, the monu-
mental double-sided Maestà of 1308–11, served as the high altarpiece of Siena
Cathedral for nearly 200 years, until 1506.7 It was the largest altarpiece of its
day and likely the largest ever created in Italy, at originally over 16 feet high and
15 wide. It was widely influential on his contemporaries, followers, and later
Sienese artists. Upon its completion on 9 June 1311, the polyptych of potentially
as many as 70 panels was paraded through the city streets amongst great fan-
fare, as described by the chronicler Agnolo di Tura del Grasso in c.1350:

And thus, the women and children went through Siena with much devo-
tion and around the Campo in procession, ringing all the bells for joy,
and this entire day the shops stayed closed for devotions, and throughout
Siena they gave many alms to the poor people, with many speeches and
prayers to God and to his mother, Madonna ever Virgin Mary, who helps,
preserves and increases in peace the good state of the city of Siena and
its territory, as advocate and protectress of that city, and who defends the
city from all danger and all evil.8

The role of the Maestà in presenting Mary not only as a sovereign holy figure,
but also as patron and protector of the city—and of the artist—is emphasized
by the manner in which Duccio inscribed the altarpiece on the footstool of
Mary’s throne: “Holy Mother of God, be the cause of peace for Siena, and of
life for Duccio because he has painted thee thus”.9 Kneeling in the foreground
at the base of Mary’s throne are the four patron saints of Siena—Ansanus,
Savinus, Crescentius, and Victor (from the viewer’s left to right)—serving as
intercessors on behalf of their city and its citizens, imploring the Mother of
God for divine guardianship.

7 Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces, p. 43; White, J., Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop,
New York, 1979, pp. 18, 80; it is now in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.
8 Stubblebine, J.H., Duccio di Buoninsegna and his School, Princeton, 1979, pp. 33–34; Van Os,
Sienese Altarpieces, p. 39. The precise authorship and date of the Agnolo di Tura chronicle are
debated: see Norman, D., Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State,
New Haven, CT, 1999, p. 219 n. 50.
9 “MATER SCA DEI SIS CAUSA SENIS REQUIEI SIS DUCIO VITA TE QUIA PINXIT
ITA”: Stubblebine, Duccio di Buoninsegna, p. 32.

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116 Shaneyfelt

Simone Martini’s magisterial fresco of the Maestà was painted a few years
later in c.1311–16, for a civic rather than an ecclesiastical setting. It remains
in situ covering the entirety of the east wall in the Council Chamber of the
Palazzo Pubblico, then known as the Sala del Consiglio.10 However, its format
was based on Duccio’s polyptych, and in the foreground nearest the viewer,
the same four patron saints of the city kneel, interceding with Mary on behalf
of the Civitas Virginis. It was indeed the Virgin Mary, shown here as the Regina
Coeli, or Queen of Heaven, who thus also presided over the Consiglio Generale
della Repubblica, the governing body of the city comprised of a few hundred
men who met in this hall, the largest in the building.11 Her supervisory role in
the city’s most important political venue is not surprising, given that as early
as 1250, an enthroned Mary already appeared on the official seal of the Siena
Commune with the dictum, “May the Virgin preserve Siena the ancient, whose
loveliness may she seal”.12
Simone is considered by most scholars as one of Duccio’s most original and
imaginative pupils, and as one of his assistants in the execution of the master’s
own Maestà for the cathedral. Together with his brother-in-law, Lippo Memmi
(active c.1317–56), Simone later completed an innovative Annunciation to the
Virgin, signed and dated 1333. This painting occupies a crucial place in the his-
tory of art as the first known example in which this narrative is the princi-
pal subject of an altarpiece. It was also originally placed in Siena Cathedral as
one of the five sizeable Marian works on panel commissioned for the church
in the Trecento.13 In fact, Simone’s Annunciation was ordered as part of the
same decorative liturgical program to narrate the life of the Virgin as Pietro
Lorenzetti’s Birth of the Virgin (Fig. 6.1) and Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Presentation
in the Temple (Fig. 6.2). Thus, the Lorenzetti are an integral component in the
great flowering of Sienese Trecento art inspired by Duccio and further devel-
oped by Simone Martini.
By the mid-1330s, Simone had moved to Avignon, the seat of the papacy
from 1309 to 1377, and it was the Lorenzetti brothers who then rose to artistic

10 Precise dating of Simone’s Maestà is problematic; work may have begun as early as 1311,
and while likely completed in 1316, it is known that repairs were made to it as late as 1321.
See Norman, Siena and the Virgin, p. 50; Martindale, A., Simone Martini, New York, 1988,
pp. 17, 207–08, cat. no. 35.
11 Norman, Siena and the Virgin, pp. 52–53, explains that the composition of the council,
and thus the Maestà’s audience, could range from 200–500 men at any given assembly,
depending on attendance.
12 White, Duccio, p. 95: “Salvet Virgo senam veterem quam signat amenam”. Also quoted in
Norman, Siena and the Virgin, p. 59.
13 For more on the altarpiece, now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, see Martindale, Simone
Martini, pp. 41–43, 187–90, cat. no. 12.

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The Marian Altarpieces of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti 117

prominence in Siena, especially Ambrogio, who soon operated the busiest

workshop in the city. For many artists, like the Lorenzetti and Simone and
Lippo, their craft was a family trade, and this was especially true in a small
provincial center such as Siena. The Lorenzetti are likewise presumed to have
emerged from the workshop of Duccio, and their characteristic styles are a syn-
thesis of his manner and the influences of their Sienese contemporaries, the
sculpture of Giovanni Pisano, artists in the circle of Giotto di Bondone, and, for
Pietro Lorenzetti specifically, artists working in Assisi. Pietro is thought to have
been the eldest of the two brothers, and in addition to the extensive cycle of
celebrated frescoes in the Lower Church at San Francesco in Assisi, he execut-
ed Tuscan commissions, not only in the province of Siena but also in Arezzo
and Cortona. It is usually assumed that both Pietro and Ambrogio died in the
devastating outbreak of the Black Plague that wiped out about two-thirds of
the population in Siena in 1348.
Two major altarpieces completed by Pietro Lorenzetti for Sienese ecclesi-
astical patrons survive: the aforementioned Birth of the Virgin of 1342 for the
cathedral, to be discussed in more detail, and the earlier Carmelite Altarpiece
of 1329, a polyptych now in the Siena Pinacoteca that was executed for the high
altar of the Church of San Niccolò (Fig. 6.3). The central panel of the Carmelite
Altarpiece is signed beneath the Madonna’s throne: “Pietro Lorenzetti of Siena
painted me in the year 1329”.14 The Madonna and Child are adored by four an-
gels who encircle the back of the throne, with St Nicholas to the front left,
and the Prophet Elijah at the right. Four additional figures initially flanked the
Madonna, including the Prophet Elisha and John the Baptist, and Saints Agnes
and Catherine, who were likely positioned at the far left and right.15 This is the
first known example in Sienese painting in which full-length standing figures
are represented flanking an enthroned Mary, as the preference prior to this
date was evidently for half-length figures, although examples of the former are
known to have existed earlier in Florence. The main scene of the predella is
preserved. It is a broad horizontal narrative with a continuous landscape back-
ground that represents the Patriarch Albert Consigning the Rule to Brocard, an
event of c.1210 of significant historical importance to the Carmelite Order, and
thus its featured position in the lower center of the altarpiece, nearest the eye
of the viewer.

14 “PETRUS LAURENTII DE SENIS ME PINSIT A. D. MCCCXXVIII[I]”. See Torriti, La

Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, pp. 97–103; Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces, p. 91.
15 Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces, pp. 91–97. John the Baptist and Elisha are now in the Norton
Simon Museum, Pasadena.

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118 Shaneyfelt

Reconstructions of the Carmelite Altarpiece allow for a complex assembly of

as many as 18 to 20 or more panels, including the central Madonna and Child
enthroned, the additional four standing prophets and virgin martyrs with a
series of half-length Apostles above, and four smaller predelle in addition to
the central composition, one at the base of each flanking figure.16 Despite its
presently dismantled state, it is clear that the intent of this monumental polyp-
tych was to provide a declaration and visual history of the Carmelite Order,
overseen and protected by the Virgin Mary. The Catholic Church not only
recognized the Virgin’s special patronage of the order, but the Carmelites are
the only such group to claim an origin in the Old Testament era through the
Prophet Elijah, on Mount Carmel in ancient Israel, and his successor, Elisha,
and thus both were shown prominently, and full-length, in close proximity to
Mary at the center of the altarpiece.17 The Christ Child even looks directly at
Elijah, engaging him while gesturing toward the text that he holds in an act
of recognition and approval, and thereby substantiating the legitimacy of the
order’s origins.
Pietro’s last surviving work is The Birth of the Virgin, also called The
St Savinus Altarpiece, documented from 1335 and completed in 1342, when the
artist signed it “Pietro Lorenzetti of Siena painted me in the year 1342” (see
Fig. 6.1).18 It was destined for the altar of St Savinus in Siena Cathedral where
his remains are interred, as he was one of the city’s patron saints and was rep-
resented in the Maestà paintings by both Duccio and Simone, together with
Saints Ansanus, Crescentius, and Victor. The sizeable, widely known triptych
that survives today in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Siena was original-
ly the core of a larger altarpiece that included two flanking images of Saints
Savinus and Bartholomew, together with a predella. Presumed lost, the accom-
panying saints are known only from a cathedral inventory of 1429, whereas a
fragment of the predella representing St Savinus Before the Roman Governor of

16 See, for example, Monciatti, A., “Pietro Lorenzetti”, in C. Frugoni (ed.), Pietro e Ambrogio
Lorenzetti, Florence, 2002, pp. 63–64; Maginnis, H.B.J., “Pietro Lorenzetti’s Carmelite
Madonna: a Reconstruction”, Pantheon 33 (1975), pp. 10–16; Torriti, La Pinacoteca
Nazionale di Siena, p. 99; Cannon, J., “Pietro Lorenzetti and the History of the Carmelite
Order”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 50 (1987), p. 19 n. 9, who proposes
four additional apostles flanking a central image above the main panel. The apostle pair,
representing St Andrew and St James, is now at the Yale University Art Gallery in New
Haven, Connecticut.
17 Maginnis, “Pietro Lorenzetti’s Carmelite Madonna”, p. 11; discussed at length by Van Os,
Sienese Altarpieces, pp. 94–95, and Cannon, “Pietro Lorenzetti and the History of the
Carmelite Order”, pp. 21–27.
18 Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces, p. 82: “PETRUS. LAURENTII. DE SENIS. ME PINXIT A
MCCCXLII.”

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The Marian Altarpieces of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti 119

Tuscany is at the National Gallery, London. It would probably have been posi-
tioned beneath the figure of Savinus at the leftmost side of the predella.
The Birth of the Virgin was accompanied by three other Marian altarpieces
for the Duomo, each of which narrated a scene from the life of the Virgin and
was likewise placed on an altar dedicated to one of Siena’s patron saints.19
While the four works were arranged in the east end of the cathedral, two on
either side of Duccio’s Maestà at the high altar, and in an order coordinat-
ing with the chronology of Mary’s life, they were not created by the artists in
this same order.20 Simone and Lippo’s Annunciation, the first of the series to
be completed, was made specifically for the altar of St Ansanus, and thus is
often referred to as the St Ansanus Altarpiece. Its central panel is flanked by
two standing saints, Ansanus, and a female martyr identified as Margaret or
Massima, and it is thus the only one of the four that still has its original accom-
panying saints attached.21 Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Presentation in the Temple
was intended for the altar of St Crescentius, and like Pietro’s, it was completed
in 1342 (see Fig. 6.2). It is now known for certain that the fourth work, orig-
inally for the altar of St Victor, was a Nativity scene, predictably flanked by
St Victor and another attendant saint identified as St Corona.22 The altarpiece
was, like the others, a polyptych, and represented The Nativity and Adoration
of the Shepherds on the central panel. It was likely the last work in this series

19 Contemporary with the cathedral altarpieces, a series of frescoes also illustrating the life
of the Virgin were commissioned for the exterior of the hospital of Santa Maria della
Scala, directly across from the Duomo. What remained of the now-lost frescoes was re-
moved in the early 1720s, but a number of historical sources, including Lorenzo Ghiberti
in the Commentaries (c.1447–55) and Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists (1550, 1568),
indicate that one or both of the Lorenzetti, together with Simone Martini, were primar-
ily responsible for them: see Maginnis, H.B.J., “The Lost Façade Frescoes from Siena’s
Ospedale di S. Maria della Scala”, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 51 (1988), pp. 180–94;
Norman, Siena and the Virgin, pp. 87–89.
20 Norman, Siena and the Virgin, pp. 68–69; Beatson, E.H. et al., “The Saint Victor Altarpiece
in Siena Cathedral: A Reconstruction,” Art Bulletin 68 (1986), p. 611; Van Os, Sienese
Altarpieces, pp. 143–47.
21 The traditional identification of the female saint as Margaret is based on a cathedral in-
ventory of 1458, but has been questioned; for the identification as Massima and the rel-
evant literature, see Beatson, et al., “The St. Victor Altarpiece in Siena Cathedral”, p. 610
n. 2; Norman, Siena and the Virgin, pp. 68, 222 n. 11.
22 Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces, pp. 85–88, correctly identified the Nativity at the Fogg, attrib-
uted to Bulgarini, as the main panel of the St Victor Altarpiece, and likewise connected it
to the two matching standing saints in Copenhagen that he identified as St Victor and St
Catherine of Alexandria. Beatson, et al. confirmed Van Os’ proposition through cathedral
inventories of 1591 and 1594, but identify the female saint as Corona: Beatson, et al., “The
St. Victor Altarpiece in Siena Cathedral”, pp. 617–20. This is also accepted by Norman,
Siena and the Virgin, pp. 68, 222 n. 12.

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to be completed, in c.1348–50, with the frame finished by 1351.23 The polyp-

tych is now in a dismembered state, with The Nativity in the Fogg Art Museum
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the two standing saints in Copenhagen.24
Previously unknown cathedral inventories from the 1590s confirm the name
of the artist, Bartolomeo Bulgarini (active 1337–78), a Sienese painter of some
repute, whom Giorgio Vasari described as a pupil of Pietro Lorenzetti.
Pietro’s triptych is markedly innovative for its advanced conception of com-
plex interior space, and the convincing integration of figures within that space.
It is unique in that the architecture of the interior rooms, particularly the
Gothic groin-vaulted ceilings, is reflected in the exterior gables of the frame;
the now-missing colonnettes that would have partitioned the frame into three
sections would only have enhanced this effect. In the larger room that occu-
pies the center and right sections of the triptych, Anna is shown reclining in
bed just after childbirth, as the infant Mary is bathed by two midwives in the
foreground. The new mother is accompanied by additional attendants who
enter the scene from the right, bearing a pitcher and linens, perhaps even a
basket of breads or sweets; a third woman closest to her bedside holds a pat-
terned fan, in the black and white colors of Siena. In a separate antechamber
at left is Joachim, eagerly listening to the good news just brought to him by a
young man, while another adult male companion accompanying him looks
out towards the viewer. Behind Joachim, the room opens via a large arched
window through which is visible an elegant, Gothic, rose-colored edifice.
Typical of Sienese painting, the picture has been executed with a rich, var-
ied palette, seen especially in the fabrics, from Anna’s deep purple gown and
gold veil, the bold reds, greens, and pale lavender of the attendants’ garments,
and the bright blue cloak of Joachim’s informant. Likewise characteristic of
the Sienese style is the delight in pattern, seen to advantage in the decorative,
geometric marble-inlay floor, the black and gold plaid blanket on the bed, and
the red ribs of the gold-starred, blue ceiling vaults. Mary’s birth is a joyous oc-
casion, conveyed not only in the pronounced humanity of the figures, but also
through the lively palette and charming details.
Pietro’s brother Ambrogio was likewise an innovator in his time, with a style
similar to and influenced by his elder sibling, but with an even greater warmth
and naturalism in his figures, and a more progressive treatment of architectural

23 Dates accord with Norman, Siena and the Virgin, pp. 74–75.
24 Two predella panels have also been associated with this group, one in the Louvre and
the other in Frankfurt: see Beatson et al., “The St. Victor Altarpiece in Siena Cathedral”,
pp. 619–21; Norman, Siena and the Virgin, pp. 75–76.

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The Marian Altarpieces of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti 121

space.25 This can be seen in Ambrogio’s contribution to the program of pic-

tures illustrating the life of the Virgin in Siena Cathedral: The Presentation in
the Temple (see Fig. 6.2). The narrative picture is also commonly titled in two
other ways: The Purification of the Virgin, because this ritual would also have
taken place at the temple and is likewise represented in this same scene; and
the St Crescentius Altarpiece, due to its placement on the altar of this saint in
1342.26 The altarpiece bears the artist’s dated inscription: “Ambrogio Lorenzetti
of Siena executed this work in the year of Our Lord 1342”.27 First document-
ed in 1337, with work underway by 1339, it was initially a polyptych, thought
to have been the largest of the series of four made for the altars of the pa-
tron saints of the city.28 The central scene set within the temple was initially
flanked by two now-lost panels of standing saints, Crescentius and Michael the
Archangel, according to their identifications listed in a church inventory from
1458. The polyptych would have also included a predella, and it has been sug-
gested that a painting in the Siena Pinacoteca representing An Allegory of Sin
and Redemption would have been its middle panel.29
The Presentation in the Temple differs from the other three Marian altar-
pieces destined for the cathedral due to its marked verticality. Like Pietro,
Ambrogio employed an inventive compositional and structural design in
which the architecture of the frame matches and completes that of the interior
setting so that the elaborate frame and the scene painted within it function as
a cohesive, convincing imitation of deep, three-dimensional space. The figures
are arranged to occupy both the foreground and the middle ground, receding
logically into the depths of the illusionistic Gothic interior that Ambrogio has

25 A major exhibition dedicated to Ambrogio Lorenzetti was held at Santa Maria della Scala
in Siena from October 2017 until April 2018, with an accompanying catalogue: Bagnoli, A.,
Bartalini, R., and Seidel, M. (eds.), Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Cinisello Balsamo, 2017.
26 The altarpiece actually illustrates the entirely of Lk. 2:22–38; see Maginnis, H.B.J.,
“Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Presentation in the Temple”, Studi di storia dell’arte 2 (1991), p. 33.
27 “AMBROSIUS. LAURENTII. DE. SENIS. FECIT. HOC OPUS. ANNO DOMINI
MCCCXLII.” The altarpiece is now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence; see Van Os, Sienese
Altarpieces, pp. 82–85; Maginnis, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Presentation in the Temple”,
pp. 33–50.
28 For the accounts of 1337 and 1339, refer to Norman, Siena and the Virgin, pp. 73, 223
nn. 20–21; Maginnis, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Presentation in the Temple”, p. 35; Beatson
et al., “The St. Victor Altarpiece in Siena Cathedral”, p. 610, n. 1; Van Os, Sienese Altar­pieces,
p. 83.
29 Norman, Siena and the Virgin, p. 74; Maginnis, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Presentation in the
Temple”, p. 35; Beatson et al., “The St. Victor Altarpiece in Siena Cathedral”, p. 621 n. 67; see
also Torriti, P., La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena: i dipinti dal XII al XV secolo, Genoa, 1977,
pp. 116–18, cat. no. 92; Frugoni, C., “Ambrogio Lorenzetti”, in id. (ed.), Pietro e Ambrogio
Lorenzetti, Florence, 2002, pp. 177–81.

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created, likely influenced by the actual architecture of Siena Cathedral. And

what a spectacular interior it is! The marble floor pavement is multicolored,
in a whimsical, geometric star pattern, and the slender columns of the nave
and side aisles alternate in green and purple marble. As in Pietro’s Birth of the
Virgin, the ceiling vaults are decorated with gold stars on a blue background,
with reddish-pink ribs. Moreover, it can be argued that Ambrogio utilized one-
point perspective in the interior’s design, one of the first such examples in the
history of Western art.
In the foreground of The Presentation in the Temple, Mary has just handed
the infant Christ Child to Simeon, the aged holy man God promised would
live to see the Messiah. When he received the Child, Simeon spoke the words
referred to as the Nunc Dimittis: “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in
peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation” (Lk. 2:29–
30). In accordance with Mosaic law, Mary and Joseph not only brought the
child to the Temple at Jerusalem for his consecration to the Lord, but also for
Mary the mother’s purification, which required the sacrifice of “two turtles, or
two young pigeons” (Lev. 12:8), and indeed the painter includes the pair of birds
on the high altar, held by the high priest. In his other hand he holds the knife
used for Christ’s circumcision. Mary is accompanied by two attendant women
who stand with her and Joseph. On the far right is the elderly prophetess Anna,
who looks across toward the Child and Mary with her right hand raised in
the gesture of prophecy, emphasizing Simeon’s words that, through her child,
Mary would be pierced through the heart. The role of biblical prophecy is fur-
ther underscored through the prophets Moses and Malachi, represented in the
upper spandrels at the very top of the altarpiece; Moses’ scroll even contains
the passage from Leviticus cited above.30 Thus, while the Presentation in the
Temple is shown as a colorful, stylistically progressive, albeit solemn occasion
in the life of Mary, it is also indicative of her future sorrow in its allusion to the
sacrifice of Christ.
We see in Ambrogio’s cathedral altarpiece his characteristic representation
of figures for which he was and is still widely celebrated, such as the womanly,
motherly girth of Mary, her maternal, tender glance across to her son who, in
a realistic, infantile fashion has a startled expression on his face while nursing
his finger for self-comfort. Simeon seems truly moved, overcome with emo-
tion, and his and Anna’s wrinkled faces reveal sympathetically their advanced
age. Ambrogio, like Giotto before him, and to a nearly comparable degree also

30 Moses, Malachi, and David appear elsewhere in the altarpiece: Moses and David as min-
iature grisaille statuettes atop the frontmost colonnettes in the foreground, and Moses
(again) and Malachi within the tympana in the side aisles in the depth of the interior.

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The Marian Altarpieces of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti 123

his brother Pietro, imparted a recognizable and relatable humanity, and inti-
macy, to his figures through even the smallest details.
These same familiar traits can be observed in a trio of pictures by Ambrogio
Lorenzetti in the Siena Pinacoteca representing female saints; they originated
from what was likely a larger multi-paneled polyptych traditionally known as
the Santa Petronilla Altarpiece (Fig. 6.4). There are a total of eight works by
Ambrogio in the Pinacoteca with a shared provenance from the Franciscan
convent of Santa Petronilla in Siena.31 The group is widely dated from as early
as c.1325 into the 1340s; however, most scholars judge these to be mature works
of Ambrogio from c.1335 or later, possibly even revealing workshop participa-
tion. The three central, vertically oriented, arched panels are well known in
the oeuvre of Ambrogio, and depict three-quarter length standing female
figures. They are usually displayed and reproduced in the form of a triptych,
with the wider Madonna and Child at the center, Mary Magdalene at left
and St Dorothy (or St Martha) at right.32 Beneath them a large horizontal
Lamentation over the Dead Christ, presumably originally the predella, is often
placed. It is thought that two full-length standing saints would have been po-
sitioned at either side (St John the Evangelist and St John the Baptist) and thus
they are so displayed in the Pinacoteca. Two half-length saints, Massiminus
and Anthony Abbot, complete the group of eight panels from the convent, and
it has been suggested that they may have flanked the Lamentation in the pre-
della, given that Massiminus unexpectedly appears in this narrative scene.33 If
all of these panels from Santa Petronilla were once part of a single polyptych,
its format would have been rather unusual in its combination of half-length,
three-quarter length, and full-length figures, unless the three central panels
have been significantly cut down, which may well be the case.34 Although the
reconstruction of the original altarpiece is complex and still a matter for de-
bate, the three central images of Mary and her holy female companions shed

31 These works entered the Istituto delle Belle Arti at the suppression of the convent
where they were located in 1810, by then known as Santa Petronilla degli Umiliati: see
Norman, D., “A Case of Mistaken Identity: Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s ‘Saint Dorothy’ from
the Church of Santa Petronilla, Siena”, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 70 (2007), p. 314.
Whether the panels were originally commissioned for Santa Petronilla is not known for
certain; although traditionally assumed so, this has recently been countered by Schmidt
and Norman, to be discussed in due course.
32 For the three main panels see Torriti, La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, pp. 110–11,
cat. no. 77.
33 Norman, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s ‘Saint Dorothy’”, pp. 304–06. Workshop participation
has been suggested for these four panels representing male saints: Torriti, La Pinacoteca
Nazionale di Siena, pp. 111–12, cat. nos. 77b–77c, and p. 126, cat. nos. 89 and 91.
34 Norman, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s ‘Saint Dorothy’”, p. 308.

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considerable light on the development of Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s style and his

work for conventual patrons.
In the probable central panel, Mary holds the Christ Child upright. He
stands with His feet in the palm of her hand and steadies Himself by grasp-
ing her neck, pressing His face to hers in a tender, intimate manner. She looks
warmly yet intently at her child, supporting Him as she pulls him closer to her.
From Christ’s left hand unfurls a scroll with a phrase bearing His words from
Matt. 5:3 and Lk. 6:20, Beati Pauperes: “Blessed are the poor [in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven]”, in a direct appeal for humility and provision of
solace, and to encourage the viewer to turn toward Christ and His mother for
intercession. Likewise, both Mary Magdalene at left and the female saint at
right direct the viewer’s gaze to the Virgin, as they each look up to her while
presenting offerings in the form of an ointment jar and a bouquet of flowers,
respectively. The Magdalene wears a dramatic, deep red cloak and gown, and
depicted on her breast is the face of the crucified Christ as the Man of Sorrows,
contained within a golden aura with rays extending in a cruciform design.35
Her hand and palm are raised to face the Mother of God and Siena’s major
benefactor.
Opposite the Magdalene is a lovely young female saint wearing a lavender-
colored cloak and gown, who looks toward the Virgin with earnest devotion. In
addition to the nosegay she proffers, she also has an array of brightly colored
flowers gathered in the upheld folds of her mantle. Traditionally, she has been
identified as Dorothy, the virgin martyr whose usual attribute is a basket of
roses that she presents to the Virgin or to the Child. However, this identifica-
tion is problematic, given that none of her flowers appear to be roses, and thus
it has been suggested that she is actually St Martha.36 This alternative consid-
ers not only the discrepancy in flower type, but also the lack of Dorothy’s direct
association with the altarpiece’s iconography, and its presumed origin from
the convent of Santa Petronilla. Furthermore, one of the holy women mourn-
ing Christ’s lifeless body in the Lamentation wears a similarly colored laven-
der gown and a halo inscribed with “Santa Marta” (as many of the halos bear
identifying inscriptions). The pairing of Saints Mary Magdalene and Martha
could reference the “contemplative life” versus the “active life” as described by

35 Frugoni, C., Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Florence, 1988, p. 38; Norman, “Ambrogio
Lorenzetti’s ‘Saint Dorothy’”, p. 301.
36 Schmidt, V.M., “La Santa con i Fiori. Sul polittico di Ambrogio Lorenzetti dalla chiesa
di Santa Petronilla”, Prospettiva 119/120 (2005), pp. 89–90; see also Norman, “Ambrogio
Lorenzetti’s ‘Saint Dorothy’”, esp. pp. 297–301, 308–24.

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The Marian Altarpieces of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti 125

St Augustine.37 For these and additional reasons, it has been proposed that the
polyptych’s original location was not Santa Petronilla, but rather the Hospice
of Santa Marta in Siena, and thus the depiction of their titular saint on this
central panel of the altarpiece.38 Of course if the designated location for the
original work was indeed Santa Petronilla, we would expect her to appear ad-
jacent to Mary, in a place of honor.39 However, given that representations of
Petronilla are uncommon, particularly prior to the Trecento, there are few vi-
sual prototypes from which to draw. Nonetheless, considering the three saintly
women as a cohesive grouping as intended from the outset, we are presented
with a decidedly Marian image, since the Virgin’s companions direct our focus
and devotion to her, as would also have been the case for the religious women
for whom the altar was in all likelihood intended.
One of the most memorable works of art from the Italian Trecento is a fres-
coed lunette of the Maestà painted by Ambrogio in c.1335–38 in what is today
the Piccolomini Chapel at the Sienese church of Sant’Agostino. However,
this space initially functioned as the chapterhouse of the Augustinians, and
Ambrogio painted an entire cycle of frescoes here that was described and great-
ly admired by the Florentine Renaissance sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378–
1455), in his Commentaries written c.1447–55.40 In 1338, the Augustinian Order
convened for a major meeting at Sant’Agostino, and thus the frescoes are usu-
ally dated just prior to or just after this event. A date in this range also accords
with stylistic similarities this Maestà shares with Ambrogio’s monumental,
dynamic altarpiece of the same subject painted for the Augustinians in near-
by Massa Marittima in c.1335. The two Maestà demonstrate not only stylistic
parallels, but also some common iconographic features.41 When the Augus­
tinians’ chapterhouse at Sant’Agostino was converted into the Piccolomini
Chapel at the end of the 16th century, all the mural paintings but the Maestà

37 Schmidt, “La Santa con i Fiori”, p. 90; Norman, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s ‘Saint Dorothy’”,
pp. 309, 313, 315, 324. According to the Gospels of Luke and John, Martha was the sister
of Mary of Bethany and Lazarus. Mary of Bethany is sometimes conflated with Mary of
Magdala, i.e., Mary Magdalene, which could result in an understanding that Martha and
the Magdalene were sisters. Perhaps such a conflation and interpretation resulted in pair-
ing these two female saints in an altarpiece intended for the religious sisters at the con-
vent for which it was commissioned.
38 Norman, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s ‘Saint Dorothy’”, pp. 308–24.
39 Schmidt, “La Santa con i Fiori”, p. 88, explains that the original church of Santa Petronilla
was actually dedicated to St Thomas, who is not represented on any of the eight panels.
40 Lorenzo Ghiberti, I Commentari, ed. O. Morisani, Naples, 1947, p. 38. The cycle was like-
wise described by Giorgio Vasari a century later in the Vita of Ambrogio: see Vasari, G.,
Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. G. du C. de Vere, New York, 1996, p. 158.
41 For further discussion, see Norman, Siena and the Virgin, pp. 134–35.

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were lost. The painted lunette was only rediscovered in 1944, and now serves
as the main visual focal point at the chapel altar.42 The subjects of the original
cycle included narrative scenes from the life of St Catherine of Alexandria, a
Crucifixion, the Maestà, and, in the vault, the 12 Apostles.43 The prominence of
St Catherine in the original fresco program and in the Maestà lunette is pre-
sumably explained by her probable role as titular saint of the chapterhouse,
due to the reverence in which she was held by the Augustinian hermits.44
While not originally intended as an altarpiece, the Maestà fresco is included
in this discussion due to the depiction and role of Mary, its unique and com-
plex iconography, and its importance in the history of Sienese painting. The
Madonna and Child are seated in majesty in the center of the lunette, not on a
throne, but rather, they are supported on the red wings of seraphim, indicating
their heavenly domain. Surrounding them are eight saints, divided equally left
and right, two of whom are not securely identified, but all of whom look in ad-
oration at Mary and Child, offering his or her respective attribute. As expected,
given the original context, St Catherine of Alexandria is in the left foreground,
on Mary’s right, and she presents her severed head on a platter. Catherine’s
martyrdom was not depicted in the original fresco cycle, and thus her death
is visualized in the lunette.45 St Agatha holds her severed breasts and stands
behind Catherine. St Augustine—the titular saint of the church and of the
order, bearing the books of the Rule—and St Bartholomew with a knife, the
instrument of his martyrdom, accompany the virgin martyrs. On the right is a
female saint holding a vase from which emerges a seraph; it is perhaps Mary
Magdalene, given her association with the ointment jar, her stunning scarlet
gown, and proximity to the Madonna.46 Adjacent to her is St Apollonia, with

42 At that time, an imposing Adoration of the Magi altarpiece by Il Sodoma, in place since
1596, was moved to protect it from possible war damage, and Ambrogio’s fresco was dis-
covered on the wall behind it. When the Sodoma Adoration was restored to the chapel,
it was moved to the opposite wall so that the Lorenzetti lunette would remain visible:
See Seidel, M., “Die Fresken des Ambrogio Lorenzetti in S. Agostino”, Mitteilungen des
Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 22 (1978), pp. 185–88.
43 Lorenzo Ghiberti, I Commentari, ed. Morisani, p. 38; Giorgio Vasari, Lives, trans. de Vere,
vol. 1, p. 158. See also Frugoni, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti”, pp. 141–48 for a discussion of the
Maestà, in which she restates much of the content of the 1988 publication; Frugoni, Pietro
and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, pp. 41–42; Norman, Siena and the Virgin, pp. 134–35.
44 Norman, Siena and the Virgin, p. 134; Frugoni, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, p. 41; Seidel,
“Die Fresken des Ambrogio Lorenzetti in S. Agostino”, pp. 202–05, 211–12.
45 Likewise noted by Frugoni, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, p. 41.
46 Frugoni, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, pp. 41–42; also suggests the Magdalene, although
the saint has been identified as St Clare or St Lucy: see Rowley, G., Ambrogio Lorenzetti,
2 vols, Princeton, 1958, p. 65; and Seidel, “Die Fresken des Ambrogio Lorenzetti in
S. Agostino”, pp. 212–13.

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an impossibly large pair of pincers, an attribute referring to the removal of

her teeth during her martyrdom. Two male saints kneel behind them, a youth-
ful Archangel Michael closest to Mary wielding a sword, accompanied by an
aged monk thought to be Anthony Abbot, due to the frequency with which he
is represented in Augustinian imagery as an exemplar for the eremitic life of
prayer and solitude.47
Perhaps the most unusual and striking aspect of the composition is the
alarmed, wildly animated expression of the infant Christ. He is profoundly
startled by the squawking bird held in His mother’s hand. It is surely a gold-
finch, seen in the Middle Ages as a prefiguration of Christ’s death due to the
characteristic red patch on the bird’s face that suggests blood.48 According to
legend, the bird had plucked a thorn from Christ’s crown on His way to the
cross prior to the crucifixion, causing Christ’s blood to splash on its face. If the
Child were to look beyond the bird, the severed head of Catherine is directly in
his line of sight, an intentional compositional design to draw further attention
to her martyrdom. A prescient Mary looks gravely, even sorrowfully, toward
the viewer as she tightly wraps her child in her arms. Her own uneasy fear is
discernable, albeit more subtle. The theme of death is emphasized by half of
the flanking saints, as the particular attributes held out to Mary are those of
their own martyrdoms: Catherine, Agatha, Bartholomew, and Apollonia. Even
St Michael’s presence has been associated with the defeat of plague and pes-
tilence, very soon to be the scourge of the city.49 All the depicted saints turn
to Mary, in various states of adoration and reverence, bearing offerings, even
of their own sacrificial attributes, with hands on their breasts, as they implore
her for solace, comfort, and intercession. Mary, the protector of Siena, is also
the protector of this panoply of saints, just as she is guardian of her own son.
A very different, delicate, jewel-like Maestà painted on a small panel just
under 20 inches in height, and now in the Siena Pinacoteca, was also created
by Ambrogio in c.1340–45 (Fig. 6.5). It represents the Madonna and Child en-
throned, flanked by six angels and six saints. The saints have been identified as
Dorothy (or Elizabeth of Hungary), Catherine of Alexandria, Bishops Martin
of Tours and Nicholas of Bari, and Popes Clement and Gregory, the latter
two wearing red papal mantles as they kneel in the foreground closest to the
viewer.50 The work is documented and was originally in the hospital of Santa

47 Norman, Siena and the Virgin, p. 134.

48 An identifying feature of the European goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis).
49 Rowley, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, p. 65.
50 See Torriti, La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, p. 122, cat. no. 65; Muller, N.E., “Ambrogio
Lorenzetti’s ‘Small’ Maestà reconsidered”, in E. Skaug (ed.), Conservare necesse est:
Festskrift til Leif Einar Plahter på hans 70-årsdag, Oslo, 1999, pp. 214–25; Laclotte, M.,

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Maria della Scala, probably serving as the central panel of a small, fixed-winged,
portable triptych.51 Two wing panels for the triptych have been proposed, al-
though without universal acceptance: Saint Martin of Tours Dividing His Cloak
with a Beggar, at the Yale University Art Gallery; and The Charity of St Nicholas
of Bari in the Louvre.52 If this reconstruction is correct, then it would be an
innovative format for a triptych, in that instead of the usual standing saints
portrayed on the wing panels, they depict narrative scenes, which is ordinarily
the function of predelle.53
The facial structure, features, and sorrowful expression of St Dorothy and
the Madonna are nearly identical, and both look to the spectator’s right, where
the Christ Child displays a scroll with the phrase “Fiat v[oluntas tua]”, meaning
“Thy will be done”, the response of the Virgin Mary to the Annunciate Angel
Gabriel from Lk. 1:38. It has been suggested that the patients in the hospital
who would have prayed before the altar were to accept their sufferings hum-
bly and with resignation, just as Mary accepted the will of God.54 Perhaps the
altarpiece would have been brought to a patient’s bedside,55 with Mary and
the saints serving in an intercessory capacity between man and his maker.
This is a reasonable proposition, given the work’s small size and the exquisite
detail in which it is rendered, clearly intended for close viewing. Originally,
there may have been additional panels depicting the Angel Gabriel and
Annunciate Virgin, forming an Annunciation scene above the two shorter,
narrative laterals with Saints Martin and Nicholas and, if so, the scroll’s

“Observations on Some Polyptychs and Altaroli by Ambrogio Lorenzetti”, in V. Schmidt

(ed.), Studies in the History of Art, vol. 61: Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and
Trecento, Washington, D.C., 2002, pp. 187–89.
51 Laclotte, “Observations on Some Polyptychs”, p. 188, mentions that due to the dimensions
of the wing panels in comparison to the central panel, it would have been a fixed triptych.
An earlier study of the central panel revealed dowel holes, indicating that wing panels
would have been connected in this manner, rather than hinged; see Moran, G., Seymour, C.,
and Carli, E., “The Jarves St. Martin and the Beggar”, Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin
31 (1967), pp. 35–39; Muller, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s ‘Small’ Maestà”, pp. 216–18; Frugoni,
Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, p. 50; and Torriti, La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, p. 122.
52 The Saints Martin and Nicholas panels were first connected and attributed to Ambrogio
by art historian Roberto Longhi, and then by Federico Zeri. The proposal that they were
wing panels of a triptych with this Maestà at the center is that of Moran, et al., “The Jarves
St. Martin and the Beggar”, pp. 30–39. Torriti, La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, p. 122,
however, expressed difficulty in accepting the reconstruction due to the lesser quality of
the St Martin panel in comparison to the one featuring St Nicholas.
53 Likewise noted by Laclotte, “Observations on Some Polyptychs”, pp. 188–89.
54 Frugoni, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, p. 50.
55 Moran et al., “The Jarves St. Martin and the Beggar”, p. 39.

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Latin phrase would serve to emphasize the theme across the triptych.56 The
Annunciation is the first of the Seven Joys of Mary, and is thus a key event for
Marian devotional imagery.
Ambrogio’s latest extant signed and dated work is an Annunciation of 1344,
now in the Siena Pinacoteca (Fig. 6.6).57 As indicated in the inscription at its
base, it was executed for the Magistrati di Gabella, the tax magistrates, and was
housed in the Sala del Concistoro in Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico, since it was a
commission from the Commune. Despite some damage and rather awkward
prior retouching and restoration, the altarpiece is a celebrated work of the
master and its stylistic importance is still evident.58 Here, Ambrogio incor-
porated large, corporeal figures into a perspectival space, and through direct
visual language created a monumental scene. Mary is seated in an inventive,
three-dimensional, elaborately carved marble chair that increases spatial
depth while enhancing her voluminous form. The gravity of the moment is
manifest, as we witness the Incarnation of Christ through the descending dove
of the Holy Spirit toward the heavenward turn of Mary’s face. With her arms
humbly crossed on her breast and prayer book open in her lap, she utters the
familiar phrase, again from Lk. 1:38, inscribed across the gilded altarpiece, “Ecce
ancilla Domini” (“Behold the handmaiden of the Lord”) in response to Gabriel’s
reassuring pronouncement “Non erit inpossibile apud Deum omne verbum”
(“For with God nothing shall be impossible”).59
One of the most arresting aspects of Ambrogio’s late Annunciation is the ex-
aggerated size of the figures respective to the space that contains them, in that
they occupy three-quarters of the composition. The picture was intended as a
single-panel work and has remained so, within its original frame. Initially the
slender, spiral colonnette that divides the central space would have been more
apparent, as it has unfortunately suffered from damage over time. Originally,
Gabriel and the Virgin, who are of similar size and height, would have seemed
further apart, each framed by the trefoil arch above them, in a manner reflec-
tive of contemporary sculpture. The entirety of the background behind the

56 All three panels have been truncated at the top, a feature discernable to the naked eye:
Laclotte, “Observations on Some Polyptychs”, p. 188.
57 Torriti, La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, pp. 124–25, cat. no. 88.
58 On the damage, restoration, physical and technical examination of the work, and sub-
sequent interpretation, see Muller, N.E., “Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Annunciation. A Re-
Examination”, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 21 (1977), pp. 1–12.
See also Frugoni, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, pp. 55–56, and subsequently in id.,
“Ambrogio Lorenzetti”, pp. 197–99; and Torriti, La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, pp. 124–
25, cat. no. 88.
59 Muller, “Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Annunciation”, pp. 3–6, notes that Gabriel’s verse was im-
properly reconstructed by a previous restorer.

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figures is gold leaf, evoking Heaven as a realm beyond the confining param-
eters of time and space. Mary is distinguished by the inscription on her halo:
“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum” (“Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord be
with thee”). This placement of the angel’s salutation to Mary indicates not only
her superior holiness to Gabriel, who kneels before her, but also the fact that
she was specifically anointed by God to serve as his divine vessel.60
The original location of this innovative Annunciation to the Virgin, in one of
the civic offices in Siena’s grand and imposing Palazzo Pubblico, is of consider-
able importance. The value of this association to the contemporary Sienese
community cannot be overstated and is indicative of the union of Church and
state that was then an integral part of common cultural experience. This close
connection existed throughout Italy in the medieval and Renaissance eras, and
well beyond, all over the Christian world. Together with the other works by
Sienese artists and, in particular, those by the brothers Lorenzetti that have
been considered here, Ambrogio’s late Annunciation demonstrates the fact
that images of the Virgin Mary as patron and protector of the city of Siena
were omnipresent, regardless of context, whether ecclesiastical, civic, or pri-
vate. While Mariology is indeed a unifying focus of Catholic theology, faith,
and practice, its role through the presence of imagery in the daily life of the
people was nowhere more evident than in Trecento Siena. In conclusion, it is
useful to revisit a work by one of the Lorenzettis’ contemporaries discussed
previously, Simone Martini’s imposing Maestà, in which Mary is shown not
only as Queen of Heaven, but also in a commanding political, even legislative
role, as she oversees the actions of Siena’s governing council in the impressive
civic space over which she presides. The now-lost inscriptions along the steps
of Mary’s throne once bore her declaration to the four patron saints of the
city who kneel beneath her, Ansanus, Savinus, Crescentius, and Victor, and her
promise not only to hear their petitions on behalf of Siena’s citizenry, but to
protect them and the city from harm:

My beloved bear it in mind, when your devotees make honest petitions, I

will make them content as you desire. But if the powerful do harm to the
weak, weighing them down with shame or hurt, your prayers are not for
these, nor for whoever deceives my land.61

60 Frugoni, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, p. 56, includes a somewhat comparable interpre-
tation in her analysis.
61 Transcription from Norman, Siena and the Virgin, p. 54, based on that by White, Duccio,
p. 96. Original text reproduced in Martindale, Simone Martini, p. 207.

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The Marian Altarpieces of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti 131

For the Sienese, “la mia terra”, “my land” as spoken by the Virgin Mary
through this towering fresco painting, was their beloved city, the Vetusta Civitas
Virginis. The ubiquity of Mary’s visual presence in Sienese diurnal existence,
from unskilled images in humble houses to the celebrated frescoes and altar-
pieces by Duccio, Simone Martini, the Lorenzetti, and other renowned artists,
attests to the supreme importance of the Mother of God in every aspect of life
in the city.

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 chapter 7

The Discussion and Transmission of Reformed

Religious Beliefs in Early-Modern Siena

Andrea Beth Wenz

Abstract

Drawing on a combination of primary and secondary sources, this chapter will exam-
ine the nature and reach of reformed religious ideas in 16th-century Siena. Surveying
the current state of the field in regard to the Reformation in Italy, it will then take a
more focused look at the various media and communities in which these ideas were
discussed and through which they spread. Specific points of interest will include the
role of salons, confraternities, preaching, and learned societies such as the Accademia
degli Intronati. Broadly, this chapter aims to shed light on the diversity and scope of
religious beliefs that circulated in the ostensibly Catholic world of early-modern Siena.

When we imagine the religious landscape of early modern Siena, we fre-

quently imagine that of a staunchly Catholic city. The year 1260 and the
Battle of Montaperti—after which Siena was officially designated the “City
of the Virgin” due to Mary’s reputed divine assistance in helping Siena defeat
Florence—stands as tall in the historical record today as do the poles from the
Florentine carrocio that were seized in battle, and which remain on public dis-
play within the Duomo.1 The Virgin’s presence, then as now, can be felt in every
corner of the city. Modest shrines were and are nestled into nooks within the
city’s walls. Grand masterpieces of the Maestà by Duccio and Simone Martini
have adorned both the Duomo and the Palazzo Pubblico since the early 1300s
(although, Duccio’s original altarpiece is now on display within the Museo del
Opera di Duomo). And, since approximately 1701, the Piazza del Campo has
filled twice a year—once on 2 July and again on 16 August—for the Palio horse
race, in commemoration of the Madonna di Provenzano and the Assumption

1 For several references to the battle of Montaperti and Siena’s designation as la città della
vergine following the battle, see Hook, J., Siena: A City and its History, London, 1979, p. 161;
Paton, B., Preaching Friars and the Civic Ethos, London, 1992, p. 16; Tylus, J., Siena, City of
Secrets, Chicago, 2015., p. 3. See also Bradley Franco’s essay in this collection.

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The Discussion and Transmission of Reformed Religious Beliefs 133

of the Virgin, respectively.2 In fact, “palio” itself refers not to the horse race, as is
the popular misconception, but to the banner—required to be decorated with
the Virgin’s image—that the winning contrada takes home.3 One would be for-
given, then, if they imagined Siena as a city with a long, impeccable history
of unwavering commitment to the Church of Rome. But a stroll down the Via
Pantaneto or the Viale Curtatone reveals a different story, easily missed by the
undiscerning passerby. In the first location one finds, hung upon an exterior
wall of the Palazzo Sozzini-Malavolti, a simple white plaque composed of the
profiles of Lelio and Fausto Sozzini, the “founders” of Socinianism; in the sec-
ond, the Chiesa Evangelica Valdese di Siena. Although this latter location was
only built in the 1800s, its members take pride in emphasizing their “heretical”
past, a past that flourished most profoundly during the 16th century.4
Scholarly interest in forms of Protestant theology in the Italian city-states
has grown in recent decades and, although as a field of study it remains a rela-
tive newcomer compared to studies of Luther’s Wittenberg or Calvin’s Geneva,
a clear picture of a peninsula full of religiously dynamic and diverse commu-
nities has begun to emerge.5 Like the broader international Reformation that
encompassed everything from irenic Erasmianism to radical Anabaptism, the
Italian Reformation spanned a wide spectrum of religious beliefs, appealing to
a broad audience. Siena, a main gathering place for elite intellectual circles—
groups of the so-called spirituali who contemplated the reform of the Church
from within its extant structure—as well as the birthplace of one of the Italian
Reformation’s most infamous “heretics”, Bernardino Ochino, serves as an ideal
location from which to examine the discussion and dissemination of these reli-
gious ideas. Through an examination of some of the most pertinent secondary

2 For a recent, concise summary of the historical progression of the Palio, see Parsons, G., Siena,
Civil Religion, and the Sienese, Burlington, VT, 2004, pp. 20–21, 45–47. As Parsons explains, the
first Palio to be run in honor of the Madonna di Provenzano took place on 2 July 1656, while
the first August Palio commemorating the Assumption took place either in 1689 or 1701. It
is on this final date, however, that the running of both Palii in the Piazza del Campo can be
definitively verified.
3 Jackson, P. and Nevola, F. (eds.), Beyond the Palio: Urbanism and Ritual in Renaissance Siena,
Malden, MA, 2006, p. 1. Also see Parsons, Siena, Civil Religion, p. 20.
4 The Chiesa Evangelica Valdese di Siena has a webpage with a special section devoted spe-
cifically to “Siena Eretica”, which is composed of a list of individuals central to the reformed
movement in Siena and a numbered map for those eager to locate these individuals and
their stories within the physical geography of the city: www.siena.chiesavaldese.org/Siena_
Eretica.html (accessed 28 September 2016).
5 Marchetti’s text remains the seminal monograph on heresy in Siena: See Marchetti, V., Gruppi
ereticali senesi del cinquecento, Florence, 1975. For an overview of reformed thought through-
out the entire peninsula, see Caponetto, S., The Protestant Reformation in Sixteenth-Century
Italy, trans. A.C. Tedeschi and J. Tedeschi, Kirksville, MO, 1999.

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literature as well as primary sources (chiefly letters, dialogues, and sermons)

this chapter serves as an introduction to the diverse and multi-faceted nature
of reformed beliefs in Siena. Furthermore, not only does it explore what types
of religious ideas were discussed in Reformation Siena, but also where those
ideas were discussed, how, and among whom. We will see that, in the 16th
century, the ostensibly Catholic “city of the Virgin” was also home to individu-
als, harking from every social background, who questioned—albeit to varying
degrees—the doctrine and institution of the Catholic Church and who hoped
to act as agents of change in exacting reform within and beyond that institu-
tion. It is to their story that we now turn.

7.1 Elite Intellectual Gatherings and the Spirituali

Although Martin Luther allegedly nailed his 95 theses to the church door in
Wittenberg in 1517, it was in the 1530s that one can first begin to detect a sus-
tained interest in reformed religious beliefs in Siena. Considering that the orig-
inal intent of Luther’s theses was to promote debate and discussion about the
reform of the Church, it seems fitting that two loci central to the discussion of
reformed ideas in Siena were its intellectual societies, namely the Accademia
degli Intronati, and its elite salons or veglie. Recent research has furthermore
emphasized the close ties between these two groups.6 The Intronati was found-
ed in the mid to late 1520s and served as a formal gathering place for Siena’s
male elite (aged 20 and above) to engage in intellectual discussions, games,
and cultural and artistic productions.7 The veglie were less formal in their or-
ganization, meeting within the homes of their organizers, and slightly less ex-
clusive in their membership, welcoming both men and women of a certain

6 See particularly “Chapter Five: Laudomia Forteguerri’s Canzoniere and the Fall of Siena,” in
Robin, D., Publishing Women: Salons, the Presses, and the Counter-Reformation in Sixteenth-
Century Italy, Chicago, 2007, chapter 5, esp. pp. 127–36. Also see “Chapter Two: The Academy
of the Intronati and Sienese Women (1525–1555)”, in McClure, G., Parlour Games and the
Public Life of Women in Renaissance Italy, Toronto, 2013, chapter 2, esp. pp. 35–48.
7 McClure, Parlour Games, pp. 29–30; Iacometti, F., L’Accademia senese degli Intronati, Siena,
pp. 3–4. Iacometti, providing a sense as to who some of the key members of the Intronati
were at this initial state, lists “Archbishop Francesco Bandini Piccolomini, Antonio Vignali,
Francesco Sozzi, Marco Antonio Piccolomini, Giovan Francesco Franceschi, and Alessandro
Marzi”, as the primary founders of the Academy. From McClure’s and Robin’s work we can
also confidently add Alessandro Piccolomini and Girolamo Barbagli to the list of early lead-
ers in the Accademia.

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pedigree; nevertheless the activities in which they engaged were often similar
and intertwined.8
While the Intronati and veglie’s topics of conversation were many, one
issue that seemed of particular common interest was that of religious reform.
Central to our current knowledge of the Intronati and veglie and their involve-
ment in the 16th-century reformed religious scene, is a 1538 dialogue written
by a participant in the veglie and one of the original founders of the Intronati,
Marcantonio Piccolomini.9 Piccolomini’s dialogue, first unearthed by Rita
Belladonna in the mid-1990s and, again, brought to light by Diana Robin in her
more recent study of elite intellectual women and the Counter-Reformation,
reveals the importance of reformed religious ideas to these circles.10
The 1538 dialogue is thought to document an actual conversation that oc-
curred the previous year between the three interlocutors: the noblewomen
Laudomia Forteguerri (the leader of one of the Sienese veglie), Girolama Carli
de’ Piccolomini, and Frasia Marzi.11 As both Belladonna and Robin explain,
while the majority of the dialogue revolves around relatively innocuous issues
of a philosophical nature, towards the end of the conversation the women con-
front the religious themes of free will versus predestination and the Catholic
doctrine of Purgatory.12 Forteguerri adopts the potentially heretical stance in
opposition to Girolama’s defense of free will, remarking that the latter’s argu-
ment, “seems … false; because I heard it said that the things that must inevita-
bly befall us or that which we mean by fate, cannot change and that that which
God has foreseen, is both unalterable and determined”.13 Similarly, while
Forteguerri later respectfully debates the necessity of Purgatory with Girolama,
she ultimately echoes her earlier stance and laments “it seems that the entire

8 Robin, D., Publishing Women: Salons, the Presses, and the Counter-Reformation in Sixteenth-
Century Italy, Chicago, 2007, p. 129.
9 Robin, Publishing Women, p. 130. See also Iacometti, L’Accademia, p. 4; McClure, Parlour
Games, pp. 44–45.
10 Belladonna, R., “Gli Intronati, le donne, Aonio Paleario e Agostino Museo in un dialogo in-
edito di Marcantonio Piccolomini, il Sodo Intronato (1538)”, BSSP 99 (1992), 48–90; Robin,
Publishing Women, pp. 130–36. Belladonna’s article includes a full Italian transcription
of the dialogue, while Robin includes an Italian transcription and translation to those
portions referencing religious doctrine. Any translations included here are my own, un-
less otherwise noted. Robin suggests that Piccolomini might also have introduced the
dialogue at one of the Intronati’s sessions (p. 131). It is Belladonna’s and Robin’s valuable
scholarship and analysis that I recount below and to which the discussion of Piccolomini’s
dialogue is entirely indebted.
11 Belladonna, “Gli Intronati”, p. 52; Robin, Publishing Women, p. 132.
12 Belladonna, “Gli Intronati”, p. 53; Robin, Publishing Women, pp. 132–34.
13 Belladonna, “Gli Intronati”, p. 78; Robin, Publishing Women, p. 133.

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discourse that you have ultimately given concerning our souls is against our
catholic faith”.14 Here, “catholic” is referring not to the man-made institution of
the Church, but to the original vision of the Christian faith. Nevertheless, and
in spite of Forteguerri’s persistent doubt, Girolama is eventually able to quell
the former’s doubts and reaffirms that her position is the only valid one, in
accordance with Catholic orthodoxy. All is seemingly well that ends well.
And yet, to quote Robin one final time, even though Girolama’s arguments,
“prevail … Laudomia Forteguerri’s siren songs of the spirituali continue to
haunt it”.15 Robin’s comment here is important for it reminds us that the sig-
nificance of Piccolomini’s dialogue and the ideas contained therein stretched
far beyond the pages on which they were written or the room within which
they were performed.
Collectively the men and women of the Sienese veglie, as well as at least
some of the men of the Accademia degli Intronati, were part of a broader reli-
gious community known as the spirituali, a group not exclusive to Siena, but as
Belladonna and Robin’s works show, one which found within the city’s intel-
lectual circles a welcome forum for their discussions.16 The spirituali, in fact,
are arguably the most recognizable dimension of reformed Italian thought.
In their company were the likes of Cardinal Reginald Pole, Guilia Gonzaga,
and Vittoria Colonna, to name but a few. Reflecting the patchwork nature of
Italian reformed beliefs, they were influenced by a variety of reformed think-
ers including Luther, Calvin, and the Spaniard, Juan de Valdés. Perhaps less
familiar to the reader than Luther and Calvin, Valdés had much in common
with his contemporaries and both his writings and presence (until his death

14 Belladonna, “Gli Intronati”, p. 84; Robin, Publishing Women, p. 135. Robin also stresses the
importance of this line (p. 134).
15 Robin, Publishing Women, p. 136.
16 Robin, Publishing Women, pp. 131–32. Although these intellectual circles provided places
in which like-minded individuals interested in religious controversies could meet and
discuss their ideas, it should be mentioned that even they were not entirely shielded
from the suspicious gaze of the city’s religious authorities. Indeed, Robin notes that the
main motivation behind Piccolomini’s composition was an attempt to clear several of the
Intronati’s members, particularly Bartolomeo Carli de’ Piccolomini (Girolama’s husband),
from charges of heresy (p. 131). Exactly what these charges were are not entirely clear,
but several possibilities present themselves. Belladonna seems to suggest that the ladies’
discussion of free will versus predestination may also have been a reflection of similar
conversations held among the men of the Accademia (p. 52). Robin also posits that the
charges may have been linked to suspicions of Erasmianism: p. 306n, wherein she directs
the reader to Salvatore Caponetto’s scholarship on Aonio Paleario, his interest in the writ-
ings of Erasmus, and his connections with multiple Italian academies.

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The Discussion and Transmission of Reformed Religious Beliefs 137

in 1541) were essential to the development of the spirituali.17 Like Luther and
Calvin, he stressed the importance of scripture and an understanding of life
and faith that placed Christ at its center.18 Near the start of his Le cento et dieci
considerationi—a work that was widely influential in Reformation Italy, in-
cluding Siena19—he explains that anyone seeking to discover the “happiness
of man” will find it only if “they know Christ”, for it is “only those who leave the
image of Adam and grab hold the image of Christ … [who] know Christ, and
in Christ, and by Christ that they know God”.20 Yet, how does one acquire this
knowledge of Christ and God; how does one grab hold of his image? Solely
through the “lettion del la scrittura santa”.21 Scholars also often stress the vi-
brant internal quality of Valdés’ understanding of faith: “like a living fire in the
hearts of the faithful, with which they hasten after and draw closer to God each
day”.22 For all of his affinities with Luther and Calvin, however, Valdés pos-
sessed a critical difference, one that was crucial also to any who called them-
selves a spiritualo: he (and they) never sought to separate from the Catholic
Church.23 The spirituali, while willing and often eager to voice their concerns
about the state of the Church, never looked for the solutions to its problems
outside of its existing hierarchy and structure. Thus, while the spirituali might
have included some of the most well known individuals involved in the reform
movement in Italy, and while many were faithful to the doctrines of sola fide
and sola scriptura, I would argue that they were also on the more conservative

17 For several recent works that stress the integral nature of Valdés to the spirituali, see the
following: Firpo, M., Juan de Valdés and the Italian Reformation, trans. R. Bates, New York,
2015; Brundin, A., Vittoria Colonna and the Spiritual Poetics of the Italian Reformation,
Burlington, VT, 2008.; Robin, Publishing Women; Caponetto, Protestant Reformation.
18 Indeed, Brundin, in her study of Vittoria Colonna (one of the most famous of the spiri-
tuali, though not of Sienese origin), argues that it is “the shortest of steps from Valdesian
divina considerazione [his term for turning solely to the Bible as a guide for one’s growing
faith] to the Lutheran doctrine of sola fide …”: Brundin, Vittoria Colonna, p. 43.
19 Robin emphasizes that it was this work, which Bartolomeo Carli de’ Piccolomini used
as inspiration for his own text Regola utile e necessaria a ciascuna persona che cerchi di
vivere come fedele e buon cristiano: Robin, Publishing Women, p. 131. Caponetto argues
that he may have also been inspired by Valdés’ Alfabeto cristiano: Caponetto, Protestant
Reformation, p. 301.
20 Juan de Valdés, Le cento & dieci considerationi del signor Giovanni Valdesso, Basel, 1550,
A2v.
21 Juan de Valdés, Le cento, A3r.
22 Juan de Valdés, “Dialogue on Christian Doctrine”, in J.C. Nieto (ed.), Two Catechisms: The
Dialogue on Christian Doctrine and the Christian Instruction for Children, 2nd. ed., trans.
W.B. and C.D. Jones, Lawrence, K.S., 1993, p. 186. Brundin emphasizes and paraphrases this
quotation: Brundin, Vittoria Colonna, p. 44.
23 Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 310.

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end of the reformed spectrum in Siena. For, no matter how vehement their
critiques might get, they would never go so far as to support actions that would
cause the fracturing of the Church.24
It was from this rather irenic position, then, that Forteguerri’s veglia and
the Accademia degli Intronati engaged in the world of Reformation Siena.
Others within the city, however, viewed such a position as unfeasible. Beyond
Siena’s spirituali there were those who viewed the Catholic Church as that of
the Antichrist, which was “more corrupt in doctrine and custom than never
was the synagogue of the Hebrews”.25 A Church in such a state could only re-
form itself by separating entirely from such corruption and returning to the
purity of Christ’s word. These individuals found their advocate and teacher in
Bernardino Ochino.

7.2 Bernardino Ochino and the Printed Word

Bernardino Tommasini was born in 1487. We do not know the exact moment
in which he changed his surname to Ochino (a reference to his home contrada
of Oca), and the name by which he would be known for the rest of his life.26
Yet, in some ways, it seems a reminder that no matter how far afield he would
travel from Siena, his home city was always with him and he with it. For while
Ochino fled the Italian peninsula in 1542, never to return, he remains arguably
one of the individuals most essential to our understanding of Reformation
Siena and the teaching of reformed ideologies therein.27
Ochino’s centrality to the Sienese Reformation, despite his physical ab-
sence from the city, derives from a confluence of two factors: the fame that he

24 Gleason, E.G., “Sixteenth-Century Italian Spirituali and the Papacy”, in P.A. Dykema and
H.A. Oberman (eds.), Anticlericalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Leiden,
1994, p. 305.
25 This quotation comes from Ochino’s 1543 letter to the Sienese Balìa. It was published
first by Jean Girard and then later appended to Ochino’s second volume of prediche:
Ochino, B., Epistola alli Signori di Balia della città di Siena, Geneva, 1543, B3v; Ochino, B.,
La seconda parte delle prediche, di Mess. Bernardino Ochino Senese, accuratamente casti-
gate. Con la sua tavola in fine, Basel, c. 1549, LL8r. For a modern-day transcription of the
letter, see Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, pp. 247–54.
26 This basic biographical background on Ochino is found in many sources. For one refer-
ence, see Benrath, K., Bernardino Ochino of Siena: A Contribution Towards the History of
the Reformation, trans. H. Zimmern, London, 1876, pp. 7–8.
27 The late Italian historian of the Reformation, Delio Cantimori, even noted that Ochino
was “perhaps the most important of the Italian reformers”: Cantimori, D., Bernardino
Ochino: uomo del rinascimento e riformatore, Pisa, 1929, p. 5.

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cultivated as a preacher of the spoken word prior to his exile, and his faith in
the power of the printed word thereafter. As a Capuchin preacher in the 1530s,
Ochino quickly rose in the ranks, becoming the General of the Order in 1538
and the most revered and sought-after preacher of his day.28 Some have called
him the “Savonarola of his generation”, while others have noted that such an
appellation does not greatly enough praise his oratorical skills.29 As such, his-
torians have emphasized Ochino’s reception in Italy: the need for the Pope
to manage Ochino’s schedule due to the many requests for his appearance
throughout the peninsula, the vast crowds that flocked to hear him preach,
and the fact that his sermons were so moving that, according to a contempo-
rary observer in Naples, Ochino could “make the stones weep”.30 Towards the
end of the 1530s, however, Ochino was also beginning to attract some nega-
tive attention for omitting mention of the saints in his sermons and, in 1542,
when the Roman Inquisition was reinstated, he rapidly became a target and
was forced to flee into exile.31
It is perhaps natural to view Ochino’s exile as a personal tragedy, which tore
him away from friends and familiar surroundings. Many historians have ad-
opted such a viewpoint.32 But an alternative, arguably more useful reading, is
also possible. Rather than simply being a personal tragedy, Ochino’s exile was

28 Again, this basic narrative is available in many accounts of Ochino’s life. For a concise ref-
erence see the introduction of Bernardino Ochino, Seven Dialogues, trans. R. Belladonna,
Toronto, 1988, p. xii.
29 Bainton repeatedly likened Ochino to Savonarola: Bainton, R.H., The Travail of Religious
Liberty: Nine Biographical Studies, Philadelphia, 1951, p. 17. Benedetto Nicolini has re-
marked that “not for nothing is Ochino [understood to be] the greatest of the Italian
preachers, perhaps even more so than Savonarola” (my italics): see Nicolini, B., Il pensiero
di Bernardino Ochino, 2nd. ed., Bologna, 1970, p. 21.
30 These references to Ochino’s extraordinary fame are also found in nearly every work
that discusses him. For a reference to the papal organization of Ochino’s schedule, see
Belladonna, R., “Introduction”, in Ochino, Seven Dialogues, p. xvii. In regard to Ochino’s
reception by contemporaries, see Bainton, Travail, p. 150, as well as Bainton, R.H.,
Bernardino Ochino: esule, e riformatore senese del cinquecento, 1487–1563, Florence, 1941,
pp. 33–34. Bainton’s examples of the many people who sung Ochino’s praises goes on
for pages, ranging from presumably the ordinary “contemporary” to famous individuals
including the humanist and cardinal Pietro Bembo, the “rogue [Pietro] Aretino,” and even
the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. The particular reference to making the stones weep
is found on p. 34 and is repeated throughout many studies on Ochino.
31 For discussion of early occasions during which Ochino attracted scrutiny, see the
“Introduction” of Bernardino Ochino, I “Dialogi Sette” e altri scritti del tempo della fuga,
ed. U. Rozzo, Turin, 1985, pp. 10–11; Benrath, Bernardino Ochino of Siena, p. 70. Belladonna,
“Introduction” in Ochino, Seven Dialogues, pp. xvi–xvii. Bainton, Esule, p. 47.
32 Overell, A., Italian Reform and English Reformations, c.1535–c.1585 (Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2008), p. 42. Benrath, Bernardino Ochino of Siena, pp. 297–98.

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a pivotal moment that provided the necessary preconditions under which he

could become the teacher of Italian reformed thought to his followers back in
Siena and beyond. Although Ochino alienated some orthodox followers in his
separation from the Church, the widespread fame that he had acquired over
the years ensured that there were still many eager to learn from his teachings.33
In 1543, Ochino wrote a letter to a religious polemicist and one of his most
vocal critics, Girolamo Muzio, addressing just this issue. After explaining the
initial trepidations that he felt in facing exile, Ochino’s tone shifts as he recalls
his internal monologue:

You have served Christ, until now, under the mask of the habit and
holy life, so that with less suspicion from superstitious Italy you could
preach grace, the Gospel, and the great benefit of Christ, but now … He
wills that you, unmasked, write the truth without any human concerns,
which you couldn’t do while in Italy, but God has guided you in this criti-
cal moment.34

Ugo Rozzo and other historians, have noted that Ochino mentioned nearly
ad nauseum that his ability to preach “unmasked” was only possible after his
exile and that he was now forced to “write the truth”;35 however, I would argue
that such repeated utterances, rather than turning his observation into a ba-
nality, serve to pointedly emphasize the degree of contrast between the restric-
tive environment that Ochino faced at home and the more open one that he
encountered abroad. They further illustrate Ochino’s own awareness that this
switch in medium, from the spoken to the written word, would finally enable
him to teach his Sienese followers the true Christian faith, as he had always
hoped, but, until that moment, had been unable to do.
And write Ochino did. Over the course of his approximately 20 years in
exile, Ochino wrote five volumes of prediche totaling nearly 300 sermons, sev-
eral important letters that were printed for wider distribution, multiple dia-
logues (including one for King Edward VI of England and another dedicated

33 For a discussion of several negative reactions to Ochino’s exile, see Benrath, Bernardino
Ochino of Siena, pp. 122 and 131.
34 Bernardino Ochino, Bernardini Ochini Senen. Responsio ad Mutium Justinopolitanum, qua
rationem reddit sui discessus ab Italia, Geneva, 1543, A5v–A6r. This letter was later reprint-
ed in Bernardino Ochino, La seconda parte, MM4r–MM4v. It is also translated and quoted
in Benrath, Bernardino Ochino of Siena, pp. 90–91, and in Belladonna, “Introduction”,
pp. xv–xvi; however, the translation used is my own. For a modern-day transcription also
see Ochino, I “Dialogi Sette”, ed. Rozzo, pp. 130–36.
35 Ochino, I “Dialogi Sette”, ed. Rozzo, p. 7.

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to Queen Elizabeth I), and a catechism nearly 400 pages in length!36 Not all of
these works, for sure, were written explicitly for, or with the intention of, being
distributed to his Sienese audience, but many of them (including his prediche
and letters) were. In fact, they were written in the vernacular for just this rea-
son, something that Ochino’s own words assure us of. He opens the first vol-
ume of his prediche with the following proclamation: “Hereafter then, my Italy,
that with a live voice I can no longer preach to you, I am forced to write, and
in the vernacular, so that it is more familiar”.37 Likewise, in the next year (1543)
he also wrote a letter to the Sienese Balìa, the city’s main governmental body.
Again, he begins the letter by addressing Siena, “città mia”, apologizing for not
having written sooner.38 Now, however, being able to write, he implores “Siena
mia” to “purge yourself … of so many ridiculous, pharisaical, bothersome, per-
nicious, foolish, and impious frenzies and grasp the pure word of God”.39
Indeed, throughout his writings, particularly his prediche, Ochino maintains
a steady message grounded in the concepts of sola fide and sola scriptura, while
also vehemently discrediting the doctrine of the Catholic Church. In a sermon
from his first volume, titled “Of Human Satisfactions”, he confronts and denies
the Catholic doctrine of works when he remarks:

But it is the most impious blasphemy, when one says to another, tolerate
patiently this tribulation, this sickness or death, you will perform a cer-
tain penitence, a certain work for the satisfaction of your sins. And this
is to say, that Christ has not satisfied him sufficiently. To say such, is the
most heretical thing, indeed on the contrary a single tear of Christ’s was
sufficient to liberate us from infinite sins … and he is not in need of other
satisfaction.40

36 For a comprehensive list of Ochino’s publications, see Benrath’s appendix (Bernardino

Ochino of Siena, pp. 299–304). Also useful is the University of St. Andrew’s Universal Short
Title Catalogue (UTSC), accessible at: http://ustc.ac.uk/index.php (accessed 20 October
2016).
37 Bernardino Ochino, Prediche di Bernardino Ochino da siena. Nouellamente ristampate et
con grande diligentia riuedute et corrette. Con la sua tauola in fine, Basel, c.1549, A2v. Some
of Ochino’s first prediche were printed initially in Geneva in 1542 by Jean Girard. Several
years later they were “newly restamped and with great diligence revised” by Pietro Perna
in Basel, who would ultimately print all five volumes. It is this second edition, which I cite.
38 Bernardino Ochino, Epistola alli Signori di Balia, A2r; and Bernardino Ochino, La seconda
parte, LLr.
39 Bernardino Ochino, Epistola, B3v; and Bernardino Ochino, La seconda parte, LL8v.
40 Bernardino Ochino, Prediche, i7v–i8r.

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Here, somewhat echoing Laudomia Forteguerri’s sentiments when she tells

Girolama Carli de’ Piccolomini that hers is the “uncatholic” position, Ochino
exclaims that it is not he and his followers who are the heretics, but rather
those who have remained faithful to the Catholic Church. It is they who have
engaged in the “most impious blasphemy;” they who commit the “most hereti-
cal thing”. It is necessary, however, to reiterate that despite this similarity with
the Piccolomini dialogue, Ochino’s theological position and that which he en-
couraged in his followers surpassed the critiques of the spirituali. The image of
the Catholic Church as the irredeemable seat of the Antichrist surfaces time
and again in Ochino’s writings. For him and his faithful followers, reform was
not possible from within the Church. As he unequivocally states when at one
point explaining the objective behind his early sermons: “I openly showed jus-
tification by Christ, and as such threw to the ground … the indulgences, purga-
tory, and other impious blasphemies of the doctrine of Antichrist”.41 Such a
statement is not compatible with visions of internal reform.
Not only did Ochino want to teach his followers the true Christian faith,
however, he also wanted them to put that faith into action. As part of his im-
pressive corpus of writings, Ochino included many pieces, such as his ser-
mons: “Of the art of living well”; “Of the way to do good works very much
and quickly”;42 and even that on dying well, that is, “Of the testament that a
Christian should make”, all of which provided detailed guidance for the various
activities in which one could partake to live a truly Christian life.43 But, what
might these actions include? They could be many and diverse. They might in-
clude the giving of alms without hope of expectation or recompense.44 They
could also be something as simple as working and eating “in God’s honor”.
Interestingly, however, the same sermon that lists the simple tasks of working
and eating as potentially godly actions includes, in the very same sentence, the
grand task of “governing the republic [or] the family”.45 Such an interesting
juxtaposition deserves attention. In writing these sermons, Ochino makes it
clear that he genuinely desired to guide his readers towards the true Christian

41 Bernardino Ochino, La seconda parte, MM5v.

42 It is important to clarify here that Ochino does not advocate in this sermon the perfor-
mance of good works as a means to salvation, but rather as a way simply to demonstrate
one’s love for God. In this sense, his ideas are in concordance with many of the other
reformed thinkers of the day.
43 See “Of the art of living well”, predica 48 in Bernardino Ochino, La seconda parte; “Of the
way to do good works very much and quickly”, predica 19 in Bernardino Ochino, Prediche;
“Of the testament that the Christian should make”, predica 21 in Bernardino Ochino,
Prediche.
44 Bernardino Ochino, Prediche, m3v.
45 Bernardino Ochino, Prediche, l3v.

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faith and shape the way that they lived their life. Having done so, however, he
then hoped to alter the religious fabric of the city. Ideally, this change would
come both from the bottom—among those who spent their days working, eat-
ing, and “governing the family”—as well as from the top, “those governing the
republic”. The proof that this was a sincere hope of Ochino’s is borne out by
the writing of his 1543 letter to the Sienese Balìa, which was sent (obvious-
ly) to the Balìa, but which was also printed and distributed among the wider
Sienese population.46 Despite his exile, or perhaps maybe even because of it,
Bernardino Ochino and (as we will see below) at least some of his potential fol-
lowers, aspired to become veritable agents of religious change in Siena.

7.3 Printers, Booksellers, Artisans, and Barbers

Thus far, our discussion of reformed religious beliefs in 16th-century Siena

has revolved largely around expressions of the written word; however, this
should in no way suggest that these beliefs remained confined to the page, or
that they were rarely grappled with in the real world. On the contrary, largely
thanks to the scholarship of Valerio Marchetti and Salvatore Caponetto, we
know that multiple individuals in Siena embraced the messages found in
works like Ochino’s letters and prediche, and bravely discussed them in the
city’s public spaces and meeting places, even if sometimes to their own peril.
Indeed, so active were these individuals that Caponetto has named them “the
Sienese Opposition”.47 Before, however, we explore such public expressions of
reformed thought we need, for a moment, to think about how individuals first
gained access to these reformed ideas. In other words, how did they get their
hands on materials that would likely have been printed beyond the Alps and
at least informally prohibited, even if they were not yet on an official index?48
As Caponetto explains, by the mid-16th century, the clandestine book trade
was flourishing, and Siena was one of multiple “small centers for … clandes-
tine collection”, at which someone could likely find an array of works from the
major reformers.49 Pietro Perna, for instance—the printer in Basel who was
responsible for the publication of Ochino’s five volumes of prediche, in ad-
dition to many of his other works—initially worked as a colportore or minor

46 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 4.

47 This following section depends predominantly on the scholarship presented by Salvatore
Caponetto (Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, pp. 300–05), who himself relies upon the
original research of Valerio Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali.
48 Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 25.
49 Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 25.

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bookseller and then a so-called “agent of connection” between Basel and Italy,
clandestinely transporting both printing supplies and forbidden books into
the peninsula.50 The existence of people like Perna and the networks within
which they worked are significant because they help to underscore the degree
to which both they and their customers were genuinely devoted to the mes-
sages of the religious reformers. Neither transporting and selling, nor buying
prohibited books, was without risk.
This reality is reflected in the unfortunate story of Antonio Zenoli, a Sienese
bookshop owner. We do not seem to know the exact course of events that ini-
tially attracted the authorities’ attention to Zenoli, but in 1564 he was targeted
by the Inquisition. As a result his bookshop was searched and 119 books were
seized.51 We also do not know what punishment Zenoli faced for his posses-
sion of so many prohibited books, but at the very least he must have incurred
a significant financial loss from the seizure of so many saleable items. Indeed,
those who sought prohibited books for whatever reason must have understood
the precarious position in which they were placing themselves. Recognizing
that risk and still engaging in such activities suggests a certain level of sin-
cere interest and commitment to their religious content. Whatever was inside
those books was clearly worth the risk. Once in possession of such materials,
expressing and discussing that content in public could further display one’s
commitment to reformed religious ideas. In Siena, this is just what Caponetto’s
so-called members of the “opposition” did.
Despite having now been published over 40 years ago, Valerio Marchetti’s
archival discoveries remain pivotal to our understanding of reformed religious
thought and heretical activities in 16th-century Siena. And, while his work has
shed light on the activities of numerous individuals, of particular value for
our purposes are his findings on a certain Pietro Antonio di Giovanni Battista
and Basilio Guerrieri.52 Together their stories move us beyond the world of
the Accademia and the veglie to demonstrate that reformed religious ideas ap-
pealed equally as much to those who hailed from more humble origins as they

50 Leandro Perini, La vita e i tempi di Pietro Perna, Rome, 2002, p. 14.

51 Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 270.
52 The following account concerning Pietro Antonio and the 1544 incident at the
Confraternity of the Most Holy Trinity is paraphrased from chapter four, “Aviamo un solo
mediatore, Cristo Gesù” of Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, pp. 51–67. Caponetto also recounts
this story (Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 300). Marchetti’s chapter is reprinted
in Maccianti, G. and Ronchi, M. (eds.), Una gemma preziosa: L’Oratorio della Santissima
Trinità in Siena e la sua decorazione artistica, Poggibonsi, 2012., pp. 145–55, and a summary
of Pietro Antonio’s heresy is provided at the start of another essay in that same volume:
Angelini, “Dipinti e sculture nell’Oratorio dell Santissima Trinità. Un ciclo decorativo
all’insegna della lotta all’eresia”, in Una gemma preziosa, p. 23.

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did to society’s elite. Indeed, it seems in this case that it was those individuals
from society’s middling ranks who were the most vocal in condemning the
doctrines of the Catholic Church and advocating for genuine religious reform,
even if doing so placed them face to face with the Inquisition.
If one walks down the Via dei Servi in the current-day contrada di Valdi­
montone (the neighborhood of the Ram), into the Piazza Alessandro Manzoni,
one will eventually arrive at the tucked-away basilica of Santa Maria dei Servi.
To the left and connected slightly behind this main part of the building is the
Oratory of the Most Holy Trinity, the eventual meeting place for the confra-
ternity of the same name.53 La confraternita della Santissima Trinità is nota-
ble in Sienese history for several reasons. It was the first confraternity in the
city to specifically create an “association for women”; it is also the oldest lay
confraternity, being founded in 1298. Most of its members originated from the
city’s artisan and working classes and, in late October 1544, it was just such
an artisan who transformed the Oratory of the Most Holy Trinity into the site
of one the most memorable events in the history of Reformation Siena.54 It
was the eve of All Saints Day, a day specifically designated to recognize the
Catholic Church’s pantheon of saints and, as such, we can fairly confidently as-
sume that the confraternity was full of individuals ready to demonstrate their
devotion and reverence. A young man, barely out of his teens, named Pietro
Antonio had something else—something much less orthodox—in mind.55
Taking the floor, he denounced the cult of the saints and the Catholic belief that
they could intercede on one’s behalf. Instead he proclaimed a Christocentric—
and suspiciously reformed—perspective that Christ alone should be one’s
mediator.56 His pronouncement is said to have at least initially shocked most
of the present company into silence, but quickly the evening’s events became
the talk of the city. In the following days, individuals who had been present
at the confraternity meeting asked Pietro Antonio whether he truly meant
what he had said. He responded in the affirmative, reasserting that while the
saints could serve as models for good behavior they could not act as one’s
intercessors.57 As such, he quickly attracted the attention of the authorities.

53 See Riedl, P.A., “Gli affreschi della zona delle volte”, in Una gemma preziosa, pp. 55–56 for
a brief history of the confraternity’s growth and a history of meeting places.
54 Baldi, L. “La confraternita e il suo oratorio”, in Una gemma preziosa, p. 15. Also see Angelini,
“Dipinti e sculture”, in Una gemma preziosa, p. 23.
55 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 51.
56 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, pp. 51–52; Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 300; Angelini,
“Dipinti e sculture”, p. 23.
57 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 53.

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He was rapidly imprisoned, brought before the Inquisition, and forced ulti-
mately to recant his beliefs.58
As Marchetti and others have shown, however, Pietro Antonio’s conviction
in no way stemmed the tide of heretical activity in Siena. On the contrary,
depositions given at his trial revealed a wider circle of individuals involved
in reformed activities in Siena and, as Caponetto has suggested, “marked the
organizational beginnings of a clandestine movement of protest”.59 For the
purposes of this chapter two individuals are of particular significance: Basilio
Guerrieri and Lelio Sozzini. We will turn now to Guerrieri’s story with the
Sozzini family being the focus in the next section.60
Earlier we mentioned one of Ochino’s sermons in which he noted that
one way in which a person could live a truly Christian life was through the
proper governing of the Republic, the importance of which was emphasized
by Ochino’s 1543 letter to the Balìa. One person who was particularly drawn
to the messages in Ochino’s letter was Basilio Guerrieri.61 Guerrieri himself
was not a member of the Sienese government, but a barber to members of
the Balìa. Such a position would likely have given Guerrieri easy, early access
to, and knowledge of, the letter. Indeed, as Marchetti explains, Guerrieri, who
had once been associated with a group of Pelagians, was won over by Ochino’s
profession of faith and became an advocate of his teachings.62 Guerrieri, how-
ever, was not a mere casual admirer of Ochino: his ultimate goal was to help
lead a reformed movement in Siena, a vision to which he was so committed

58 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, pp. 53–66; Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, pp. 300–01;
Angelini, “Dipinti e sculture”, p. 23.
59 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 61; Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 301.
60 Caponetto also emphasizes Guerrieri’s importance to the Reformation and his relation-
ship with Sozzini, which we will discuss more below. He notes that Guerrieri was one of
the pivotal leaders of reformed activity within Siena and was respected by Lelio Sozzini,
“in spite of his [Guerrieri’s] modest social position”: Caponetto, Protestant Reformation,
pp. 302–03.
61 The following discussion is derived predominantly from Marchetti’s chapter, “Io vedi che
il numero criesce” (Gruppi Ereticali, pp. 85–106).
62 Pelagianism was a branch of Christian theology that emerged originally in the 5th cen-
tury and re-emerged in the age of the Reformation. At its core was the belief that “sin
was not an inevitable condition”, and that individuals had power over their life and their
spiritual fate through the use of their free will. Such beliefs provoked the immediate dis-
approval of many of the leaders of the Reformation who preached the inherent sinful-
ness of human nature and the doctrine of sola fide. See Schreiner, S.E., “Pelagianism”, in
Hans J. Hillebrand, H.J. (eds.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, Oxford, 2005:
www.oxfordreference.com. For mention of Guerrieri as a Pelagian, see Marchetti, Gruppi
ereticali, p. 85; and Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 300.

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that, in 1546, in the midst of assuming such an ambitious task, he journeyed to

Augsburg to meet with the exiled Ochino in person.63
Central to his plan was the dissemination of reformed religious ideas among
the lower social strata of Sienese society. Marchetti has identified three stages
in this process. The first was for Guerrieri and some of his like-minded as-
sociates to assume positions of power in already existing social institutions
throughout the city. Having done so, they would then “introduce gradually, at
the level of individual relationships and utilizing the contradictions between
Christian teaching and ecclesiastical practice, the seed of evangelical truth”.
Following this they would await an opportune time to “provoke” a moment of
“ecclesiastical contestation”. This marked the end of the first stage. Guerrieri
then hoped to involve some of the city’s intellectual elite who had also ex-
hibited an interest in reformed theologies and who, by virtue of “their social
and cultural homogeneity”, would be able to elevate the movement “from one
of ecclesiastical contestation to protestant reform”. Finally, he hoped to unite
these groups of intellectuals and those artisans who had “reached an elevated
degree of doctrinal knowledge”. The latter, who would by now be so committed
to the reformed faith, were expected to cede leadership of the movement over
to the elites for the good of all those involved.64
Guerrieri initially hoped to use the city’s confraternities as a platform from
which to launch this reform. It has been argued that the events surround-
ing Pietro Antonio were an early example of these efforts as both men were
members of the Confraternity of the Most Holy Trinity.65 The quick response
of the Inquisition to Pietro Antonio’s actions, however, forced Guerrieri to
change tactics. Instead, he helped to organize clandestine meetings within in-
dividuals’ homes at which small groups would meet and listen to sermons by
traveling evangelical preachers, while also clandestinely distributing written
works of a heretical nature.66 One instance of this occurred in 1545, in which a

63 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 86; and Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 300. It should
be noted that although Marchetti and Caponetto stress that it was after this trip to see
Ochino that Guerrieri embarked, full force, on his efforts to provoke reform in Siena,
many of Guerrieri’s unorthodox activities that they emphasize occurred prior to 1546.
This suggests that Guerrieri had already been working to promote religious reform by
the early 1540s, and his trip to see Ochino simply provided further guidance for a process
already underway.
64 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, pp. 87–88.
65 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 87.
66 For mention of the meetings that Guerrieri helped to organize, see Marchetti, Gruppi
ereticali, p. 96. For mention of Guerrieri distributing heretical works see De Gregorio, M.,
“Guerrieri, Basilio”, in Treccani, (eds.), Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Rome, 2003:

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preacher by the name of Aloisio came to preach to a group of individuals from

the city’s working classes.67 The meeting itself, however, took place within the
nobleman Giovanni Battista Tolomei’s home, thereby possessing the afore-
mentioned qualities that Guerrieri believed were necessary for a successful
reformed movement: the involvement of individuals from both the popular
classes and the elite.68 As Marchetti has observed, we do not know exactly
what Aloisio argued in his sermon, but the proceedings from Guerrieri’s even-
tual prosecution before the Inquisition reveal that Aloisio praised the impor-
tance of the scriptures, decried the corruption of the Catholic priesthood,
and insisted upon the falsehood of transubstantiation. Marchetti importantly
stresses, however, that Guerrieri made sure that Aloisio’s sermon did not get
bogged down with doctrinal intricacies, thereby losing the attention of his
lay, lower-class audience, whose conversion to reformed ideologies was at the
heart of Guerrieri’s efforts.69
Eventually, many of the people with whom Guerrieri interacted and to
whom he helped spread reformed religious ideologies, were ultimately inves-
tigated by the Inquisition and frequently recanted their beliefs, but not before
they had shared their beliefs with other individuals within their social circles.70
Guerrieri, himself, was imprisoned on several occasions and eventually falls
off the grid by the early 1560s.71 The significance of individuals such as Pietro
Antonio, Basilio Guerrieri, and others, however, should not be focused on their
eventual condemnation, but on the fact that—within an officially Catholic
city, under the close watch of the Inquisition—they were able to exist at all.
Their stories, once again, illustrate the appeal of reformed religious ideologies
in 16th-century Siena to individuals of varying social backgrounds and the risks
that their proponents were willing to take in attempts to catalyze genuine reli-
gious reform within the city.

http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/basilio-guerrieri_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/.
Also see Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 300.
67 Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 302. The group is said to have included “a stonecut-
ter, a stationer, two tanners, and a shoemaker”.
68 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 97.
69 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, pp. 97–99.
70 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 105. Marchetti, here, also emphasizes the continued spread
of reformed religious ideas within some Augustinian monasteries in the city.
71 De Gregorio, “Guerrieri, Basilio”; Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 303.

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The Discussion and Transmission of Reformed Religious Beliefs 149

7.4 The Sozzini Family

Now we must return to one of the images with which we began this article:
that of the white plaque of Lelio and Fausto Sozzini hung upon a wall of the
family’s palace just off of the Via Pantaneto. As the existence of this plaque
might suggest, the Sozzini family and its members are some of the most well-
known participants (at least on a popular level) of the Reformation in Siena.
Part of this derives, most likely, from the fact that the Sozzini family (particu-
larly Fausto) ultimately gave its name to a specific Christian denomination,
that of Socinianism. Socinianism flourished predominantly outside the Italian
peninsula, particularly in Poland and Lithuania, but Siena was the birthplace
of its founders.72 Additionally, the Sozzini family and especially Lelio, have
often been viewed as champions of religious toleration.73 As such, the Sienese
take pride in viewing themselves as part of a lineage that included early pro-
ponents of such an “enlightened” way of thinking. Such pride is evident in the
commemorative plaques that today adorn the Malavolti-Sozzini palace. The
first plaque, dedicated in 1879, reads as follows:

In the first half of the 16th century were born in this house LELIO AND
FAUSTO SOZZINI/ Illustrious scholars/ the highest philosophers of
freedom of thought / courageous proponents against the supernatural /
Defenders of human reason / They founded the famous Socinian school
of thought / Anticipating by three centuries the doctrines of modern
rationalism / This memorial established in 1879 by Sienese liberals and
pious admirers.74

The respect afforded to the Sozzini and the pride possessed by the “Sienese
liberals” nearly three centuries after the Sozzini’s deaths is evident in the many
superlatives ascribed to Lelio and Fausto. But even this commemorative dis-
play alone did not seem worthy of our two protagonists. Four years later a sec-
ond plaque—the one which, by now, we have repeatedly referenced—was also
hung upon the palace wall. Again, its inscription emphasizes Lelio and Fausto

72 Szczucki, L., “Socinianism”, in Hillerbrand, H.J., (eds.), The Oxford Encylcopedia of the
Reformation, Oxford, 2005: www.oxfordreference.com.
73 Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, p. 375.
74 Secciani, F., “Targa commemorativa dei fratelli Sozzini”, www.ecomuseosiena.org/mappa/
patrimonio-culturale-materiale/targa-commemorativa-dei-fratelli-sozzini (accessed
20 October 2016).

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150 Wenz

as men ahead of their time, resistant to the pressures of traditional authorities

and defenders of the freedom of thought. Underneath the men’s images the
plaque reads: “To LELIO AND FAUSTO SOZZINI who in times of ferocious
despotism reawakened with new doctrines freedom of thought / This modest
remembrance made through public gifts / 1883”.75
But who exactly were the Sozzini and what was their role in the Sienese
Reformation?76 By the 16th-century, the Sozzini were a prominent Sienese fam-
ily, led by their patriarch, Mariano the younger. Lelio, one of Mariano’s sons,
and Fausto, Lelio’s nephew, were arguably the most famous and historically
consequential members of the family, although Mariano’s other sons Cornelio,
Camillo, and Celso also played a role in the Sienese Reformation.77 Mariano
initially organized a small circle for the discussion of reformed ideologies in
Bologna (where he was living and working as a professor of law) to discuss
topics of a reformed religious nature with other members of the family. His
sons would eventually follow suit, creating reformed circles in both Bologna
and Siena.78 Indeed, these small circles—seemingly first composed of family
members but later opened to individuals of all different backgrounds—were
the primary sites for reformed activity among the Sozzini in Siena. In fact, we
have already encountered one of them in our discussion so far: that of the
circle led by Lelio Sozzini in the early 1540s through which Basilio Guerrieri
and Pietro Antonio discussed the events to take place in the Confraternity of
the Most Holy Trinity on 31 October 1544; the same circle that Pietro Antonio
would denounce during his trial.
Indeed, the vast majority of the information that we know about the Sozzini
circles comes primarily from Valerio Marchetti’s study of the inquisitorial re-
cords in which they are named. As such, we are somewhat constrained in our
knowledge by how much or how little each individual trial record reveals. For
instance, Marchetti has expressed some difficulty in establishing with the ut-
most exactness the religious topics of discussion within the various Sozzini
circles. In reference to the aforementioned circle started by Lelio, Marchetti

75 www.ecomuseosiena.org/mappa/patrimonio-culturale-materiale/targa-commemo
rativa-dei-fratelli-sozzini (accessed 20 October 2016).
76 For a concise, biographical overview of Lelio and Fausto Sozzini, see Godbey, J.C., “Sozzini,
Fausto and Lelio”, in H.J. Hillerbrand (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation,
Oxford, 2005: www.oxfordreference.com.
77 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 143.
78 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 145. Additionally, although we earlier associated member-
ship in the Accademia degli Intronati with more irenic religious ideologies, research has
shown that in later years, friends of Fausto and Camillo also frequented their meetings:
Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 244.

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remarks that its participants were most likely influenced by Calvin’s Institutes
and particularly his comments against the cult of the saints.79 Marchetti
further notes that, although the members of Lelio’s circle had not yet gone
as far as to identify the papacy with the seat of the Antichrist, they did insist
that “the head of the church was Christ and not the pope”.80 Documents from
a later trial in 1558 (during which a circle led by Fausto, Cornelio, and Camillo
was under investigation) similarly make reference to common tenets of re-
formed ideology including “the negation of purgatory and the contestation
of pontifical authority”.81 The same tenets emerge yet again in a trial from
the summer of 1560. Here another circle led by Cornelio and Camillo (though
this time meeting in one of the Sozzini homes in Bologna) was under inves-
tigation. Once more, its participants were said to deny the authority of the
pope and “shun the superstitious liturgies of the papists”. They also took aim
at several of the Catholic sacraments. Transubstantiation and Christ’s material
presence in the Eucharist were denied, as well as the utility of “auricular con-
fession” before a priest during the sacrament of penance. In this instance, the
Sozzini family’s opposition to the Catholic Church, its doctrines, and rituals, is
without doubt.82
As we noted earlier, one of the objectives of this chapter has been not only to
consider what people were discussing in early modern Siena, but also how they
discussed certain ideas and among whom. The Sozzini family, like so many
other Sienese who were attracted to the world of the Reformation, did not want
to just talk about ideas. They wanted to spread them to others and hopefully
live them out in their daily lives. With such issues in mind, it is worth briefly
looking at the social make-up of the circles that formed around the Sozzini.
Like Guerrieri, the Sozzini aimed to disseminate reformed religious ideas not
only to the city’s elite, but also to members of the more humble classes. For
example, Marchetti notes that when the aforementioned circle of Fausto,
Cornelio, and Camillo fell under inquisitorial investigation in 1558, the Jesuits
were able to make two lists of suspected heretics: one including Cornelio,
Camillo, and Fausto as well as individuals from other prominent Sienese fami-
lies; and a second including a “master craftsman Paolo and master blacksmith
Ippolito … the bookseller Francesco Cattani; a cook named Niccolò, a watch-
maker called Barbarossa, [and] a tailor by the name of Cesare”.83 Likewise,

79 Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali, p. 65.

80 Processo Pietro Antonio, quoted in Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali.
81 Ibid., pp. 150–51.
82 Ibid., p. 217.
83 Ibid., p. 150.

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when the Inquisition investigated Cornelio and Camillo’s Bolognese circle, in-
vestigations revealed that the Sozzini were particularly interested in appealing
to the city’s peasants.84 The Sozzini hoped to transform Italian religious soci-
ety from top to bottom and, although their high profile as members of a prom-
inent family inherently made it more difficult to stay under the authorities’
radar, it seemed they nevertheless tried the best that they could. Lelio Sozzini,
for instance, was said to have disapproved of Pietro Antonio’s antics in the con-
fraternity meeting. Certainly, what Pietro Antonio said was valid, but causing
a scene by proclaiming his beliefs at the top of his lungs in a public forum was
not the most productive way to promote religious change. To quote Marchetti
once more, Lelio’s “way of insinuating the evangelical truth followed a very
different path than that of [Guerrieri and Pietro Antonio’s] plan of discord”.85
Before concluding our discussion of the Sozzini it is necessary to note that al-
though we have focused predominantly on the family’s activities in their home
city of Siena, it is sometimes difficult to speak of them in a strictly Sienese
context. The Sozzini family was one that spent their time throughout the
Italian peninsula and Lelio, himself, would spend many years traveling abroad
throughout Europe, corresponding with some of the major reformers of the
day, and studying theology from every conceivable angle.86 Indeed, Fausto’s
greatest fame, came not just from his activity in Siena, but, as mentioned ear-
lier, in his eventual establishment of an anti-trinitarian branch of Christianity
in north-eastern Europe.87 Thus, as the plaques on the family’s palace attest,
the Sozzini pushed the boundaries of the early modern religious world, both
within Siena, but also throughout much of Europe, and it is largely for this rea-
son that they remain so highly revered and remembered in Siena today.

7.5 Conclusion

This chapter has endeavored to enrich our understanding of the religious

landscape of 16th-century Siena. Often, Siena is forced to take a back seat to
larger powers like Florence, Venice, or Rome. Sometimes it is described in a

84 Ibid., p. 219.
85 Ibid., p. 66.
86 Caponetto, Protestant Reformation; Tedeschi, J.A. (ed.), Italian Reformation Studies in
Honor of Laelius Socinus, Florence, 1965, p. viii. See also Tedeschi (ed.), Italian Reformation
Studies, esp. pp. 217–30 for several letters between Lelio and Calvin, which clearly depict
Lelio’s intellectual curiosity about all matters religious.
87 For a concise discussion of the development of the Socinian Church in the 17th century,
see Szczucki, “Socinianism”.

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The Discussion and Transmission of Reformed Religious Beliefs 153

one-dimensional fashion as the unwaveringly Catholic “City of the Virgin”. But,

as our discussion has revealed, 16th-century Siena was a vibrant city, teeming
with religious diversity. Interest and engagement in religious reform ranged
from the more irenic, cerebral activities of the intellectual salons and acad-
emies, to the passionate public declarations of an artisan at his confraternity
meeting, to the stealthy printer smuggling in written texts to be read and dis-
cussed in the relative safety of one’s home. Yet, no matter what ways Sienese
individuals discussed or disseminated these reformed religious ideas, ulti-
mately their final objective was largely the same: to remake the religious fabric
of their city in a way that would bring them closer to their vision of the true
Christian faith.
In the end, Siena did not turn into a staunchly Protestant city, and many ac-
counts of Protestant or philo-Protestant activity in Siena end, somewhat like
this chapter, with the Sozzini and their eventual departure from the city in the
1560s.88 But, in closing, I would like to challenge the idea that 16th-century
Siena and the reformed currents that pulsed through its atmosphere are en-
tirely a thing of the past. As this chapter has tried to show, monuments to
Siena’s reformed past are scattered throughout the city’s physical fabric, if only
one knows where to look. Furthermore, the walk through Siena’s streets need
not be one simply taken in your imagination. On the contrary, several years
ago, as part of a series of events aimed to help educate interested individuals
in the city’s historical and cultural past, a tour of “heretical Siena” took place
in which individuals were guided throughout the city’s winding streets and
taught about the important people and places integral to the reformed move-
ment in Siena. The pride that is so evident in the plaques commemorating the
Sozzini was equally evident in the voice of the tour guide. So, should you find
yourself one day strolling the streets of Siena, by all means see Duccio’s Maestà
and visit the ornately decorated Duomo, but then stop and ask a Sienese indi-
vidual about Lelio or Ochino. You might be surprised by the stories that they
are still very eager to tell you.

88 That is, indeed, how Marchetti ends his monograph.

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 chapter 8

Bernardino of Siena in the History and Culture

of the City of L’Aquila

Santa Casciani

Abstract

The movement of the Observance led by Bernardino of Siena found approval among
the citizens of L’Aquila in 1438 with the arrival of this Franciscan saint. Alessandro
De Riicis, a Franciscan friar, chronicles in his Cronica Aquilanorum the success of
Bernardino in L’Aquila. Found in his chronicle is a poem which states that L’Aquila
began to be known as a city with the Sienese’s arrival in it. This study analyzes the role
that the saint played in making the city of L’Aquila known in what De Riciis calls “the
world”. I will first argue the importance of the saint among the citizens of L’Aquila in
15th-century Italy; subsequently I will explore how Bernardino’s preaching, especially
on the role of Mary in the Passion, influences the preaching of his followers in L’Aquila,
which in turn shapes the political and religious evolution at a decisive moment in the
city’s history. It also shows how widely Siena influenced other regions beyond her
own borders.

In 15th-century Italy, Franciscan preaching was rekindled, experiencing its

greatest mass success with the movement of the Observants, a new branch of
the Franciscan Order led by Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444), a friar who devot-
ed his entire life to itinerant preaching in the vernacular language.1 Bernardino
of Siena and the movement of the Franciscan Observance revived the mes-
sage of peace that Francis of Assisi preached during his life. In many sermons,
Bernardino preached to educate his audience on the consequences of politi-
cal factions present in the society of his time.2 Saint Bernardino’s preaching
career begins in 1417 and ends with his death in 1444 in the city of L’Aquila in

1 The Observants, a new branch of the Franciscan Order, was founded by Paoluccio Trinci
da Foligno in 1368 and later led by Bernardino of Siena, Alberto of Sartano, Giovanni of
Capestrano, and Giacomo of Marca. For the history of the Observants, see da Campagnola, S.,
Le Origini Francescane come problema storiografico, Perugia: Tipografia Porziuncola, 1974.
2 For a bibliography on Bernardino’s preaching, see Casciani, S., “Bernardino: Reader of Dante”,
in S. Casciani (ed.), Dante and the Franciscans, Leiden, 2006, pp. 85–111.

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Bernardino of Siena in the History and Culture 155

the region of Abruzzo. The 15th-century chronicles describe Bernardino as a

preacher who brought large crowds to the squares, as well as how he was able
to emotionally involve spectators with his words. His fame carried him all over
Italy and Europe. In 1438 he arrived in L’Aquila, preaching on that occasion
before the Church of Collemaggio.3
The origins of the Franciscans in the Abruzzi region date back to the jour-
ney of St Francis of Assisi in 1215, when he went from Rome to the Abruzzi4
and then to Apulia.5 We have precise information about his visit there from
Thomas of Celano. In 1239, this Franciscan territory took the name of the
province of Pennensis,6 and, after 1376, the year when the Franciscan order es-
tablished their first chapter in L’Aquila, the city became an important center
for them.7 With the arrival of Bernardino in 1438 in L’Aquila, his new order,
the Observance, received widespread approval among its citizens, and in 1457
this territory became the Province of San Bernardino.8 Historians believe that
Bernardino was in L’Aquila three times: in 1433, 1438, and in 1444, the year of his
death. There is no specific historical documentation of the 1433 date, however,
there is evidence of his visits on the later dates.9
Bernardino’s journey to L’Aquila in 1438 was at the request of his friend,
Saint John of Capestrano, who wanted him to placate factions that arose in the
Franciscan family. On that occasion, he preached for 12 nights in front of the
Church of Collemaggio.10 Alessandro De Riicis, a Franciscan Observant and

Montesano, M., “Aspetti e conseguenze della predicazione civica di Bernardino da

Siena”, in Actes du colloque organisé par le Centre de recherche “Histoire sociale et culturelle
de l’Occident. XIIe–XVIIIe siècle” de l’Université de Paris X-Nanterre etl’Institut universitaire
de France (Nanterre, 21–23 juin 1993), Rome, 1995, pp. 265–75.
3 Chierici, U., La Basilica di S. Bernardino a L’Aquila, L’Aquila, 1964, p. 13.
4 We no longer refer to this region as Abruzzi, which until 1967 comprised Abruzzo and
Molise. Today we simply refer to it as Abruzzo.
5 See Papini, N., La storia di San Francesco d’Assisi, Foligno, 1825, p. 87.
6 Other sources on the presence of Francis in the region date back to 1215–16, when Bishop
Anastasio of Venantiis dedicated the convent in Penne to the saint. These dates help
explain how the Franciscan territory in the Abruzzi has taken the name of Pennensis
since 1239. For the history of this province, see Chiappini, A., L’Abruzzo Francescano nel
secolo XIII, L’Aquila, 1926, p. 7.
7 The chapter took place in the church of Saint Francis in Paganica (AQ). Queen Giovanna I
of Naples asked that all the surrounding towns ensure that friars coming from all over
the world have all necessity needed during their stay, Chiappini, A., De vita et scriptis
Fr. Alexandri de Riciis, Florence, 1928, p. 9.
8 The province of Pennensis was renamed the Province of San Bernardino during the gener-
al chapter meeting held in Milan: Chiappini, A., Profilo di storia francescana in Abruzzzo,
L’Aquila, 1927, p. 27.
9 D’Antonio, P.A., S. Bernardino: ieri e oggi, Montesilvano, 1980.
10 Chierici, U., La Basilica di S. Bernardino a L’Aquila, L’Aquila, 1964.

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156 Casciani

follower of Bernardino, relates in his Chronica Aquilanorum that while preach-

ing about the Virgin Mary on the day of the Assumption in 1438, in the square
of the church of Santa Maria di Collemaggio (see Fig. 8.1) in L’Aquila, the
crowd, together with Renato of Naples and the Blessed Bernardino of Fossa,
saw on the head of Bernardino the image of the Virgin Mary in the form of a
radiant star.11 The citizens of L’Aquila responded to the vision of Mary, taking
it as a miracle from God.
During the period of the saint’s journey of 1438, L’Aquila was part of the
Kingdom of Naples and was a democratic state, governed by an elective judi-
ciary government. It enjoyed a flourishing commerce from its wool and saffron
trade and exported to other parts of Italy and in Europe. L’Aquila had remained
faithful to the dynasty of the Anjou family, while jealously safeguarding a sub-
stantial political independence, which related its structure to that of a free
commune. When Bernardino of Siena arrived in 1438, the tempestuous events
relating to the succession within the Kingdom of Naples were ongoing. The
bloody struggles between the Angevins and the Aragonese strongly disturbed
the peace of L’Aquila, which was in the midst of bloody conflicts between
factions, fueled by rivalries and ambition. The death of Bernardino caused
the struggles in the city to cease and it began to be reborn. San Giovanni of
Capestrano, who was preaching in Vienna at the time of Bernardino’s death,
affirmed during one of his sermons that his death in L’Aquila was the will of
God, for it brought peace to the city.12 The chronicles of the city attest that
Bernardino had come to L’Aquila to preach on peace to restore serenity in the
city. However, his death prevented him from fulfilling his great desire. In the
middle of the bloody battles in L’Aquila something incredible happened:
the dead body of Bernardino began to bleed. The bleeding ceased only when
peace returned to the city.13
The apostolic activity of San Bernardino of Siena made the city of L’Aquila
bear the saint’s insignia, the IHS. Bernardino’s wooden image of the IHS in-
signia is kept in the Convent of San Giuliano in L’Aquila, as seen in Fig. 8.2.
Furthermore, Fig. 8.3 portrays the depiction of John of Capistrano holding the
insignia while he defends Bernardino in front of Pope Martin V, and Fig. 8.4.
portrays the depiction of John of Capistrano and Bernardino holding the in-
signia while preaching. Bernardino’s popularity was such that in houses of
every social background, the insignia of the name of Jesus was placed in many

11 L’Aquila, Biblioteca Provinciale de L’Aquila in Bazzano, fol. 172r. All translations from the
Latin and Italian are mine, unless otherwise stated.
12 Chierici, La Basilica di S. Bernardino a L’Aquila, p. 14.
13 D’Antonio, S. Bernardino: ieri e oggi, p. 135.

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Bernardino of Siena in the History and Culture 157

portals and palaces;14 even today, after the earthquake of 2009, a great number
remain. The love that L’Aquila had for the Sienese saint was not only because
of his preaching but also because of his entombment in the city. A poem found
in the chronicle of Alessandro De Riciis states how Bernardino played a role in
making the city of L’Aquila known in, what he calls, “the world”:

Aquila, you were dignified

after Saint Bernardino arrived
he who is so just and pious,
that you became worthy to be crowned:
This is what my intellect seems to believe:
and throughout the world you became known …15

Moreover, Giacomo della Marca,16 while preaching in Todi not long after
St Bernardino’s death, stated that L’Aquila was a happy city, which was made
famous all over the world by this angel, Bernardino, that God’s gratifying hand
had sent not to Siena, not to Perugia, not to Foligno, not to Assisi, not to Spoleto
nor to Terni, not to Rieti nor to Cittaducale, where he had passed through, but
only to L’Aquila. God wanted to deposit this precious treasure there, spreading
the city’s fame throughout the world where the Friars Minor lived.17
The people of L’Aquila considered Bernardino’s death in their city a miracle,
and fought against the projects of the Conventuals,18 who were ready to send
his body to Siena. They asked Rome that their city remain the guardian of the
saint’s body and received approval. Pope Eugene IV, to whom the city of Siena
had appealed, dissuaded them from transferring the body there. Only the
saint’s donkey returned with some books and a few relics from the saint’s pos-
sessions. His body was placed in the church of St Francis (no longer existing)

14 De Bartholomaeis, A., Origini della poesia drammatica italiana, Turin, 1952, p. 111.
15 “Aquila, tu sci esaltata / poi che nci venne santo Verardino, / che è sì iusto e pio, / che
fusti degna d’essere incoranata; / Cosí me pare allu ‘inteletto mio: / Per tuttu lu munnu tu
si nominata …”: Alessandro De Riciis, Chronica, cited in De Bartholomaeis, Origini della
poesia drammatica italiana, pp. 354–55.
16 Giacomo della Marca (1394–1476) was a follower of St Bernardino of Siena. He actively
promoted the cult of the name of Jesus, dear to the Sienese saint: Bernardino of Siena,
Prediche volgari: Sul Campo di Siena 1427, ed. C. del Corno, vol. 1, Milan, 1989, pp. 1–21.
17 D’Antonio, S. Bernardino: ieri e oggi, p. 130.
18 After St Francis’ death, the Franciscan order split into two: the Conventuals and the
Spirituals. They were divided over the correct way of interpreting Francis’ will. The
Conventuals interpreted the rule loosely with regard to poverty, while the Spirituals ad-
hered to a stricter interpretation of the poverty clause. For the history of the Conventuals
and the Spirituals, see Iriarte, L., Storia del Francescanesimo, Naples, 1982.

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and it remained there, the object of continuous veneration until 1472, when
it was moved to the basilica that Giovanni of Capestrano and the citizens of
Aquila and Siena had built in his name (see Fig. 8.5).19 After his death, love for
the saint continued to prevail among the citizens of L’Aquila, as we see in the
laude of the Observant order of the city. In them we see repeated the plea to
Pope Eugene for Bernardino’s canonization:

People of L’Aquila,
do not be lazy, canonize him.
God, inspire with your light
the mind of Pope Eugenio.
Allow the blessed one to be canonized.
Dear citizens be watchful
toward this canonization, do not be slow.20

The people of L’Aquila did not have to wait long; on Pentecost in 1450, with
the bull Misericordias Domini of Nicolas V of 24 May 1450, the Catholic world
witnessed the canonization of St Bernardino of Siena.21
Bernardino’s preaching had moved the citizens of L’Aquila because he not
only preached the love of God but also peace on earth, and the city, torn apart
by political hatred among factions, was in great need of peace. Through his
preaching on peace, Bernardino concentrated on the Passion of Christ and on
Mary’s pain. In the Ricordi di San Bernardino we read the following exhorta-
tion: “My Lord Jesus crucified and nailed [to the cross] for me. Come live in
me in a way that your nails become nails in this heart of mine”.22 Bernardino’s
words recall Francis’ image of the crucifixion; an image that portrays the suffer-
ing and forgiveness of Christ,23 and in imitation of Francis, Bernardino died on

19 Iriarte, Storia del Francescanesimo, p. 15.

20 “… Aquilani/no sciate pigri, scia canonizzatu. / Spira eterno dio col tuo lustrore / la mente
de papa Eugenio … / quisto beato sia canonizatu … / Signuri Citadini stete actenti / ad
questo Canonizar non sciate lenti”: Alessandro De Riitis, Chronica, 51v–75r.
21 Both Siena and L’Aquila contributed to the expense of the saint’s canonization, which was
calculated at 7000 ducats: Chiappini, Profilo di Storia, p. 28.
22 “Signor mio Gesù, per me crocifisso ed inchiodato, passate a vivere in me di maniera che i
vostri chiodi siano confitti nel mio cuore”, cited in Montagnani, G., Compedio della vita di
Bernardino da Siena con appendici, Modena, 1855, p. 41.
23 See St Francis’ The Canticle of Creatures, where he delineates the love for Christ: cited in
Bader, W., The Prayers of Saint Francis, Hyde Park, NY, 1996, pp. 40–43. “The crucifixion of
Christ stands at the beginning and the end of Francis’s spiritual journey. At San Damiano,
Francis heard the voice of the Crucifix summoning him to repair the ruinous house of the

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the bare floor in the Convent of Saint Francis in L’Aquila with his arms spread
in the form of a cross.24 Already in 1438, after Bernardino’s success in the city
of L’Aquila, the religious leaders of the city requested the best Lenten preach-
ers from Bernardino’s Order of the Observance.25 These friars used the same
enthusiasm as Bernardino in their preaching on the Passion of Christ.
Bernardino of Siena’s life, like that of Francis, was not only fixed on the vi-
sion of the passion,26 but also on Mary’s own pain at the foot of the cross.
Although, Mary reached new heights in her influence of Western culture in the
Middle Ages,27 it was Francis’ love for the mother of God that promoted Marian
devotion among his followers,28 who have seen in Mary the path to salvation
and whose beauty illuminated their journey in faith. Francis’ devotion to Mary
was not a result of his theological reflection, but of prayer and meditation on
the profound mystery of the Virgin Mary and on her special role in the history
of salvation. In his earlier Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance,
Francis believed that he and his followers could live in the Church as mothers,
like Mary, who had submitted herself to the power of God as mother of Jesus:

Lord. On Mount Alverna, by a special grace, he became like Christ in receiving the marks
of the wound of the crucified Lord.”: Bader, The Prayers of Saint Francis, p. 14.
24 Chierici, La Basilica di S. Bernardino a L’Aquila, p. 13.
25 De Bartholomaeis, Origini della poesia drammatica italiana, p. 355.
26 Hammond, “Saint Francis’s Doxological Mysticism in Light of His Prayers”, pp. 117–18, ar-
gues that in the prayer in front of the crucifix of San Damiano, Francis’ life emerges as a
Christological one: “It is through, by, and in the mediation of the cross that Francis offers
his prayer to God. And so, it is through, by and in Christ’s cross that he seeks ‘true faith, cer-
tain hope, and perfect charity, sense and knowledge,’ and only with the cross can Francis
carry out God’s command.” Hammond, J.M., Francis of Assisi: History, Hagiography and
Hermeneutics in the Early Documents, Hyde Park, NY, 2004, pp. 117–18. In a homily on
4 October 2013, Pope Francis articulated the same idea as Hammond when he stated, “Where
did Francis’s journey to Christ begin? It began with the gaze of the crucified Jesus.”: con-
sulted online, http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/
papa-francesco_20131004_omelia-visita-assisi.html (accessed July 2020).
27 In the 12th century, Bernard of Clairvaux, morethan any other medieval thinker, inspired
the development of Marian imagery. In his series of sermons, In Praise of the Virgin Mary,
Bernard implores the faithful to fly to Mary with all of their needs and to “follow the ex-
ample of her life … [so that they may] experience how true it is that the Virgin’s name was
Mary”: Bernard of Clairvaux, Homilies in Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary, trans. M. Saïd,
Kalamazoo, MI, 1993, pp. 30–31.
28 Thomas of Celano, Saint Francis’ first biographer, tells us in the Second Life that Francis
had an unspoken love for the Mother of Christ because she had made it possible for the
Son of the Lord to be our brother: Bonaventure, The Major Legend of Saint Francis in
Francis of Assisi: The Founder Early Documents, eds. and trans. R.J. Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap.,
J.A.W. Hellmann, O.F.M. Con., W.J. Short, O.F.M., New York, 1999, p. 203.

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We are mothers when we carry Him in our hearts and body through
a divine love and a pure and sincere conscience and give birth to him
through a holy activity, which must shine as an example before others.29

Bernardino, inspired by Francis, sees Mary as the loving mother whose tears30
bring compassion to the faithful; tears that are seen also as the very blood of
Christ, scattered in humanity through her compassion, and as a sort of cruci-
fixion to witness Christ’s humanity. Her tears and the blood of Christ unite in
one passion. He believed that Mary’s pain, expressed through her tears, was
enormous, so enormous that if divided and distributed among all human crea-
tures able to suffer, they would perish immediately. Giovanni of Capestrano
in witnessing the love that Bernardino had for Mary, affirmed that when the
Sienese saint spoke about the beauty of the Virgin, his face would light up and
because of this love, he wrote of her as a gift to posterity.31

8.1 Bernardino’s Influence on the Observance Order in L’Aquila

After Bernardino’s death in L’Aquila, the Order of the Observance promoted his
image as a witness of faith in Christ and of the saving power of the Christian
faith. He had brought his love for the passion of Christ and for Mary’s pain,
which influenced his followers who, in order to demonstrate their devotion
to him, began to develop ways to engage the faithful in religious celebrations
during Passion Week. Among his followers was Bernardino of Fossa,32 who met

29 Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap., R.J., Hellmann, O.F.M. Con., J.A.W., Short, O.F.M., W.J., (eds.),
Francis of Assisi. The Saint. Early Documents, New York, 1999, p. 634.
30 For a complete work on role of tears in the history of Christianity (donum lacrymarum)
which recall Matthew’s Beatitudes, see Patton, K.C., and Hawley, J.S. (eds.), Holy Tears:
Weeping in the Religious Imagination, Princeton, 2005. Tears are the result of the immea-
surable human love for God, leading to tears of regret for having been ungrateful for his
mercy. Different episodes in the scriptures testify to the gift of tears. For example, when
Jesus weeps over Jerusalem (Lk 19:41–44) or over Lazarus’ death (Jn 11:34); and when
the sinful woman weeps for her sins at Jesus’ feet (Lk 7:38). The gift of tears describes
a complex phenomenon consisting of certain spiritual feelings which leads to pathos
among the faithful. For example, in medieval literature, they intensify the pain experi-
enced by Christ and as a result, the faithful can feel pathos and raise the soul towards
God. Casciani, S., La lauda e le artes praedicandi nell’Abruzzo medievali con testi inediti,
Madison, 1994, pp. 53–54.
31 Bernardino of Fossa, Vita di San Bernardino da Siena in Vite de’ SS. Protettori della fedelis-
sima città dell’Aquila, ed. V.M. Aquilano, Naples, 1638. p. 99.
32 Bernardino of Fossa was born in Fossa, in the province of L’Aquila, as Giovanni Amici
in 1421. He died in L’Aquila in 1503 and was beatified by Pope Leo XII in 1828, see,
U. da Pescocostsnzo, (ed.), Vita del B. Bernardino da Fossa, Napoli, 1872, pp. 113–135.

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Bernardino of Siena in 1438 and was one of the three friars who witnessed the
vision of the Virgin Mary above Bernardino’s head. He later wrote a biogra-
phy of him.33 Bernardino of Fossa, an Observant, wrote a lyrical composition
inserted at the end of one of his sermons entitled De Passione Domini.34 This
poetical text is a remaking, in the dialect of L’Aquila, of Niccolò Cicerchia’s
Passione,35 composed in 1364.36 Although Cicerchia was a Dominican friar
and follower of Saint Catherine of Siena, the Observant from Fossa reread
the composition through a Franciscan lens and concentrated his subject on
Mary’s pain, recalling the experiences of Christ’s crucifixion as testament to
Francis’ and Bernardino’s philosophical vision of the Suffering Christ.37 Like
Bernardino of Siena, who saw Mary’s pain and tears as witness to the blood
of Christ, he allows the faithful to experience the Passion through the artistic
iconography of Mary’s tears shed at the foot of the Cross.
Bernardino of Fossa’s composition reproduces 108 octaves in full and part of
another, which he later erased. He omits 174 octaves of Cicerchia’s work; each
of the octaves chosen and found in Bernardino of Fossa’s version is in the same
order, but with significant gaps. Basing the content of his sacred representa-
tion only on those stanzas, which are crucial to the message of the Passion and

33 See n. 33.
34 This composition is found in codex R-111, originally kept in the Convent of Sant’Angelo
d’Ocre, near L’Aquila, and then moved to the Archivio di Stato de L’Aquila (it remains in
the Archivio di Stato, but it was moved after the earthquake to a new location in Bazzano,
L’Aquila with the same R-111 no.). I transcribed this composition for my doctoral disserta-
tion in 1991. The manuscript is a 15th century Quatragesimale composed of 274 folios and
containing various sermons on the Passion of Christ. In folio 3r the following can be read:
“this book was written by Beato P. Brother Bernardino of Fossa, Observant”, and in the last
folio of the manuscript we read the date: “Anno Domini 1464”. The sermon De Passione
Domini, found from folio 73v to 76v, is the only sermon containing a lyrical piece.
35 Niccolò Cicerchia was born in Siena between 1335–40. He hailed from one of the most
illustrious families of Siena. Cicerchia belonged to the Confraternity of the Disciplinati
of Santa Maria della Scala and was a follower of St Catherine of Siena, whom he trav-
eled with to Avignon in 1376 on her mission to bring back the papacy to Rome. He wrote
the Passion around 1364. He also wrote the Resurrection around the same time as the
Passion. Both works derive in part from the Meditazione della vita di Gesù Cristo, written
by Giovani da San Gimignano. Work cited in Enaudi, G., Letteratura italiana: dizionario
bio-bibliografico e indici, vol. 1, Turin, 1990, p. 554.
36 See Varanini, G., Cantari religiosi senesi del Trecento, Bari, 1965, p. 537.
37 The Franciscan Christ represents the Franciscans’ perception of Francis’ life lived as an
Imitatio Christi. See chapter 13 of Bonaventure’s The Major Legend where he states that
Francis in opening “the book of the sacred Gospels … three times in the name of the Holy
Trinity [,] the Lord’s passion always met his eyes … [and] just as he had imitated Christ in
his actions of his life, so he should be conformed to him in the affliction and sorrow of his
passion, before he would pass out of this world”: Bonaventure, The Major Legend of Saint
Francis, 13, eds. Armstrong, Hellmann, Short, pp. 630–39.

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best engage the emotions of the faithful, Bernardino of Fossa omits those that
are descriptive or rhetorical in nature, thus leaving the events of the Passion
unaltered. More specifically, all chosen octaves reveal the vast and important
role assigned to the Virgin when dramatizing the Passion of Christ. Her role
not only transcends the spiritual and eschatological character of her divine
motherhood, but also reflects her maternal tenderness. Bernardino of Fossa
carefully chooses Cicerchia’s octaves to better represent the iconography of
the suffering of Christ through Mary’s tears, which symbolize and embody the
pain and compassion of human motherhood, as we see in the following octave:

Then the mother fell to her knees

before her son with her arms crossed,
and striking her face she wounded herself.
And feeling in her heart the painful nails,
her heart almost vents:
from her eyes flow very pointed tears!
Then the kind Christ leans toward the ground
to lift his unfortunate mother to her feet.38

These verses describe the Virgin on her knees, with her arms folded, weeping
at the feet of her Son. Mary’s pain is presented through mimetic gestures,
which develop the action of the representation. For example, the gerunds
“percotendo” (striking) and “sentendo” (feeling) announce the magnitude of
the mother’s pain that will be reinforced through the narrative of the Passion.
In this octave, Bernardino of Fossa changes the sixth verse from Cicerchia’s
“de gli occhi avie tante lagrime munte!”39 (From her eyes so many tears poured),
to “Dalli occhi le escono lacrime sì punte” (from her eyes flow very pointed
tears). The choice of the adjective “punte” (pointed) instead of the past parti-
ciple “munte” (poured), reinforces the adjective “ponte” of verse four, express-
ing and describing more pictographically the Virgin’s pain, which induces
the audience to feel the passion of Christ. The idea of tears which are “punte”,

38 “Allora la matre ingenocchionj se messe / allo suo fillio colle braccia ionte, / el sancto
viso percotendo allise. / Sentendo al core dolorese ponte, / poco meno el core selli di-
vise: / dalli occhi le escono lacrime sì punte! / Allora el bon yhesu interra sechiana / pe
leverce ricta la matre mischina.”: Bernardino of Fossa, Passione, found in manuscript R-111
in the Archivio di Stato de L’Aquila, octave 5, which corresponds to Niccolò Cicerchia, La
Passione, del nostro Signore Gesù Cristo, in G. Varanini (ed.), Cantari senesi religiosi del
trecento, Bari, 1956, pp. 309–380, octave 21.
39 The literal translation of “munte” refers to the action of milking, meaning pouring out like
a fountain: my interpretation from Cicerchia, Passione, octave, 21.

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foreshadows the pointed nails that will pierce Christ’s body. These are associ-
ated with the mother’s pain at the feet of the cross, personified and intensified
in the dialogue that follows in stanza six:40

My son, make it so that death seizes me

before I see you die with my own eyes,
Son, and then do as you please:
it will be your death and my peace.41

In the first verse above, Mary’s reference to her own death establishes her pain-
ful struggle, and reinforces her participation in the Passion of her Son, and the
participation of the faithful in stanzas seven and eight that follow:

Mary, Martha, and all the others

were all asking Jesus for mercy:
they were kneeling in front of Him,
and each one focused on praying to Him,
all weeping with bitter cries.
The sorrowful mother sits on the ground,
and crying for mercy she calls her son
and she desires death more than life.42

All were crying with bitter pain,

begging him not to depart from them.
Then the mother to her sweet son,
Crying, with a piteous voice said:
“You are my hope and my treasure,
I hope!” And then she embraced and blessed him.
Then she said: “O son of mine I feel so much pain,
Oh, mournful me, will I ever see you again!”43

40 Cicerchia, Passione, octave, 22.

41 “O filliolo, fa che la morte me prenda / prima ch’io vegia ti colli occhi mej / morire, fillio, e
po’ fa’ que te piace: / Sarrà la morte a te e a me pace”, R-111. Octave, 1–4.
42 “Maria e Marta e gli altrj tucti quanti / chiedeano tucti ad Yhesu mercede: / inginocchiati
li stavano davanti, / e a pregarlo cascuno se li dade, / tucti piangendo con amarj pianti. /
La matre in terra dolorosa sede, / gridando, misare al figliuolo chiama / e più che la morte
che la vita brama.”: Cicerchia, Passione, octave 28; Bernardino of Fossa, Passione, octave 7.
43 “Pianguano tucti con amaro dolu, / pregandolo tucti che da lor non se partisse. / Allora
la matre allo dolce suo filliolo, / piangendo, con pia voce disse: / ‘Tu sej la mia speranza e
‘l mio tesoro / spero!’ E poi lo abbrazzui e benedisse; / poi dixe: ‘O filliol mio, quanti sento

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164 Casciani

In these two stanzas, the participation of the faithful reinforces the role that
Mary’s tears have at the foot of the cross, a participation seen in the verses
“Maria e Marta e gli altrj tucti quanti” (Mary and Martha and all the others)
and “Pianguano tucti con amaro dolu” (All were crying with bitter pain).44 In
changing the imperfect of “Piangean”45 of Cicerchia to the present indicative
“Pianguano”, the text recalls the suffering of Christ and presents it in the pres-
ent tense as though it were a current event. Furthermore, the author omits
six of Cicerchia’s octaves to arrive directly at the partecipatio of the faithful in
stanza eight. The “pointed tears” of the Virgin in octave five are identified with
the “amarj pianti” (bitter cries) and the “amaro dolu” (bitter pain) of the faith-
ful in the above stanza. In selecting precise verses from Cicerchia, Bernardino
of Fossa encourages the audience to identify with Mary’s pain. Mary’s love,
strengthened by that of her Son, can also be seen in octave nine:

Then Jesus stared at his mother,

who seemed as though her heart was failing.
From white to black her face had changed,
and it appears she feels deadly poison in her heart.
“O Queen of Paradise”, he said,
“for the love of me put a stop to your pain:
my time is approaching now.
O sweet Mother, allow me to depart”.46

Moreover, octave 10 reinforces Mary’s suffering:

Then the mother, crying, embraced him

saying: “Oh poor me, Son how you leave me!”
She put her face near that holy face,

guauj, / o dolorosa revedrocte io giammai!’”: Cicerchia, Passione, octave 29; Bernardino of

Fossa, Passione octave, 8.
44 Bernardino da Fossa, octaves 7–8.
45 “Piangean tutti con amaoro duolo” (All were crying with bitter pain): Bernardino da Fossa,
Passione octave 29.
46 “Yhesu la matre allora guardò fisso, / che pare ch’ el core li venesse meno. / De bianco in
bruno avea cangiato el viso, / ben parre che senta al core mortal veneno,. / ‘Oh regina,’
disse: ‘del Paradiso, / per mio amore ponj al to’ dolore frenno: / el tiempo mio sappressa
de presente, / o dolce matre, al mio partire consente.’”: Cicerchia, Passione, octave 30;
Bernardino of Fossa, Passione octave 9.

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and said: “You are the knife that pierces my heart; O Son, tell me what,
in my sadness, I should do!” Jesus looked at her again with lowered
eyes, and to her and all the others renders grace,
and toward Jerusalem he begins to go.47

In referring to her son with “tu si’ el cultello ch’el core me passi” (you are the knife
that pierces my heart), Mary becomes the central character who moves the ac-
tion of crying among the faithful, as her Son is being crucified. Her “pointed
tears” assume the form and content of the Passion and lead the faithful to a
collective pathos in octave 40:

They all together towards the city

began to go, weeping together.
“My son, will I see you alive?”
The mother walked along, saying, “My Son.”
From both eyes, tears were coming out:
she was not taking slow steps but running.
Now she takes a breath and keeps on weeping,
the lady who became even weaker.48

These verses represent Mary in her most motherly nature, and as the moth-
er of the Savior who, with her tears, moves everyone to cry with her for the
Passion of her Son: “Verso la cità tucti quanti inseme / presero la via gran painto
facendo”. The use of gerunds “facendo” (doing), “dicendo” (saying), and “cor-
rendo” (running), removes the specific event of the Passion from the lim-
its of the past, allowing the faithful to experience Christ’s pain now through
Mary’s sorrow. Specifically, the octaves that represent Mary’s pain occupy the
majority of Bernardino of Fossa’s Passione.49 On the other hand, the verses

47 “Allora la matre piangendo l’abraccia / dicendo: ‘Aimè, filliolo, come me lassi!’ / Accostò el
viso a quella sancta faccia, / e dixe: ‘tu si’ el cultello ch’ el core me passi; / o filliolo, dimme
quello ch’io, trista, faccia!’ / Yhesù la reguardò coll’occhi vassi, / a lei e anco a tucti gratia
rende, / e virso Ierusalem ad annare prende.”: octave 30 in Cicerchia, Passione; octave 9 in
Bernardino of Fossa, Passione.
48 “Verso la cità tucti quanti inseme / presero la via gran pianto facendo. / ‘Vedrotti io vivo,
dolce la mia speme?’ / La madre giva, ‘filiolo mio’ dicendo; / de ciascun occhio lacreme
preme: / non giva con lenti passi, ma correndo. / De piangere ora sì affiata e sta / la donna,
che ongi vertù l’era manca”: Cicerchia, Passione, octave 98.
49 Out of the 108 octaves, 78 concentrate on the mother’s pain, a pain which intensifies the
suffering of Christ on the cross.

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166 Casciani

that do not describe maternal pain are those that move the action forward in
the representation.50
In omitting these octaves, which are descriptive in nature, along with all of
those rhetorical in nature, Bernardino of Fossa focuses on the most crucial mo-
ments of the passion: those moments that express Mary’s pain. In concluding
this part of the essay, we see how, unlike other sacre rappresentazioni, which
see Mary’s pain as a secondary component, in Bernardino of Fossa’s Passione it
serves as the central element of the action and allows the faithful to empathize
with her pain and ultimately create a sense of pathos. This concept of suffer-
ing gives emphasis to the sanctification of Christ throughout the celebration
of the Easter liturgy. Mary’s pain, expressed through the image of tears that
injure like nails, imbues the representation with a timeless quality and allows
the faithful to experience the historical and eschatological sacrifice of her Son
who, through his suffering, unites the human to the spiritual. Thus, all those
who participate in the drama of the Passion and who, in the words of Francis,
live a life doing “His Most Holy Will”, are able to achieve spiritual perfection
through the resurrection of Christ.51

8.2 Dante’s Reception in the Observant Order of L’Aquila and

Bernardino of Siena

Dante’s readership declined during the 15th century, as humanist schol-

ars believed that the poet was too quick in criticizing and reproaching his
contemporaries.52 However, Dante becomes a voice of morality in Bernardino
of Siena’s sermons;53 he recognizes how the idea of the “volume”, the “book”
of Dante’s Paradiso 12, lines 121–123, embodies Francis’ idea that life grounded

50 Last Supper, octave 11, washing of the feet, octave 12, blessing of bread and wine, octave 16,
apparition of the angel, octave 18, the betrayal of Judas, octaves 20, 21, Jesus’s persecution,
octaves 2–23, 28–29), Peter’s denial, octaves 25–27, and Jesus’ confrontation with Herod,
octave 46.
51 “Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus … Qui mortem nostrum moriendo destruxit et
vitam resurgendo reparavit”: Preface to Easter Mass; 1 Cor. 15:20–22.
52 Paolo Cortesi refers to Dante as the poet of cobblers and bakers in his De Hominibus Doctis
Dialogus, trans. M.T. Graziosi, Rome, 1973, pp. 16–18; for a study of Dante’s reception in
15th-century Italy, see Altamura, A., “Per la fortuna di Dante nel Quattrocento”, Annali
pontifici dell’Istituto superiore di scienze e lettere di Santa Chiara, 12 (1970), Naples, pp. 37–
47. For example, we also find a reference to a cobbler who sang verses from The Comedy as
he worked: Sacchetti, F., Il trecentonovelle, ed. Antonio Lanza, Florence, 1984, pp. 231–34.
53 For a detailed essay on the subject, see Casciani, S., “Bernardino: Reader of Dante”, in
S. Casciani (ed.), Dante and the Franciscans, Leiden, 2006, pp. 85–111.

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in Christ is also grounded in the scriptures. So, these verses not only represent
the Bible, but also Francis’ rule and the history of the order, whose pages are in-
dividual friars. In the lines cited above, Bernardino recognizes himself as part
of this history and in addition recognizes that The Comedy, in a scriptural and
sacred sense, is a “Franciscan” journey that sees the order and its rule dictated
by the living words of Christ.54 Furthermore, in Dante he recognizes how the
poet is able to guide readers to a loving and just God. Many are the sermons
where Bernardino refers to Dante indirectly, but in Sermon 42 he cites him by
name while preaching in Piazza del Campo in Siena,55 using The Comedy as a
moral teaching tool to educate his audience.56
Bernardino’s influence on the Observant Order in L’Aquila is attested to by
the philological research done during the first two decades of the 20th cen-
tury, which affirms that, during the 15th century in L’Aquila, to give a dramatic
aspect to sermons, it was common practice to insert laude or lyrical passages
from the writings of Dante. Specifically, many of the sermons are interspersed
with verses from Dante’s Comedy. This practice began after Bernardino and
the Order of the Observance arrived in L’Aquila.57 They particularly focused
on verses where the Florentine poet stresses the understanding of just actions,
which are acquired by people on earth who live according to God’s created
order, so that they can be drawn back to God.58
Bernardino of Siena’s love for Dante influences his followers in L’Aquila.
Specifically, a series of three devotional sermons in the Latin language inter-
spersed with the vernacular, entitled Misericordia e il processo d’Adamo (“Mercy
and the Trial of Adam”), recalls Dante’s Comedy in verse and content. These
sermons, whose origin was L’Aquila, and which belonged to the Observant

54 Fleming, J., Franciscan Literature of the Middle Ages, Chicago, 1977, pp. 26–27.
55 Bernardino of Siena, Prediche volgari: Sul Campo di Siena 1427, ed. del Corno, vol. 1, p. 1234.
56 See Rheinfelder, H., “Dante, il suo pensiero, il suo tempo nella predicazione di San
Bernardino da Siena”, in Dante nel pensiero e nella esegesi dei secoli XIV e XV, Florence,
1975, p. 95; also see Altamura, “Per la fortuna di Dante nel Quattrocento”, pp. 37–47.
57 For example, in addressing the subject of envy in the Sermo de invidia (Naples, Biblioteca
Nazionale, Codex 423, 100v), the preacher cites Inferno 13 to illustrate how court intrigue
and jealousy led to the suicide of Pier delle Vigne. Many are the manuscripts that have
sermons interspersed with verses of the Divine Comedy. Many manuscripts were moved
from L’Aquila to Naples during the French invasion of 1799: Carrabba, F., “Il clero abruzz-
ese nell’invasione francese del 1799”, Itinerari 12 (1974), pp. 11–12.
58 See Dante Alighieri, Paradiso 28.127–1, ed. G. Petrocchi, 4 vols., Milan, 1966–67; for an
English translation, see Dante Alighieri, The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, 3 vols., trans.
A. Mandelbaum, Berkeley, 1982.

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Order, are found in the National Library of Rome,59 in Capestrano,60 and in

L’Aquila.61 This specific series of codices represents the trial of Adam, who is
first accused and then saved for the redemption of humankind with the com-
ing of Christ. All three sermons are similar, except for R-124, which ends with
the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary. In the pream-
ble, the preacher announces the purpose of the sermon and summarizes the
benefits that humanity received from the Virgin Mary who, in accepting the
Annunciation, redeemed humankind from original sin. The sermons continue
with the introduction of 21 lawyers, seven in opposition to Adam and 14 in
his defense. Of the latter, seven are women. They contain a dramatic action
that unfolds in the conflict between the lawyers representing justice and those
who represent God’s mercy. Their rhetoric reveals the use of the forensic lan-
guage of the court, through which the lawyers must demonstrate logically how
Adam’s sin can be redeemed.
The trial begins with Adam’s appeal as a sinner at God’s feet; this appeal
introduces the rhetorical conflict, which continues throughout the trial. At
this point, Justice argues against Adam, stating, “Oh God, you are just and
just is your judgment. Sinners must be removed from the book of the living,
for Adam has sinned against You and must be sent to hell.” Justice then asks
for a complete denial of any notion of redemption, and introduces its seven
lawyers:

Angelic Nature
Heavens
the Garden of Eden
the Elements
the Group of Animals Herbs, Stones and Metals
Hell
the Devil

The seventh lawyer is the Devil, who, with his words, recalls Dante’s Inferno.
Hell appeals to God against Adam by stating:

59 Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, Codex Vittorio Emanuele 37.

60 Capestrano, Convento di San Francesco, Codex Capestrano, 33, f., 133r.
61 L’Aquila, Archivio di Stato dell’Aquila, Codex R124. While I did not transcribe the composi-
tion from Vittorio Emanuele 37, I did transcribe Capestrano 33 and R124.

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Bernardino of Siena in the History and Culture 169

Oh God, you created paradise as a just place, and created hell as a place
where sin would reside and where the sinners would be in eternal pain.
Adam has sinned and therefore he must be in hell. Do not take him away
from me.62

The last lawyer for the prosecution, the Devil, rebels against Adam, affirming:
“Lord God, it is your duty to reward the good and the just, and mine, by your
order, is to punish the sinner, thus do not take away from me my duty as I do
not take away yours”.63 In the words of Hell, the preacher recalls Inferno 3, in
which Dante states: “Justice urged on my high artificer; / my maker was divine
authority, / the highest wisdom, and the primal love”.64 Here the preacher, like
Dante, recalls how God created hell to represent justice in its Trinitarian attri-
butes: authority (God the father), wisdom (the Son) and love (the Holy Spirit).
Therefore, God’s power, wisdom, and love for the harmonious order of the uni-
verse have created hell to punish in the name of a harsh but infallible justice.
Moreover, with the words of the Devil, the preacher also recalls Inferno 27:

Don’t bear him off; do not cheat me.

He must come down among my menials;
the counsel that he gave was fraudulent;
since then, I’ve kept close track, to snatch his scalp;
one can’t absolve a man who has not repented,
and no one can repent and will at once;
the law of contradiction won’t allow it.65

Both Dante and the preacher of the sermon in the words of the devil recall the
devil’s own rebellion against God, creating an image that unfolds in a chiasm.
In the sermon we read: “Lord, you made heaven to be a just place and you
made hell to be a place of eternal sin and punishment. He sinned, so he must
be in hell; do not take him away from me.” In Inferno 27, the devil states “One
can’t absolve a man who has not repented, / And no one can repent and will
at once”.66 With the juxtaposition of two pairs of terms, the chiasm gives a

62 Casciani, La lauda e le artes, p. 342.

63 Casciani, La lauda e le artes, p. 342.
64 Dante, Inferno 3.4–6.
65 Dante, Inferno 27.114–20.
66 Dante, Inferno 27.118–19: “Ch’assolver non si può chi non si pente, / né penter e volere
insieme puossi”.

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rhythmic structure and, in addition, reinforces the Devil’s language while en-
hancing its power of persuasion, allowing the Devil to re-appropriate and re-
establish the power of God’s law.
At this point in the sermon, the trial continues with Adam’s defense, with
Mercy and her seven lawyers: Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses Joshua, David,
and Simon. However, unable to defend Adam properly, Mercy recognizes
that neither human redemption nor perdition is determined by the reason-
ing of the lawyers but only by divine benevolence. Mercy therefore abandons
the legal rhetoric of the trial and entrusts herself (and Adam) to a merciful
God. Consequently, the legal image of the court becomes a Christian one.
Mercy appeals to God by bringing in seven holy women to plead for clemency.
According to Mercy, women are better fit than men to ask for God’s grace and
are more prone to cry.67 Mercy recalls the idea of tears, and Mary’s pain, as we
have seen previously in Bernardino of Siena and in Bernardino of Fossa’s other
works. Furthermore, the tears in The Trial of Adam also recall Dante’s Inferno 2,
in which Beatrice, informed by Saint Lucy (who in turn had been instructed
by the Virgin Mary), goes to Vergil and asks him to rescue the pilgrim, stating:
“… in Heaven there’s a gentle lady—one / who weeps for the distress toward
which I send you, / so that stern judgments up above are shattered”.68
In these verses, Dante represents Mary as an allegory of grace, which
comes through the acceptance of the Annunciation. The role of Mary in both
Inferno 2 and in the trial of Adam is one of mediation between Adam and
Christ, as seen in St Paul.69 At this point, the women present themselves at the
feet of God to ask forgiveness for Adam in the vernacular language. The choice
of the vernacular by the preacher from Siena recalls Dante’s De vulgari eloquen-
tia, where the poet claims that everyone understands the vernacular language,
including women. Furthermore, while grammar (Latin) is the literary language
that one learns studying, and thus is ruled by art, in this case the language of
the court, the vernacular, learned by imitating the mother, is the language of
the heart, the one that better expresses emotions.70 The language used by the
seven women, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Judith, Susan, Ann the prophet, and the
Virgin Mary, mimic Dante’s own poetic lexicon.71 For instance, the adjectives
“grazioso” and “benigno” recall Francesca’s verse “o animal grazioso e benigno”

67 Casciani, La lauda e le artes, p. 346.

68 Dante, Inferno 2.94–96.
69 Rom. 5:12–21.
70 For a complete understanding of the role of language in his work, see Dante, De vul-
gari eloquentia 10.1, in Dante Alighieri, Opere Minori, (eds.), C. Vasoli and D. De Robertis,
vol. 3, Milan, 1988.
71 Casciani, La lauda e le artes, p. 347.

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and the verse “grazioso mi fia se mi contenti / del nome tuo”.72 The term “strida”
recalls the screams of souls in the Inferno: “udirai le disperate strida,” “quivi le
strida, il compianto, il lamento,” and “la proda del bollor vermiglio, / dove i bolliti
facieno alte strida”.73
Returning to the question of the language, we notice that the vernacular
is the most natural language, the one that better manages to convince God to
forgive Adam. In the sermon found in the Archivio di Stato de L’Aquila, codex
R-124, we find a variation that reads: “No human creature is worthy / to have
Your grace in the heart, Lord. / Do not look at my huge heart.74 / But give us
your great mercy”.75 In this quatrain, we note the appeal by mercy to the heart
of God who, in recognizing in the Virgin Mary the seven virtues, redeems hu-
manity from Adam’s sin with the coming of His Son. The R-124 sermon con-
cludes with the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, and
the angel resolves the drama in The Trial of Adam.
We have no evidence as to whether or not the Observant friars of Abruzzo
were conversant with the writings of Dante. However, we know that the found-
er of the order, Bernardino of Siena, was. Bernardino’s use of Inferno 27 in his
Sermon 23, preached in Siena in 1427, juxtaposes the contemporary world of
factions in Siena with true Franciscan piety. Like Dante, Bernardino argues
that there is no room for sophistry, since sophistry destroys good will and
peace. The Devil’s logic, as we have seen in The Trial of Adam, like Bernardino’s
view on sophistry, emphasizes how only God’s Word carries the truth, and that
it is in perfect harmony with Franciscan notions of piety. The Observants from
L’Aquila who wrote these three representations found at the end of The Trial of
Adam, also recognize the importance of God’s love in the lives of the faithful,
and they recognize the Virgin Mary’s acceptance of the Incarnation.
Bernardino of Siena dedicated his life to Christ. In Francis’ image of the cru-
cifixion, Bernardino embraced his founding father’s view of Christian truth,
a truth that changes the understanding of life and gives meaning to human
existence. He saw in Mary the ultimate mother, who with her sacrifice and

72 Dante, Inferno 5.88, and Dante, Paradiso 3.40, respectively.

73 Dante, Inferno 1.115, 1.35, and 22.102, respectively.
74 In this version of the trial, the image of the heart equates love, which is important in
Franciscan spirituality. In fact, unlike the Dominicans, who in their works emphasize the
intelligence of Scripture, the Franciscans illustrate the importance of its morality, which
in their theology is expressed as love. For studies on this subject, see Smalley, B., The Study
of the Bible in the Middle Ages, Notre Dame, 1964; Sarolli, G.R., Prolegomena alla “Divina
Commedia”, Florence, 1971; Lubac, H. de, Medieval Exegesis, Grand Rapids, MI, 2000.
75 “Non est humana creatura degna de ha- / uere gratia da ti al core. Signore de non /
guardare al mio grande cuore. Ma vol / ta a nui tua gran pieta.”: Archivio di Stato de
L’Aquila, Codex 124, f.5.

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172 Casciani

her tears, is in full conformity with Christ. In influencing the Observants of

L’Aquila, he taught them to see how Christ’s crucifixion and Mary’s tears are
essential components of Franciscan piety. Consequently, Bernardino of Fossa
in his De Passione Domini and the anonymous Observants of the Misericordia e
il processo d’Adamo, portray how Bernardino of Siena influenced their writings
on both Mary and Dante, and how the Sienese saint was present in the culture
of L’Aquila.

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 part 3
Culture and Society

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 chapter 9

Public Health and Hospitals in Medieval Siena

before the Black Death

Anna M. Peterson

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to explore the methods and institutions dedicated to the
wellbeing of the urban population before the outbreak of the Plague in 1348, at which
point there was a shift in the hospital landscape. Although traditionally the studies on
Sienese hospitals have focused on the Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala, this contribu­
tion will explore the network of hospitals and leper houses in the city of Siena, how
they differed from one another, as well as the level of care the inhabitants could have
expected during this period. It will also touch on historiographical debates regarding
the concept of care and cure in a medieval context, and the degree of independence
these institutions may have had from municipal and other authorities.

On 12 May 1329 a deadly riot broke out during a market day at the Piazza del
Campo, killing three people. That year Siena had experienced massive grain
shortages, which caused the price of cereals to rise dramatically and created a
great deal of antagonism between the people and the Nine (Nove), the head of
the Sienese Commune.1 Food shortages posed a serious threat to the authority
of the Nove; they experienced nine such occurrences during their rule.2 The ri­
oters eventually moved out from beneath the shadow of the Palazzo Pubblico
to the nearby piazza located between the city’s impressive cathedral and the
Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala. If the Palazzo was the heart of Siena, then
the cathedral and the Ospedale were its soul. The chronicler Agnolo di Tura del

1 I would like to thank Dr Kate Hammond who recommended me for this volume, and Professor
Santa Casciani and Professor Heather Hayton for putting this volume together. I would not
have been able to write this without the help of Courtney Krolikoski, Dr Enrico Veneziani,
and Dr Fernando Arias Guillén. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.
2 Franco, B.R., “Episcopal Power and the Late Medieval State: Siena’s Bishops and the Govern­
ment of the Nine”, Viator 45 (2014), p. 261.

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176 Peterson

Grasso3 wrote that, on this day, the staff ( familia) of Santa Maria della Scala
was distributing bread to the city’s poor, as was customary. However, as the
crowd poured into the square, the familia of the hospital, fearing that they
would become overrun by looters, shut the gates to the house in order to pro­
tect both their patients and themselves from violence. The Nove, who watched
this scene unfold from the comfort of the Palazzo, knew they needed to calm
the people before unrest engulfed the entire city. They called upon the bishop
of Siena in an effort to mollify the people and prevent any further clashes.4
Together, the Nove and the bishop asked the administrators of the Ospedale
and the Casa della Misericordia to go to the Campo and pacify the mob by of­
fering them bread. As a gesture of goodwill Santa Maria della Scala, the Casa,
and the bishop of Siena all pledged to increase the flow of grain for sale in the
Campo.5 This riot and its aftermath provide a glimpse into the multifaceted
role played by the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala and, by extension, the
other hospitals in the city. The Ospedale enters the narrative as a benevolent
establishment, caring for the needs of the city’s poor. Then, by the conclu­
sion of the encounter, the Ospedale was using its vast resources to aid in the
creation of a workable solution to the grain shortage by opening up its own
impressive stores for the city’s consumption. Here we see a powerful hospi­
tal wrapped in the guise of an assistive institution whose sole purpose was
the welfare of Siena’s poor. This episode alludes to the existence of a complex
network of institutional and communal support for the sick and poor of Siena
headed by the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala.
This chapter will explore the mechanisms in place for the care of the citizens
of Siena in the period before the Black Death. Santa Maria della Scala has be­
come the paradigmatic hospital for the medieval period; even contemporaries
viewed it as the gold standard. Santa Maria della Scala has served as a model,
both physically and in terms of assistance, for other medieval and early mod­
ern hospitals in Florence, Milan, Barcelona, Palermo, and Luxembourg.6 Siena’s

3 Agnolo di Tura del Grasso’s chronicle discusses events between 1300 and 1351, and is most
famous for his personal observations of the devastation wrought by the plague in summer
1348: Bowsky, W.M., The Black Death: A Turning Point in History?, New York, 1971, pp. 13–14.
4 Franco, “Episcopal Power”, p. 262.
5 Tura, A. di, “Cronaca Senese”, in A. Lisini and F. Iacometii (eds.), Cronache Senesi (Rerum
Italicarum Scriptores, vol. 15.6), Bologna, 1935, pp. 484–85. For an English translation, see
Dean, T., The Towns of Italy in the Later Middle Ages, Manchester, 2000, pp. 173–74.
6 Henderson, J., The Renaissance Hospital: Healing the Body and Healing the Soul, New Haven,
CT, 2006, pp. xxv–xxvi; Baldasso, R., “Function and Epidemiology in Filarete’s Ospedale
Maggiore”, in B.S. Bowers (ed.), The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice (AVISTA Studies in
the History of Medieval Technology, Science and Art, 3), Aldershot, 2007, p. 116; Piccinni, G.,
“Documenti per una storia dell’Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala di Siena”, Summa 2 (2013),
pp. 11–12.

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Public Health and Hospitals in Medieval Siena 177

comprehensive approach to public health, enacted largely by both the city’s

assistive institutions and the Commune itself, was motivated by civic pride
and devotion to Siena’s patron the Virgin Mary. The Sienese sought to present
themselves as a generous people who believed strongly in caring for their sick
and poor. However, this desire to provide institutionalized care extended to the
entire city. The idea of civic service can be found in the Constituto, the com­
pilation of statutes that governed the city, which was composed “for the good
and pacific state of the people and the commune of Siena”.7 The Commune
saw itself as the body responsible, and indeed best suited, to protect and up­
hold the welfare of its people.
Until recently, there has been an unfortunate historiographic tradition de­
scribing the cities and towns of the Middle Ages in terms of dirt, disease, and
squalor.8 Scholars from the 19th and 20th centuries believed that medieval
people simply accepted these poor conditions. Recent studies, however, have
challenged this view. There is plenty of evidence to show that individuals were
concerned with the cleanliness of their environment and themselves.9 Studies
on subjects such as environmental law,10 city planning,11 and medicine,12
among others, help to provide an understanding of how people in the Middle
Ages cared for the physical and urban body. Some authors, most notably Carole
Rawcliffe, have deconstructed the historiography and have shown that public
health was a complex and multifaceted subject, even in the Middle Ages.13
More recently, Guy Geltner concludes his discussion of the burgeoning schol­
arship on this topic by pushing for the development of interdisciplinary stud­
ies that not only include material remains, law, and policy, but also literature,
art, and paleopathology.14 The current state of the historiography shows

7 “… pro bono et pacifico statu populi et comunis Senarum”: Zdekauer, L. (ed.), Il Constituto
del Comune di Siena dall’anno 1262, Milan, 1897, repr. Bologna, 1983, p. 72 (hereafter COST
1262).
8 Burke, G.L., Towns in the Making, London, 1971, p. 62; Geltner, G., “Public Health and the
Pre-Modern City: A Research Agenda”, History Compass 10 (2012), p. 231.
9 Rawcliffe, C., Urban Bodies: Communal Health in Late Medieval English Towns and Cities,
Woodbridge, 2013, pp. 25–30.
10 Bocchi, F., “Regulation of the Urban Environment by the Italian Communes from the
Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century”, trans. B. Pullan and S. Reynolds, Bulletin John Rylands
Library 73 (1990), pp. 63–78. Zupko, R.E. and Laures, R.A., Straws in the Wind: Medieval
Urban Environmental Law, The Case of Northern Italy, Boulder, 1996.
11 Balestracci, D. and Piccinni, G., Siena nel Trecento. Assetto urbano e prassi edilizia,
Florence, 1977.
12 Garosi, A., Siena nella storia della medicina (1240–1555), Florence, 1958; Mucciarelli, R.,
Fabbri, D., and Vigni, L. (eds.), Vergongnosa immunditia: igiene pubblica e privata a Siena
dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea, Siena, 2000.
13 Rawcliffe, Urban Bodies, pp. 12–53.
14 Geltner, “Public Health”, pp. 234–38.

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that there are many exciting avenues from which to explore public health in
this period.
Public health, particularly in the Middle Ages, is a complex concept that is
entirely dependent on how the idea of health is defined. There is a large body
of work within the historiography of medieval medicine devoted to trying
to disambiguate this concept. Health in this period, for example, could refer
to not only the wellbeing of the body but also that of the soul and the wider
community. Just as a person should keep their body clean and free from sin, a
city should keep itself clean by having broad, paved streets free of refuse. In his
history of medicine in Siena, Alcide Garosi discusses igiene sociale (social hy­
giene), which includes regulations governing sodomy, rape, adultery, abortion,
prostitution, and leprosy.15
“Social hygiene” then, might be a more fitting term to use to use when ana­
lyzing legislations that were intended to promote a more inclusive and healthy
community. Conversely, the groups highlighted by Garosi have become the
subjects of their own, numerous studies that thoroughly explore their role and,
indeed, inclusion in medieval life. In a similar vein, Peregrine Horden attempts
to step away from the usual historiographical focus on policy. To do this he
analyses religious ritual and sermons to emphasize how “purity and communi­
ty may be as desirable as health in a biomedical sense. A temple is as useful as a
dam”.16 In regard to pre-plague Siena, I posit that “health” extended beyond an
individual’s physical or religious welfare, but also included the maintenance
and promotion of a salubrious commune. A city or institution, for example,
which was thought to be full of corrupt officials and useless legislation would
have been described as sick and, as such, unable to properly serve the people
it was supposed to protect.
Before the Black Death, Siena was a growing city with an expanding popula­
tion, which meant that the creation of a welfare framework was paramount
to the success and wellbeing of a thriving urban center. It was also a means of
maintaining order, as those who adhered to the rules of the Commune were
allowed to remain in the city and access the services they provided. In light of
this, how did public health manifest in Siena? Interestingly, it can be seen as
operating at multiple levels within the community. At one level, individuals

15 Garosi, Siena nella storia della medicina, pp. 109–27. Garosi’s views on leprosy are outdat­
ed. For a breakdown of more recent historiography, see Rawcliffe, C., Leprosy in Medieval
England, Woodbridge, 2006, pp. 13–43; Demaitre, L., Leprosy in Premodern Medicine: A
Malady of the Whole Body, Baltimore, 2007; Brenner, E., “Recent Perspectives on Leprosy
in Medieval Western Europe”, History Compass 8 (2010), pp. 388–406.
16 Horden, P., “Ritual and Public Health and in the Early Medieval City”, in S. Sheard and
H. Power (eds.), Body and City: Histories of Urban Public Health, Aldershot, 2000, p. 19.

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Public Health and Hospitals in Medieval Siena 179

participated by abiding by the measures outlined by the Commune, donating

to the sick and the hospitals, or by serving in assistive institutions. On another
level, the Commune operated as the protector who saw itself as responsible for
the welfare of its denizens. The Commune supported and regulated the city’s
hospitals and leprosaria—specifically the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala,
the Casa della Misericordia, the Ospedale di Monna Agnese, and the leprosaria
of San Lazaro and Corpo Santo—because this was a visible and prestigious
means of proving its commitment to care.17 Further focus will be placed on the
earliest surviving Constituto from 1262 and the vernacular Constituto (1309–10),
which was commissioned by the Nove as a means to ensure that the regula­
tions were made available to the general population.18 They ordered that the
text be written “in good large letters” so that it was easily accessible. Individuals
were then encouraged to copy out the requisite regulations that pertained to
their person.19 The Constituto was therefore a living document amended and
expanded to reflect any new challenges or needs of the city. The adaptability
of this document as well as these assistive institutions was crucial to the care
of the citizenry of Siena and the enduring health of the city.

9.1 The Institutional Approach to Care

In the context of charity in the Middle Ages, the seven acts of mercy provided
a sort of framework for public health by identifying the needs of the people,
how they should be addressed, albeit in basic terms, and also granting spiri­
tual rewards to those who chose to follow them. The first six acts—to feed the

17 The earliest extant statutes for Santa Maria della Scala are from 1305, and were writ­
ten in both Latin and the vernacular: Pellegrini, M., La Comunità Ospedaliera del Santa
Maria della Scala e il suo più antico statuto (Siena, 1305), Pisa, 2005. I will exclusively
use Pellegrini’s edition, though there is also an English translation of the 1305 statutes:
Wright, H.P. (ed.), Statutes of the Hospital of the Holy Virgin Mary of Siena, A.D. 1305,
London, 1880. The next major revision of the statutes was in 1318, with subsequent addi­
tions in 1320, 1336, 1351–56, 1357–61, 1362–74, and 1374–79: Banchi, L., (ed.), Statuti Senesi
scritti in volgare ne’secoli XIII e XIV: Statuto dello Spedale di Siena, Bologna, 1877. For the
Casa della Misericordia, there is an addizioni from 1318 to a now lost set of statutes, as well
as a full set of statutes from 1331. There are also additions from 1345. All of these are in the
vernacular: Banchi, L. (ed.), Statuti de la Casa di Santa Maria de la Misericordia di Siena,
volgarizzati circa il MCCCXXXI, Siena, 1886.
18 COST 1262; Elsheikh, M.S. (ed.), Il Costituto del comune di Siena volgarizzato nel MCCCIX–
MCCCX, 3 vols., Siena, 2002, (hereafter COST 1309).
19 Bowsky, W.M., A Medieval Italian Commune: Siena under the Nine, 1287–1355, Berkeley, 1981,
pp. 94–95.

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hungry, clothe the naked, provide shelter, visit the sick, give drink to the thirsty,
and visit prisoners—were derived from the Gospel of Matthew and became a
framework in which people structured their pious acts at the beginning of the
12th century.20 The seventh act, caring for the dead, was included later, at some
point towards the end of the 12th century.21 Together, these seven acts served as
guidelines for the spiritual to follow in order to demonstrate their piety, which
they could do either through donating money to support causes such as hos­
pitals or poor relief, or serving directly in these assistive institutions. These
acts also benefited the wider community in a similar way to how, as Horden
argues, baptism was akin to “a childhood inoculation” that granted the child
with a healthy spiritual life.22 As people began to invest more of their money,
time, and their person into these houses, it became important for not only the
hospitals, but also the municipality at large, to remain bastions of care. Serving
and maintaining these hospitals not only protected the health of the patients
but also the spiritual and civic health of the Commune.

9.2 The Hospitals of Siena

Siena had a wealth of hospitals. However, there were three major institutions
which formed the center of the city’s nexus of care: the Ospedale di Santa Maria
della Scala, the Casa della Misericordia, and the Ospedale di Monna Agnese.
Santa Maria della Scala is the oldest and most prestigious of the three hospitals
considered in this study. The Ospedale was first mentioned on 29 March 1090
and remained an active institution well into the late 20th century.23 The
Casa della Misericordia was founded by the beatus Andrea Gallerani, a mem­
ber of a prominent banking family, and was first recorded in a deliberation
by the Consiglio Generale regarding the legal status of the house’s oblates on

20 Matt. 25:35–36.
21 These acts were even woven into charters and donations; for examples see: Saunier, A.,
“Le Pauvre Malade” dans le Cadre Hospitalier Médiévale: France du Nord, vers 1300–1500,
Paris, 1993, pp. 23–24; Courtenay, L.T., “The Hospital of Notre Dame des Fontenilles at
Tonnerre: Medicine as Misericordia”, in B.S. Bowers (ed.), The Medieval Hospital and
Medical Practice, (AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science and
Art, 3), Aldershot, 2007, pp. 86–87; Botana, F., The Works of Mercy in Italian Medieval Art
(c. 1050–c. 1400), Turnhout, 2011, p. 2; Rawcliffe, Urban Bodies, p. 315.
22 Horden, “Ritual and Public Health”, p. 26.
23 Siena, Archivio di Stato di Siena (hereafter ASS), Diplomatico del Opera Metropolitana
29 March 1090, c. 14.

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23 June 1251.24 Lastly, the Ospedale di Monna Agnese, which was occasion­
ally also known as Ospedale dei Santi Niccolò e Gregorio in Sasso, was first
recorded in an entry for the Consiglio Generale on 20 December 1278, when
Monna Agnese stood before the council and asked for 50 lira to provide care for
40 poor and sick people.25 While there were other similar, smaller institutions,
this study will focus on these three because each had an idiosyncratic role to
play in the care and protection of the sick and poor of Siena. See Map 9.1.26
Serving the sick meant providing access to religious services in both life
and death. Ecclesiastical legislation, particularly Canon 22 from the Fourth
Lateran Council (1215), emphasized the importance of caring for the illnesses
of the souls before those of the body as a means of returning a person to full
health.27 Even Jacques de Vitry (1160/70–1240) emphasized in his sermons that
those who fulfilled the acts of mercy would reap divine rewards. He was par­
ticularly keen to do this because he simultaneously wanted to praise those who
dedicated themselves to hard work while also reminding those who joined
hospitals for selfish purposes that they were endangering their souls.28 The

24 The Casa della Misericordia is thought to have been founded in 1251, as stipulated in the
final testament of Gallerani; unfortunately, his will did not survive: Siena, ASS, Coniglio
Generale 3, fol. 15; Banchi, (ed.), Statuti de la Casa di Santa Maria de la Misericordia di
Siena, pp. vii–viii; Catoni, G., “Gli oblati della Misericordia a Siena: Poveri e benefatto­
ri a Siena nella prima metà del Trecento”, in G. Pinto (ed.), Società del Bisogno: Povertà
e Assistenza nella Toscana Medievale, Florence, 1989, p. 3; Nardi, P., “Origini e sviluppo
della Casa della Misericordia dei secoli XIII e XIV”, in M. Ascheri and P. Turrini (eds.), La
Misericordia di Siena attraverso i secoli della Domus Misericordie all’Arciconfraternita di
Misericordia, Siena, 2004, p. 65.
25 Siena, ASS, Consiglio Generale 22, fol. 51; Brunetti, L., Agnese e il suo Ospedale, Siena, XIII–
XV secolo, Pisa, 2005, pp. 11–12.
26 I would also like to thank Rubén Cascado Montes for making the map. It is adapted from:
Redon, O., L’espace d’une cité: Sienne et le pays siennois, Rome, 1994, p. 303.
27 Tanner, N. (ed.), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1, London, 1990, pp. 245–55.
28 Farmer, S., “The Leper in the Master Bedroom: Thinking through a Thirteenth-Century
Exemplum”, in R. Voaden and D. Wolfthal (eds.), Framing this Family: Narrative and
Representation in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods, Tempe, 2005, pp. 82–83. For more
on preaching in hospitals, see: Bériou, N. and Touati, F., Voluntate Dei Leprosus: les lépreux
entre conversion et exclusion aux XII ème et XIII ème siècles, Spoleto, 1991; Bird, J., “Medicine
for Body and Soul: Jacques de Vitry’s Sermons to Hospitallers and their Changes”, in
P. Biller and J. Ziegler (eds.), Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, 2001, pp. 91–108;
Davis, A.J., “Preaching in Thirteen-Century Hospitals”, Journal of Medieval History 36
(2010), pp. 72–89. One of the issues hospitals feared was being defrauded. There is a case
from Santa Maria della Scala from 1242 in which Benincasa d’Accursio, called Gaifasso,
was accused of using his status as a brother in the house to avoid paying tax on a property
he did not include in his donation upon entrance into the house. Accursio successfully
argued that the properties in question were in the original donation, which was conve­
niently missing at the time of the proceedings, and a new agreement was drawn up to

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ecclesiastical emphasis on spiritual health and welfare made the inclusion

of churches and chapels in hospitals an important part of their care regime.
For example, after Monna Agnese founded her hospital, the Tolomei, one of
Siena’s five magnate families, donated to the house a parcel of land in Sasso
behind the cathedral for the construction of a small church, which was con­
secrated for Santi Niccolò and Gregorio in 1289.29 The close proximity of the
church to the hospital would have been ideal for the sick, poor, and pregnant
women from her house to attend mass and speak with a priest. In 1257, Pope
Alexander IV (r.1254–61) ordered a chapel to be built to accommodate the reli­
gious needs of the community of Santa Maria della Scala. Alexander also made
provisions for a cemetery to care for the poor in death.30 While the chapel was
not completed until 1272, there are signs that progress was being made towards
providing for the spiritual needs of the community, particularly for the dead.31
Additionally, ecclesiastical authorities sought to draw people and funds to
these houses as a means to keep them solvent. Both the Casa della Misericordia
and the Ospedale di Monna Agnese, for example, benefited from papal indul­
gences granted to whomever donated to either house.32 Considering the rela­
tive youth of these two houses, receiving this privilege would have helped to
bolster pious donations, consequently allowing them to continue to care for
the physical and spiritual needs of the poor.
Caring and disposing of the dead was an important part of the life-cycle
of the hospital. Exposed corpses were not only disrespectful to the deceased,

include these lands. Ultimately, we know Accursio lied because his original admission
did survive and the disputed lands were not part of this document: Siena, ASS, Ospedale
70a, fols. 37v–38r; Redon, O., “Autour de l’hôpital Santa Maria della Scala à Sienne au
XIIIe siècle”, Ricerche storiche 15 (1975), p. 33; Pellegrini, La Comunità Ospedaliera,
pp. 44–45.
29 Brunetti, L., “L’Ospedale di Monna Agnese di Siena e la sua Filiazione Romana”, Archivio
della Società Romana di Storia Patria 126 (2003), p. 39 n. 9.
30 Banchi, (ed.), Statuti de la Casa di Santa Maria de la Misericordia di Siena, pp. 151–52;
Sordini, B., Dentro l’antico Ospedale: Santa Maria della Scala, Uomini, Cose e Spazi di Vita
nella Siena Medievale, Siena, 2010, pp. 35–37, 185, 228 n. 1, 281, 304 n. 3.
31 Siena, ASS, Ms. B 49, fols. 184v–185r; Sordini, Dentro l’antico Ospedale, pp. 37, 53 n. 8.
32 Bernardo, bishop of Siena, issued indulgences to those who celebrated Gallerani’s feast
day: Bollandus, J., Acta Sanctorum. Martii, Paris, 1865, p. 50 col. 2; Vauchez, A., Sainthood
in the Later Middle Ages, trans. J. Birrell, Cambridge, 1997, p. 92 n. 25; Miramon, C. de, Les
‘donnés’ au Moyen Âge: Une forme de vie religieuse laïque v. 1180–v. 1500, Paris, 1999, p. 399.
Monna Agnese was granted indulgences in 1290 by a groups of cardinals and bishops,
and in 1303 by Pope Benedict XI (r.1303–04): Siena, ASS, Ms. B 23, no. 229; Brunetti,
Agnese e il suo Ospedale, p. 37; Thomas, A., Garrisoning the Borderlands of Medieval
Siena. Sant’Angelo in Colle: Frontier Castle under the Government of the Nine (1287–1355),
Burlington, 2011, p. 308.

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but also a health risk. Washing and cleaning the body of the deceased was
often the duty of their family. However, in the case of the sick poor, there may
not have been any surviving or local relatives, which left the job of tending
to the deceased body to the hospital’s staff.33 In such cases, the Constituto
outlines provisions for the hospital’s staff and patients who had made no spe­
cific arrangements:

… because the dead of the said hospitals are not able to be without a tomb,
that the podestà and Captain of Siena for the entire month of March were
held to make the Consiglio Generale and the popolo, they should choose
three honest and legal men in that council, who vow to be with two or
three master masons, and to see, to find the most suitable place for the
aforesaid tomb to be built; and whichever three men decided, let it be
observed, so that said tomb is made at the expense of the commune.34

It was natural that part of caring for the poor included their burial and, con­
sidering the size of the hospital and the number of people being housed or
receiving care, this would have been an important issue. One of the marginal
annotations to the 1262 Constituto, inserted at some point between 1264 and
1269, also includes instructions for death care. It requires that either the hospi­
tal or its rector purchase “a house or more near the hospital for making tombs
and a pit for the dead”.35 In this place the dead were to be divided by status,
with those of a higher status entombed in the piazza, while the others were
interred in a communal site. Archeological digs around Santa Maria della Scala
in the 1980s and 1990s revealed that the hospital’s dead were indeed buried in a
large grave under the current piazza between the hospital and the cathedral.36
Duccio Balestracci appears to have been alarmed by the idea that so many

33 Alexandre-Bidon, D., La mort au Moyen Âge XIIIe–XVIe siècle, Paris, pp. 109–33.
34 “[c]um mortui hospitalis predicti non possint esse sine carnario, quod potestas et capita­
neus Senensis per totum mensem Marçii teneantur facere consilium campane et populi,
in quo consilio eligantur tres boni et legales homines, qui iurent esse cum magistris de
lapidibus duobus vel tribus, et videre, in quo loco dictum carnarium comodius possit
fieri; et quicquid predicti tres ordinaverint, observetur, ita quod predictum carnarium fiat
expensis comunis”: COST 1262, p. 34.
35 “[…] unam domum vel plures iuxta hospitale pro faciendis sepulturis et foveis mortuo­
rum”: COST 1262, p. 32 n. 1.
36 The extent of these can be seen in parts of the hospital, which is now a museum, that
have been excavated: Bianchi, G., Boldrini, E., and Corsi, R., “La lettura stratigrafica”, in
E. Boldrini and R. Parenti (eds.), Santa Maria della Scala: Archeologia ed edilizia sulla pi-
azza dello Spedale, Florence, 1991, p. 210.

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dead were kept in the very heart of Siena.37 However, considering how devel­
oped this area of the city was at this time, the burial site’s close proximity to
the cathedral, and its general convenience, it makes sense that the Commune
approved of the location.38 At the Casa della Misericordia, when a poor person
died in the house, the rector was responsible for seeing to their burial. The
chamberlain of the house was responsible for allocating set amounts of money
for the purchase of a coffin and candles for the deceased.39 Burying the dead
ensured that the poor continued to be cared for by the hospital, even in death.
There were also comprehensive regulations outlining the care available to
the patients and pilgrims in the internal statutes of Santa Maria della Scala and
the Casa della Misericordia. Obedience to the rector was one of the corner­
stones of an individual’s service to the hospital, because any member, includ­
ing the rector himself, who tainted the reputation of the house endangered the
souls and wellbeing of those who lived in, and were cared for, by the hospital.40
In the Casa, the staff was required to say 12 Ave Marias and Paternosters at both
matins and vespers, confess their sins and receive penance bimonthly, and
also take the Eucharist on major feast days.41 This helped to ensure that the
spiritual wellbeing of the brothers and sisters of the house were being fulfilled,
which in turn made them better at caring for the sick. At Santa Maria della
Scala, the rector and the rest of the administrators were expected to vouch for
the character of the secular priests (preti secolari). These men were to be of
good, upstanding character and perform their duties out of love and devotion
to the hospital. However, if they were found wanting the rector was permitted
to dismiss them. These priests were to provide access to all the sacraments for
the sick while the familia at Santa Maria della Scala was encouraged to urge

37 Balestracci, D., “Regulation of Public Health in Italian Medieval Towns”, in H. Kühnal,

H. Hundsbichler, G. Jaritz, and T. Kühtreiber (eds.), “Die” Vielfalt der Ding: neue Wege zur
Analyse mittelalterlicher Sachkultur, internationaler Kongreß, Krems an der Donau 4. bis
7 Oktober 1994, Vienna, 1998, pp. 351–52.
38 For a better understanding of how the area around Santa Maria della Scala developed
from the 11th century onwards, Beatrice Sordini provides excellent illustrations based on
archeological evidence, see: Sordini, Dentro l’antico Ospedale, pp. 17, 20, 35, 39, 137–41.
39 For grown men or women it was two solidi, for small children it was 12 denari: Banchi
(ed.), Statuti de la Casa di Santa Maria de la Misericordia di Siena, p. 42.
40 Piccinni, G. and Vigni, L., “Modelli di assistenza ospedaliera tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna
Quotidianità, amministrazione, conflitti nell’ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala di
Siena”, in G. Pinto (ed.), Società del Bisogno: Povertà e Assistenza nella Toscana Medievale,
Florence, 1989, p. 161.
41 Banchi, (ed.), Statuti de la Casa di Santa Maria de la Misericordia di Siena, pp. 35–36.

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the sick and poor to confess their sins and seek penance.42 In the 1318 revisions
to the internal statutes, these secular priests were also “to minister to the sick
of said hospital, so that they may regain the health of their souls”.43 The seven
acts of mercy thus provided an outline that allowed individuals to not only
help others, but also to better themselves and their souls in the process.

9.3 Care, Diet, and Outreach: the Statutes of the Ospedale di Santa
Maria della Scala and the Casa della Misericordia

Santa Maria della Scala and the Casa della Misericordia are the only two hos­
pitals in Siena with known extant statutes. While a hospital’s statutes are a
rich resource for understanding the expectations and discipline of the house’s
staff, they only provide small glimpses into the standard of care available to the
patients. At the Ospedale there was an infermieri who was elected to oversee
the sick members of the staff and the patients in order to cessare infermità e
recoverare santià (to end illness and recover health).44 Priests from the house
were prohibited from visiting any of the homes belonging to the brothers who
lived outside the hospital ( fratre di fuori) unless a member of their family was
ill.45 Furthermore, the beds in the wards were expected to be well maintained
so that the sick could rest and get well.46 Additionally, the pelegrinieri, an elect­
ed official who managed the pilgrims, was to ensure that the sick had beds to
sleep in.47 The sick were allowed visitors who were permitted to feed and care
for the patients, though they could not attend meals with the staff.48 We do
not see the same statutes regarding the care of the in-house sick or poor in the
Casa, though there is information regarding their external charitable activities.
This particular emphasis likely arose because the Casa della Misericordia had
a strong outreach program.

42 Pellegrini, La Comunità Ospedaliera del Santa Maria della Scala, pp. 113–14; Banchi, (ed.),
Statuti Senesi scritti in volgare ne’secoli XIII e XIV, p. 112.
43 “[…] curare li enfermi del detto Ospitale, ad ciò che raquistino salute de le loro anime”:
Banchi, (ed.), Statuti Senesi scritti in volgare ne’secoli XIII e XIV, p. 115.
44 Pellegrini, La Comunità Ospedaliera del Santa Maria della Scala, pp. 99–100; Banchi, (ed.),
Statuti Senesi scritti in volgare ne’secoli XIII e XIV, pp. 27–28.
45 Pellegrini, La Comunità Ospedaliera del Santa Maria della Scala, pp. 121–22; Banchi, (ed.),
Statuti Senesi scritti in volgare ne’secoli XIII e XIV, pp. 66–67.
46 Banchi, (ed.), Statuti Senesi scritti in volgare ne’secoli XIII e XIV, p. 72.
47 Pellegrini, La Comunità Ospedaliera del Santa Maria della Scala, p. 101; Banchi, (ed.),
Statuti Senesi scritti in volgare ne’secoli XIII e XIV, p. 26.
48 Pellegrini, La Comunità Ospedaliera del Santa Maria della Scala; p. 124; Banchi, (ed.),
Statuti Senesi scritti in volgare ne’secoli XIII e XIV, pp. 73–74.

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The Casa had a strong presence in the city. While both hospitals distributed
food to the poor, the Casa appears to have had a more hands-on approach with
marginalized groups in the city. In the Constituto of 1262 the brothers from
the house were chosen, numbering no more than seven, along with members
of the fratri de la penitentia, to become procurators and administrators of the
poor (procuratore et administratore pauperum). They tended to the needs of
the poor, orphans, and downtrodden (miserabiles personae) of Siena.49 In the
vernacular revision, this statute was incorporated into an entry freeing the
domine of the Casa from paying the dazio (direct tax) to the Commune. It makes
similar demands as the original but also included an additional clause requir­
ing that they visit the sick and poor in the countryside.50 These men would
have been emissaries from the prestigious Casa and living embodiments of
the house’s desire to improve the lives of the people of Siena, no matter where
they lived. This sort of outreach would also have reflected positively on the
Commune, who employed brothers from a pre-established and well respected
assistive institute to work at their behest to provide for the city’s impoverished
and diseased.
The distribution of foodstuffs was a simple and typical way to provide care
for the poor of the city while also demonstrating to the public that a hospi­
tal was worthy of a pious person’s patronage. The Ospedale dispensed leftover
food and broken bread (el pane rotto e el relievo) from their meals to the poor
who came to the hospital’s gates every week.51 This would have been similar to
the scene described during the riot that rocked the city in May 1329. The Casa
della Misericordia also gave food to the poor. Their offerings included chick­
en and other meats, grain, almonds (mandorle), and oil, in addition to sugar,
syrup, and other medicines (zuccaro, el siroppo e simiglianti cose medicinevili)
they procured from an apothecary that they had a contract with. Furthermore,
surgeons and physicians (medico cirurgico e fisico) could be consulted for any
additional needs of the sick who were being attended by the brothers from the
Casa. Anyone could request assistance from the house. Additionally, the poor
who gathered at the gates of the Casa della Misericordia were fed whatever the
rector and the chamberlain of the house thought fit.52 This emphasizes the
community work done by the Casa, as opposed to the predominantly in-house
care provided by the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala.

49 COST 1262, p. 44.

50 COST 1309, vol. 1, p. 41.
51 Pellegrini, La Comunità Ospedaliera del Santa Maria della Scala, pp. 115–16; Banchi, (ed.),
Statuti Senesi scritti in volgare ne’secoli XIII e XIV, p. 60.
52 Banchi, (ed.), Statuti de la Casa di Santa Maria de la Misericordia di Siena, pp. 41–42.

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We also see that there was a basic concern about preventing illness. In both
houses the quality of the food being offered was regulated. According to a
statute for the Casa della Misericordia from 1331, the rector and two brothers
were expected to inspect the quality of the meat in an effort to prevent illness.
Additionally, the statutes ensured that the staff was eating fresh meat (carne
fresca) at breakfast and dinner on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.53 A simi­
lar provision appears only in the 1318 revisions for the Ospedale, though it is
phrased as a prohibition against eating meat unless it was a Sunday, Tuesday,
or Thursday. The exception was made for major feast days. However, the sick,
disabled (debili), or those on pilgrimage were permitted to eat meat whenever
it was required.54 Serving certain meat only to the healthy was not uncommon
as some were considered too heavy, such as pork or beef, for those in recovery.
This explains why the Casa served chicken, which was categorized as “light
meat”, to the sick in its care.55 At Santa Maria della Scala, the 1318 revisions
demand that the sick, poor, pilgrims, and infirm should wash their hands (se
degga lavare le mani) before every meal.56 This is the only known mention of
personal hygiene in any of the statutes for this period. It is difficult to know
what might have triggered this addition, but considering the number of people
that likely visited and were cared for in such a prestigious institution, it stands
to reason that the hospital officials were interested in promoting cleanliness.57

9.4 Pregnant Women and Foundlings

One of the enduring myths of Santa Maria della Scala is the legend of its found­
er, Sorore the Cobbler. He established the hospital in the late 9th century after
his mother dreamed of the city’s foundlings climbing a ladder to heaven and
into the open arms of the Virgin Mary.58 Sorore may be a fabrication, however

53 Banchi, (ed.), Statuti de la Casa di Santa Maria de la Misericordia di Siena, p. 38.

54 Banchi notes that this provision does not appear in the Latin version of the statutes:
Banchi, (ed.), Statuti de la Casa di Santa Maria de la Misericordia di Siena, pp. 91–92.
55 Wallis, F. (ed.), Medieval Medicine: A Reader, in Readings in Medieval Civilizations and
Cultures: XV, Toronto, 2010, p. 146.
56 Banchi, (ed.), Statuti de la Casa di Santa Maria de la Misericordia di Siena p. 96; Garosi,
Siena nella storia della medicina, p. 291.
57 Gil Sotres, P., “The Regimens of Health”, in M.D. Grmek (ed.), Western Medical Thought
from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1998, pp. 302–14; Horden, “Ritual and Public
Health”, p. 27; Rawcliffe, Urban Bodies, p. 115.
58 The legend of Sorore emerged in the first half of the 15th-century in an effort to further
distance the hospital from its original founders, the cathedral canons: Pellegrini, M.,
“Attorno alla leggenda di Sorore: invenzione della memoria e uso della storia nell’ospedale

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the image of orphans being welcomed into the bosom of Siena’s patroness is
a powerful one, and one that represented one of the city’s primary concerns.
Foundlings were not unique to Siena, their presence was an issue in most major
cities. Children who were brought up in the Ospedale were provided with food,
clothing, shelter, and the opportunity to become active and giving members
of the community. It also saved them from a life of poverty and illness and
may have had the added benefit of preventing them from falling into lives
of crime. For the Commune, this program also kept the streets unburdened
with unwanted children. The staff of Santa Maria della Scala could search for
orphans and the sick poor to be brought to the hospital at night, as long as
they had a light.59 The first mention of a house for foundlings, called gittateli
(meaning, literally, thrown away), appears in 1238 when the hospital’s current
rector, Cacciaconte, used the proceeds from a land sale to help care for these
children.60 Such children would be raised in the hospital, taught skills, and
even given funds, married off, or provided with the opportunity to take the veil
in order to help them start a life outside the house’s protective walls.61 Some
children chose to remain in the house for the remainder of their lives, either
serving as staff or, as in the case of Girolamo Macchi, becoming the Ospedale’s
archivist during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.62
Pregnant women without husbands or family faced many challenges, the
most immediate being where they would have their child. Normally, women
who were with child but had no husband because they were widowed, for ex­
ample, would have been taken care of by their family. However, those who were
unmarried, or had no family would have been excluded from hospitals because
there was a fear that their disgrace would taint the house.63 The Ospedale di
Monna Agnese was founded with the express purpose to care for these women.

di Santa Maria della Scala (XIII–XV secolo)”, in F. Gabbrielli (ed.), Il Pellegrinaio

dell’opsedale di Santa Maria Della Scala, Atti della giornata di studi, Siena, 26 November 2010,
Arcidosso, 2014, p. 72.
59 “Che sia licito a li spedalieri et famelliari de lo spedale andare di notte come lume per
ricolliere li fanciulli”: COST 1309, vol. 1, p. 59.
60 Zdekauer found this reference in a document dated to 1254, in Siena, ASS, Conventi 161,
fol. 223 (formerly, Caleffo di S. Galgano A): Zdekauer, L., “I primordi della Casa dei
Gettatelli in Siena (1238–1298) con documenti inediti”, Bullettino Senese di Storia Patria 5
(1898), p. 462 n. 1; Piccinni and Vigni, “Modelli di assistenza ospedaliera”, p. 135.
61 Banchi, (ed.), Statuti Senesi scritti in volgare ne’secoli XIII e XIV: statuto dello Spedale di
Siena, pp. 107–08, 126–27 (the latter is an addition from 1336); Cantucci, G., Morandi, U.,
and De’Coli, S. (eds.), Archivio dell’Ospedale di S. Maria della Scala: Inventario, vol. 1, Rome,
1960, p. xxi; Piccinni and Vigni, “Modelli di assistenza ospedaliera”, p. 138.
62 Macchi contributed a great deal to scholars’ understanding of the history of Santa Maria
della Scala, as well as other religious institutions in Siena, see Siena, ASS, Ms. D 113.
63 Rubin, M., Charity and Community in Medieval Cambridge, Cambridge, pp. 158–59.

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Public Health and Hospitals in Medieval Siena 189

This specific service was mentioned in a document from 1292 exempting the
house from paying the gabella (an indirect tax) on fruit, wine, and other goods
needed to feed the poor and mulierum pauperum in partu morantium (the
poor women lingering in labor).64 The Ospedale di Monna Agnese was a haven
for such women, who would not have been accepted in any other hospital.
The Commune openly recognized and supported Monna Agnese’s hospital,
though, with the exception of the entry about the gabella, it appears they only
refer to the collective poor (i.e., paupers) when the municipality donated to the
house. In an entry in the revised Constituto from 1275 the Commune states that
ten lira should be given to the hospital “for the acquisition of linen sheets and
clothing for the poor and sick”.65 Additionally, the Casa della Misericordia, as
part of its outreach into the community, also provided assistance to riscappate
pòvare (poor pregnant women). In a statute from 1331 the house was meant to
provide these women with bread, wine, chicken, eggs, oil, and lard for cook­
ing. These gifts were to be delivered by the female members of the house dur­
ing the first 15 days after a child was born.66 The foodstuffs provided appear
to be in line with prevailing medical discourse regarding diet and pregnancy.
Women would require an iron-rich diet in order to breastfeed their child,67
which meant that the inclusion of meat and eggs was important. For example,
in the Trotula, it says that women in their final trimester were supposed to
eat “light and digestible” foods to keep their organs dilated, thus ensuring an
easy birth. This included egg yolks, the meat and organs of birds, and scaly
fish.68 Between caring for the new mother, providing a home for foundlings,
and those who may have lived in impoverished parts of the city, these three
hospitals created the nexus of care that incorporated the needs of the commu­
nity. Their roles were complementary and were part of a vast assistive frame­
work that stretched throughout Siena.

64 Siena, ASS, Gabella Generale dei Contratti no. 1, fol. 51v; Bowsky, W.M., The Finances of
the Commune of Siena 1287–1355, Oxford, 1970, p. 119; Brunetti, Agnese e il suo Ospedale,
p. 60. This exemption was important to Monna Agnese because it was copied twice in
the 16th century: Siena, ASS, Monna Agnese 13, fols. 29, 30–31; Thomas, Garrisoning the
Borderlands of Medieval Siena, p. 308.
65 “[…] pro emendis linteaminibus et pannis pro pauperibus et infirmis”: Siena, ASS,
Statuti 3, fol. 5v; Brunetti, Agnese e il suo Ospedale, p. 39.
66 Banchi, (ed.), Statuti de la Casa di Santa Maria de la Misericordia di Siena, pp. 40–42.
67 Bullough, V. and Campbell, C., “Female Longevity and Diet in the Middle Ages”, Speculum
55 (1980), pp. 322, 324.
68 Green, M. (ed.), and tr., The Trotula: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of
Women’s Medicine, Philadelphia, 2002, p. 81. See also: Weiss-Amer, M., “Medieval Women’s
Guides to Food during Pregnancy: Origins, Texts, and Traditions”, Canadian Bulletin of
Medical History 10 (1993), pp. 5–23; Weiss-Amer, M., Food in Medieval Times, Westport,
2004, p. 219.

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190 Peterson

9.5 The Leprosaria and their Patients

Our understanding of the lepers in Siena comes predominantly from the

Constituto. Unlike the other institutions in this chapter, the leprosaria are by
far the most poorly documented.69 It is known that there were two institu­
tions in Siena that catered to the lepers of the city: San Lazaro de Terzole and
Corpo Santo. Both houses were located outside the city walls and along the
Via Francigena, the main road that bisected the city. San Lazaro, which was
located near the Porta Romana (built in the 1320s), first appears in the doc­
umentation in 1229.70 Corpo Santo was located near the Porta Camollia and
was first mentioned in the Constituto from 1262.71 Of the two, San Lazaro is
better represented in the documentation. A superficial analysis of the extant
documentation might support the notion that the lepers were excluded from
mainstream society. For instance, Garosi included the lepers in his section on
social hygiene because he claimed that medieval people feared contagion and
sought to distance themselves from carriers of diseases like leprosy.72 However,

69 Compared to France or England, there are very few studies about leprosaria in Italy, see:
Rocca, E.N., “L’Ospedale di S. Lazzaro di Piacenza”, Archivo Storico per le Province Parmensi
35 (1935), pp. 143–85; Saccomani, A.R. (ed.), Le Carte dei Lebbrosi di Verona tra XII e XIII
Secolo, Padua, 1989; Maria Varanini, G. and Sandre Gasparini, G. de, “Gli Ospedali dei ‘mal­
sani’ nella società Veneta del XII–XIII secolo: tra assistenza e disciplinamento urbano”,
in E. Cristiani and E. Salvatori (eds.), Città e servizi sociali nell’Italia dei secoli XII–XV:
12 Convegno di Studi, Pistoia, 9–12 ottobre 1987, Pistoia, 1990, pp. 141–65; Touati, F., “San
Lazzaro di Pavia: Genèse d’une léproserie lombarde au Moyen Age”, in D. Barthélemy and
J.M. Martin (eds.), “Liber largiorius:” Études d’histoire médievale offertes à Pierre Toubert par
ses élèves, Geneva, 2003, pp. 278–302; Berti, S., La lebbra a Firenze: i luoghi e i personaggi,
Florence, 2005; Sandre Gasparini, G. de and Rossi, M.C. (eds.), Malsani: Lebbra e lebbrosi
nel medioevo, Verona, 2012; Peterson, A., “Beyond the City’s Walls: The Lepers of Narbonne
and Siena before the Black Death”, in J.S. Crawshaw, I. Benyovski Latin, K. Vongsathorn,
(eds.), Tracing Hospital Boundaries: Integration and Segregation in South Eastern Europe
and Beyond, 1050–1970, Clio Medica: Studies in the History of Medicine and Health, Lieden,
2020, pp. 25–45.
70 Siena, ASS, Diplomatico Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala 25 August 1229, c. 48; Lusini, V.,
“Note storiche sulla topografia di Siena nel secolo XIII”, Bullettino Senese di Storia Patria
28 (1921), p. 299; Alfredo Liberati incorrectly claimed San Lazaro was founded in 1189 by
Domina Tavernaria: Liberati, A., “Chiese, Monasteri, Oratori e Spedali Senesi: Spedale sei
Lebbrosi di San Lazzaro”, Bullettino Senese di Storia Patria 62–3 (1955–56), pp. 262–63. For
my argument against Liberati, see: Peterson, A., The Hospitals and Leprosaria of Narbonne,
France and Siena, Italy: From Foundation to the Black Death (c. 1080–1348), Ph.D. thesis,
University of St Andrews, 2017, pp. 169–70.
71 COST 1262, pp. 30, lxviii n. 3, lxix n. 2.
72 Garosi, Siena nella storia della medicina, pp. 123–27.

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while they were indeed heavily regulated, the reality of the lepers was far
more subtle.
We know from the Constituto of 1262 that there was a procedure in place for
those who were known to have contracted leprosy. In March 1250, the Consiglio
Generale distributed ten lira to a man identified as Pierzivallus “for the provi­
sion and charity having been done for the love of God when he went to reside
with those of San Lazaro”.73 Later, in April, Pierzivallus was named by four phy­
sicians who demanded to be paid 20 solidi a piece because they were the ones
who determined he suffered from leprosy.74 Twelve years later, the Commune
issued Statute 122, declaring that, in January, three men would be chosen from
each of the three terzi (administrative districts)75 to expel (expellere) the lepers
from the city.76 This was not the first time the municipality had removed the
lepers from the city. Garosi identifies three outgoing payments in 1246, 1257,
and 1259 listed in the Biccherna for individuals who had done just that.77 Ten
solidi were given to a Benvenute, wife of the then-deceased Gioie; the former
was described as mulier est pauper (the woman is poor). Gioie swore, much like
the men would in 1262, to expel the lepers. He must have been successful at
this, otherwise, his wife would not have received his stipend.78 In 1257, a Pitecto
was paid 30 solidi for displacing “the lepers and sick, [ordained] by the second
form of the Constituto of the city of Siena”.79 Finally, in 1259 both Albertino and

73 “Item x. libr. Pierzivallo quos habuit de voluntate Generalis Consillii Campane pro provi­
sione et elemosina sibi facta amore Dei quando ivit ab habitandum cum illis de Sancto
Lazaro”: Libri dell’entrata e dell’uscita della Repubblica di Siena detti del Camarlingo e dei
quattro provveditori della Biccherna, Libro Dieci a. 1249–50, ed. Archivio di Stato di Siena,
Siena, 1933, p. 71.
74 “[…] iudicaverunt et sententiaverunt eum pro infecto”: Sudhoff, K., “Lepraschaubriefe aus
Italien”, Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 5 (1912), p. 435. Demaitre notes that this is the
earliest extant example of medical practitioners being called upon to diagnose leprosy in
Europe: Demaitre, Leprosy in Premodern Medicine, pp. 37, 65.
75 The three terzi are: Città, Camollia, and San Martin.
76 Zdekauer, L. (ed.), “Il frammento degli ultimi due libri del più antico constituto senese,
1262–1270”, BSSP 1 (1894), p. 138.
77 Garosi, Siena nella storia della medicina, p. 125 n. 2.
78 Gioe “[…] iuravit ufficium expellendi malagdos”: Libri dell’entrata e dell’uscita della
Repubblica di Siena detti del Camarlingo e dei quattro provveditori della Biccherna, Libro
Settimo a. 1246–47, ed. Archivio di Stato di Siena, Siena, 1931, p. 117; Garosi, Siena nella sto-
ria della medicina, p. 125 n. 2. Malagdos is a common vernacular term for lepers in Siena.
For a discussion of the language used to describe lepers in Siena, see Peterson, “Beyond
the City’s Walls”, pp. 33–36.
79 “[…] malagdis et infectis [posito] secundum formam constituti de civitate Senarum”:
de’Colli, S. (ed.), Libri dell’entrata e dell’uscita del Comune di Siena: Detti della Biccherna,
Reg. 26 (1257, secondo semestre), Rome, 1961, p. 90; Garosi, Siena nella storia della medicina,
p. 125 n. 2.

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192 Peterson

Oddo wreceived 40 solidi for their ability to capture lepers in accordance with
their oath.80
The inclusion of Statute 122 in the Constituto from 1262 clearly stemmed
from an earlier, enacted piece of legislation. It is possible that the use of lan­
guage such as expellere could be interpreted as hostile. However, there is a
bigger picture to be considered here. What Garosi did not consider when he
categorized lepers alongside those other controversial topics, was the infra­
structure designed to care for these people. Removing lepers from their homes
in the city may seem harsh in our modern world, but it was understood that
long-term exposure could increase the risk of healthy people contracting the
disease. Lepers were indeed often moved beyond the city’s walls, but this
was not motivated by a fear of contagion, which only became a factor in the
wake of the Black Death, but a means of ensuring they joined a leprosarium.81
Providing a safe space for lepers to live benefited the Commune. Firstly, sup­
porting leprosaria was a facet of the city’s nexus of care. Secondly, lepers who
joined San Lazaro and Corpo Santo were given special privileges, including
sanctioned begging.82 Knowing that the Commune supported the lepers’ ac­
tivities in the streets, marked these individuals as worthy of the wider com­
munity’s attention. A leper who lived in the leprosarium was, in many ways,
conforming to the idea of the tame leper who posed no danger to society. This
leper was diametrically opposed to the wild or roaming leper whose behavior
was corrupt.83 Therefore, those lepers who entered a house were deemed wor­
thy of donations. To care for lepers was akin to caring for foundlings because
both groups were seen as the city’s most vulnerable, and to adequately care for
them was an act of compassion and piety.
The hospitals and leprosaria of the city represented the best institutional­
ized care the city could offer. These houses looked after both the physical and
spiritual wellbeing of not only the sick and poor, but also those who served
within the walls of the institution that cared for them. By creating a nexus
of care, both in the city and the surrounding rural areas, such establishments

80 “[…] cacciatoribus leprosorum pro eorum fuedo”: Catoni, G. (ed.), Libri dell’entrata e
dell’uscita del Comune di Siena: Detti della Biccherna, Reg. 30 (1259, secondo semestre),
Rome, 1970, p. 129. Garosi’s account of Oddo and Albertino is incorrect: Garosi, Siena nella
storia della medicina, p. 125 n. 2.
81 For an examination of a fear of contagion and leprosy, see: Touati, F., “Contagion and
Leprosy: Myth, Ideas and Evolution in Medieval Minds and Societies”, in L.I. Conrad and
D. Wujastyk (eds.), Contagion: Perspectives from Pre-Modern Societies, Aldershot, 2000,
pp. 179–201.
82 The statute does not explicitly state Corpo Santo had the same privilege, but it is likely
that they received similar benefices: COST 1262, p. 51; Siena, ASS, Statuti 3, fol. 7.
83 Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England, p. 284.

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Public Health and Hospitals in Medieval Siena 193

were able to reach out to some of the more vulnerable members of the
community. The Commune naturally supported these houses because it casts
itself as both mother and father: raising, nurturing, healing, ruling, and disci­
plining its children.

9.6 Conclusion

The retelling of the riot on 10 May 1329 provides a kind of shorthand for the
diverse roles that assistive institutions played in Siena. It depicts Santa Maria
della Scala as an institution attuned to the needs of the community by dis­
tributing bread to the poor; however, when the mob threatens the house, it
protects the patients and itself—which also includes preventing damage to
the edifice—by closing its gates. The Commune and the bishop consult the
hospital, and both Santa Maria della Scala and the Casa della Misericordia use
their own resources to help deliver people from famine.
This chapter has provided a starting point for just one facet of what con­
stituted the public health initiatives in Siena before the Black Death. By fo­
cusing on the workings of assistive institutions in the city, I have illustrated
how they fitted into a wider framework of public health. Each of the hospi­
tals examined fulfilled a particular need in the wider community. Hospitals
cared for the sick and poor, provided an outlet for spiritual service, distributed
bread and medicines to the wider communities, provided death care, fostered
children, and aided pregnant women. Lepers too benefited from this system,
because the Commune protected them and their status as worthy lepers and
provided them with the means to thrive. Fundamentally, this nexus of care
created by the hospitals would not have survived without donations from
both the Commune and the people of Siena, and the protections afforded by
the Constituto. Actions such as distributing food or collecting children off the
streets may appear to be small contributions to the health of the people of the
city; however, when taken together with the missions of the respective hospi­
tals and leprosaria, they amounted to large contributions to the wellbeing of
Siena, both physically and spiritually.
Geltner’s call for more interdisciplinary studies on medieval healthcare
should not go unheeded. Art and its patrons played an extremely important
role in the beautification of the halls of Santa Maria della Scala, much of which
can still be seen today.84 Studies about the beautification of hospitals or the

84 See Norman, D., Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State, New
Haven, CT, 1999.

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194 Peterson

inclusion of gardens and landscapes have recently garnered scholarly atten­

tion, particularly for the early modern period.85 Additionally, urban space can
also provide a great deal of insight into public health, particularly the use and
dissemination of water. For example, today, when walking through Siena it
is easy to see the legacy of the Commune’s regulations, which have been ex­
tensively studied by Michael P. Kucher.86 Kucher alludes to a hierarchy of use
wherein the cleanest water was used for the consumption of humans and ani­
mals, then laundering clothes at the lavatoio, and finally for industrial use.87
Also, subjects such as waste removal not only tell us about how space was used
but also how it was maintained. Siena had an idiosyncratic method of clean­
ing their piazzas, which is outlined in a contract regarding waste removal in
the Campi Fori from 9 October 1296.88 This contract permitted one pig and
four piglets to roam the square and eat the rubbish. It also made provisions
for noise pollution, allowing for animals, festivals, teachers, doctors (medicus),
and town criers.89 These are just a few of the many possible avenues of explo­
ration that could further expand our understanding of public health in the
Middle Ages.

85 The International Network for the History of Hospitals (INHH) Conference in 2017 was
dedicated to this very topic.
86 Kucher, M.P., The Water Supply System of Siena, Italy: The Medieval Roots of the Modern
Networked City, New York, 2005; Kucher, M.P., “The Use of Water and its Regulation in
Medieval Siena”, Journal of Urban History 31 (2005), pp. 504–36.
87 Kucher, The Water Supply System, pp. 92–93.
88 For a transcription of this document, see, Zdekauer, L., La Vita Pubblica dei Senesi nel
Dugento: Conferenza tenuta il 10 Aprile 1897, Bologna, 1967, pp. 116–17.
89 “[…] unam troiam et quattuor percellos, pro recolligendo et commendendo granella­
mine”: Zdekauer, La vita pubblica, pp. 44, 117; Balestracci, “Regulation of Public Health”,
pp. 348–49.

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 chapter 10

“Sebben che siamo donne …”: Sienese Women

in the Troubled Years at the End of the Republic
(c.1500–60)
Elena Brizio

Abstract

The history of Sienese women from the end of the Quattrocento to the years follow-
ing the surrender to Florence and Spain (roughly 1560–65) is still to be written. My
contribution will shed light on the social as well as the economic and political roles
played by women in these critical years and in this terrible period of war, famine, and
social changes. Both upper and lower class women struggled to maintain their families
as best they could and to keep them together during exile, civil war, and financial and
political turmoil. Using a wide range of strategies, women took care of family proper-
ties and possessions, remained in the city or went into exile. Using mainly archival
documentation, I will offer a new approach to a topic, which is, up to now, almost
completely unknown. Comparisons with Florence and Venice will illustrate the par-
ticularities of the Sienese reality.

Although many studies have been written on Renaissance Italian women, par-
ticularly in the last two decades, Sienese women still lack a detailed examina-
tion. This might be because the history of Siena for the years from roughly the
end of the 15th century to the fall of the Republic in 1559, still awaits an unbi-
ased and impartial study that evaluates fairly the final years of the Republic
and its positioning in the context of Imperial and Spanish Italy.
Until recently, research on Italian women has focused mainly on Florence
and Venice, followed by Rome and Naples.1 Scholars have developed two dis-
tinctive models. There is the Florentine model that emphasizes the limitations

1 See, for example, Klapish, C., La famiglia e le donne nel Rinascimento, Bari, 2003; Chabod, I.,
La dette des familles: femmes, lignages et patrimoine à Florence aux 14e et 15e siècles, Rome,
2011. On Roman women, see Cohen, E. and Cohen, T., Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome:
Trials before the Papal Magistrates, Toronto, 1993; Feci, S., Pesci fuor d’acqua. Donne a Roma
in età moderna: diritti e patrimoni, Rome, 2004. For Napoli women, see Chavarria, N., Sacro,
pubblico e privato: donne nei secoli 15–18, Naples, 2010.

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196 Brizio

of women’s agency, minimizing, in most cases, their legal, economic, and social
roles. On the other hand, there is the Venetian model, developed by Stanley
Chojnacki,2 that strongly underlines women’s independence both in the eco-
nomic and social world. Isabelle Chabot and Anna Bellavitis have also contrib-
uted to this debate, discussing the perceived differences between Florentine
and Venetian women’s legal status and property rights in greater detail.3 While
the Florentine model can be viewed as extreme regarding many aspects of
women’s lives, more recent investigations of gender issues in Renaissance
Florence, based on a greater variety of source material, have begun to soften the
earlier image of Florentine women’s repression. Kirshner’s and Molho’s stud-
ies on dowry exchange, Kuehn’s investigations of the legal system, Strocchia’s
analyses of ritual, nunneries, and monasteries, and Crabb’s writings on women
of the Strozzi family, have established grounds for a profitable discussion.4
Comparison, and not the imposition of a model, is the effective strategy to bet-
ter acknowledge similarities and differences.
In general, Sienese women were treated by their families, both natal and
marital, in ways that far more closely resemble Chojnacki’s account of Venetian
women, that is they enjoyed more social and economic independence and
agency than their neighbors in Florence. Sienese women had, like their other
Italian counterparts, an economic, political, and social role within their fami-
lies: but not only that.
Siena has come late to the field of gender studies partly because of its unique
archival resources. Research into the lives of Sienese women is difficult due to
the drastic restructuring of the Sienese archives during the 17th and 18th centu-
ries, when enormous quantities of codices, parchments, and loose documents
were discarded in order to make room for supposedly new material. Only
documents reporting names of well known families, such as Piccolomini or

2 Chojnacki, S., Women and Men in Renaissance Venice. Twelve Essays on Patrician Society,
Baltimore, 2000.; see also Chojnacka, M., Working Women in Early Modern Venice, Baltimore,
2001.
3 Bellavitis, A., Identité, mariage, mobilité sociale: citoyennes et citoyens à Venise au 16e siècle,
Rome, 2001. Chabot, I. and Bellavitis, A., “A proposito di ‘Men and Women in Renaissance
Venice’ di Stanley Chojnacki. Ricchezze femminili e parentela nel Rinascimento. Riflessioni
attorno ai contesti veneziani e fiorentini”, Quaderni Storici (2005), pp. 203–38.
4 Kirshner, J., Marriage, Dowry and Citizenship in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy,
Toronto, 2015. Molho, A., Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence, Cambridge, MA, 1994.
T Kuehn, T., Law, Family and Women: Toward a Legal Anthropology of Renaissance Italy,
Chicago, 1991; Kuehn, T., Heirs, Kin, and Creditors in Renaissance Florence, Cambridge MA,
2008; Strocchia, S., Death and Ritual in Renaissance Florence, Baltimore, 1992; and Crabb, A.,
The Strozzi of Florence: Widowhood and Family in the Renaissance, Ann Arbor, MI, 2000.

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Sienese Women in the Troubled Years 197

Petrucci, escaped destruction.5 In-depth archival work has proved fundamen-

tal for the discovery, rediscovery, or better understanding of women and their
roles in family life. Archival sources include legislation, which shows relatively
strong rights of property and inheritance; wills, which indicate the strength
of family ties; and tax records or lira, which show economic status, includ-
ing of very poor women. These sources demonstrate that rural women acted
independently with strong determination to protect their families, while their
elite counterparts—much like the patrician women of Renaissance Venice,
whose influence is evident in chronicles and literary works—engaged with
and influenced local and regional politics and culture, and were also involved
in the arts.6
This work is based, in large part, on unpublished archival documentation
while the bibliographical references are limited. Its structure is due to the vast
amount of scattered information that has been assembled through a painstak-
ing reading of archival material.7 The preliminary results shown here are ex-
tracted and published from this data. More work is required in order to better
understand the life and role of women during such difficult times. This is a first
attempt to analyze Sienese social history of the first half of the 16th century,
using women’s history as a tool.
Women’s roles will be examined through careful analysis of relevant archi-
val material concerning three main areas: family, society, and culture. The case
studies portrayed here will be contextualized within the legal and political
frame, providing a compelling overview of Sienese society in the Renaissance.

10.1 The Political Framework

A conclusive social and economic history of Siena after the death in 1512 of
Pandolfo Petrucci “the Magnificent”, the only lord that the city had, still has to

5 Archivio di Stato di Siena, Guida-inventario dell’Archivio di Stato, vol. 1 Rome, 1951, Pub­
blicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, pp. xv–xvii. Henceforth cited as ASS.
6 See Eisenbichler’s essay in this volume, for example.
7 Earlier approaches can be seen in Brizio, E., “In the Shadow of the Campo: Sienese Women and
Their Families (c.1400–1600)”, in J.G. Sperling and S.K. Wray (eds.), Across the Religious Divide:
Women, Property, Law in the Wider Mediterranean (ca. 1300–1800), New York, 2010, pp. 122–
36; Brizio, E., “All’ombra del Campo. Protagonismi femminili alla fine della Repubblica”, in
A. Savelli and L. Vigni (eds.), Una città al femminile. Protagonismo e impegno di donne senesi
dal medioevo a oggi, Siena, 2012, pp. 23–42.

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198 Brizio

be written.8 The military aspect, underlining the strenuous defense of the city
against the mortal Florentine enemies, however, has been analyzed in detail.9
After the fall of Florence into Medici and Spanish hands in 1530 and the end
of the Florentine Republic, Spanish troops began to infiltrate Sienese territory.
In Siena itself the Spanish were able to use local political dissention to their
advantage in order to influence and control local government and even impose
the presence of a Spanish garrison on the city. This, in turn, divided the Sienese
ruling elite; many supported the Spanish/Imperial presence, but many others
opposed it and sought French support in their effort to liberate the city from
foreign domination. Not only Sienese men, but women as well, were caught in
the middle of these tensions and, often following their family’s choices, sided
with one or the other party.
Following the coronation of Emperor Charles V of Hapsburg in Bologna in
1530 and the renewal of war against the French on Italian soil, the strategic po-
sition of Siena in the military scenario became extremely important. Located
halfway between Charles’s Milanese duchy and his Neapolitan kingdom, torn
between internal factions and continuous fighting between the Noveschi and
Popolari, Siena was described by the emperor’s Spanish envoy as a place where
no justice was administered and where the competition between factions
impeded daily life.10 This, coupled with years of internal wars, and with the
Sienese resistance to the building of a fortress, which the emperor judged to
be absolutely necessary, led to the imperial decision to send a large number of
Spanish troops to control the city.
After the Florentine capture of Siena in 1555, some Sienese citizens moved to
Montalcino, a small town about 35 miles south-east of Siena, in a last attempt
to resist the Spanish and Florentine conquest. While these citizens cannot be
considered exiled (technically speaking), because they chose to leave Siena
freely, some 2000 Sienese went to Montalcino, trying to keep the Republic
alive through an elected government, and the use of the official Sienese seal.11
In 1557, while continuing his fight with the “rebels” barricaded in Montalcino,
King Philip II of Spain appointed Duke Cosimo I to reorganize the Sienese

8 An early tentative approach is the two miscellaneous volumes of Jackson, P., “The Cult
of the Magdalen: Politics and Patronage under the Petrucci”, in M. Ascheri, G. Mazzoni,
and F. Nevola (eds.), L’ultimo secolo della Repubblica di Siena. Arti, cultura e società, Siena,
2008, 391–403.
9 Cantagalli, R., La Guerra di Siena (1552–1559). I termini della questione senese nella lotta tra
Francia e Asburgo nel ‘500 e il suo risolversi nell’ambito del Principato mediceo, Siena, 1962.
10 Hook, J., “Siena and the Renaissance State”, BSSP 87 (1980), pp. 108–09.
11 Baccinetti, V., “La Repubblica senese ritirata a Montalcino (1555–1559)”, BSSP 47 (1940),
pp. 1–38, 97–116.

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Sienese Women in the Troubled Years 199

government. Cosimo did not officially change the political structure of the city,
but rather sent a representative who, with the title of governor, was placed in
charge of the legal and political administration of the city.
During the Spanish and Florentine invasion, Sienese government and so-
ciety underwent a general reformation, which included all aspects of social
life, especially the relationships between men and women. While political life
might have been more smoothly reformed, traditional social life was more
complicated to manage or maintain. There were difficult relations between the
conquered citizens and the invading troops. And this complicated the fluid
relationships between men and women and magnified their differences in the
wake of loosened rules. The Florentine governors had a difficult task in dealing
with different issues, while managing the reformed Sienese state now in the
name of Cosimo I. Documents in fact show that reading only official sources
such as statutes can be extremely misleading and in some cases even distort
our view of the period. The legal and official sources do not consider specific
situations that can be understood only by looking at less public, or privately
intended, documents.

10.2 The Legal Framework

The earliest civic statute that has survived in Siena is the 1262 edition: the ru-
brics contained within it help us to analyze the development of the legislation
from 1179 onward.12 This statute is followed by a vernacular edition of 1309–10,
the still-unpublished edition of 1337–39 and the last statute of the Republic,
written in the middle of the 16th century.13
The statutes concerning estate inheritance emphasized patrilineal succes-
sion. Significantly, this did not encompass all male branches, as in Florence. In
general, the statutes addressed both paternal and maternal inheritance, with
a particular focus on the maternal side. According to the statutes, married
daughters were required to deduct their part of the dowry from the inheri-
tance in order to protect the unmarried sisters, allowing them a chance to gain
an equal share.14 The law over inheritance defended the rights of minor girls,

12 Zdekauer, L. (ed.), Il Constituto del Comune di Siena dall’anno 1262, Milan, 1897, repr.
Bologna, 1983.
13 Il Costituto del Comune di Siena volgarizzato nel MCCCIX–MCCCX, ed. M.S. Elsheikh,
Siena, 2002. See also Ascheri, M. (ed.), L’ultimo statuto della Repubblica di Siena (1545),
Siena, 1993.
14 The so-called collatio dotis, see Zdekauer, (ed.), Il Constituto, pp. 216–17.

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200 Brizio

while mothers were obliged to limit their personal choices in testaments to

protect their own offspring. In Siena the ius commune (common law) was still
in use; therefore, in case of an absence of male heirs, women, both married
and unmarried, were entitled to part of the paternal inheritance. Furthermore,
though the statute contained some ambiguities, Sienese men in practice pre-
ferred to appoint their daughter’s heirs instead of distantly related male kin.
A donatio propter nuptias, or reverse dowry, was given by the future husband
and his family to the bride. Even if there was no direct assignment of marital
goods, the donatio gave a credit to the wife on the property of her husband and
his kin. Under this law, the husband’s family vowed that they would guarantee,
through a mortgage on the family properties, the restitution on time of the
dowry brought by the bride, as ordered by the statutes, and the profit on this
properties, according to terms set at the time of the marriage. The dowry had
to be returned to the widow within one year of the death of her husband. In
the meantime, the widow was legally entitled to financial support from the
husband’s family and she was allowed to live with her children. If these re-
quirements were not fulfilled, the widow would own the properties given in
the donatio.
When widowed, mothers could become guardians of their children. In order
to become guardians, mothers had to follow strict rules: they had to request
guardianship, which was not mandatory for men; they had to fill an inventory
of all the goods of the minor entrusted to them and present a yearly report
to show proper management; and they had to renounce second marriage or
they would immediately lose the guardianship, which they could reaccess in
case of new widowhood. The Sienese statute of 1355 entrusted the guardian-
ship first to mothers and then to close relatives of a paternal line up to the third
degree.15 If a woman wanted to remarry, the mother was allowed to choose
a guardian for her children with the help of four close relatives, two on the
paternal side and two on her side.16 The statute of 1545 stated that mothers
and paternal grandmothers, on the grounds of renewed patriarchy, were to be
chosen after paternal ascendentes (that is, the grandfather and his relatives)
only if they promised to live with the minors and they did not remarry. Some
practical examples will show the possibilities offered to, taken, or refused by
mothers when facing this deed.

15 Siena, ASS, Statuti di Siena 26, II 143.

16 Siena, ASS, Statuti di Siena 26, II 144.

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10.3 Mothers, Nuns

The apparent contraposition between the two categories of mothers and nuns
allows us to see what challenges Sienese women confronted in their lives,
whether chosen or not, and how they survived the difficult years of annexa-
tion to Florence.
Mothers who were identified as negative examples—and this immediately
recalls the “cruel mother” by Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli—on which a long,
historical tradition has based its analyses, were often women who had to face
social and economic circumstances that marked their choices and decisions.17
What happened when the death of parents, husbands, or children entered
women’s worlds? The woman was expected to follow a social, formal, legal,
economic path deemed mandatory.18 But what happened when the “structure”
that dictated the formal rules was ignored? Sienese statutes did not seem to
be concerned with the remarriage of the widow, often obliging her against her
wish to remarry. In general, we talk about young widows, still fertile, “taken
out” of their deceased husband’s household and moved, as soon as possible,
into a new husband’s household.
Offspring belonged to paternal lineage. Roman law clearly stated it and ma-
ternal blood did not come into consideration. But how many mothers, obliged
to leave, would easily have left their children in households that belonged to
“others” without even attempting a mediation, an agreement, a way that al-
lowed them to continue being part of the life of their children? The impres-
sion that we get from a modern reading is that cruel mothers were defined
as such only because they subverted the economic stability of the family. It is
unlikely that in all households, everything would go smoothly. Notarial records
report dozens of lawsuits among family members and it is difficult to imagine
that there could be no problems between husband and wife, even if there were
plenty of successful, peaceful and affectionate marriages.
Archival sources are full of mothers who requested and obtained the guard-
ianship of their children; examples abound, like Appollonia who, while preg-
nant, was named guardian of her child and of the one not yet born.19 Another
example is found in the records for an Alexandra, who belonged to the Saracini

17 Morelli, G., Ricordi, ed. V. Branca, Florence, 1956, p. 495. Klapish, C., La famiglia e le donne
nel Rinascimento, Bari, 2003, pp. 285–303.
18 Strocchia, S., Death and Ritual, pp. 7–29.
19 “elegerunt in tutricem dicti pupilli dictam dominam Appolloniam ac etiam ipsam de-
creverunt in curatricem ventri ipsius”: Siena, ASS, Notarile antecosimiano 614, fol. 8v.

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family and was widow of an Aringhieri, and with the authorization of her fa-
ther took guardianship of her living children and the one not yet born.20
When the children’s tutors were not suitable or did not behave as they
should, mothers, even if they were not guardians, did not hesitate to call upon
the authority of the Office of Wards (Ufficio dei Pupilli) to ask that the tutors
be replaced, or ask for the money that was owed to them by debtors, or to give
permission to marry off their daughters. There were widows who renounced
the guardianship and asked for their dowries back without justifying their de-
cision, which may have been a very difficult one that put their children in an
unpleasant position, obliging them to sell estates and properties if they did not
have enough cash and goods in order to refund the dowry.21 On the other hand,
it also happened that sometimes heirs refused to reimburse their mother’s re-
quests, and it was often difficult to find a viable solution in such cases.22 Other
widows did use their former husband’s will as a tool to defend their own rights,
like Evangelista, who accepted the guardianship only if she was not obliged to
fill in an inventory or report yearly administration of goods, as established in
her husband’s testament. If her requests were denied (presumably by other
members of the family), she would not accept the task of guardianship.23
It happened that mothers had to appeal to the Office of Wards and its judge
in order to oblige relatives on the paternal side of children (usually uncles)
named as guardians. In one particular case, madonna Giulia, widow of Giovan
Battista Salvani, sought help from the Office against her brother-in-law. The
Florentine governor stated that “within 15 days the minor girls of the Salvani
family must be fed and brought up following the regulations of the city” high-
lighting that these girls were possibly being deprived not only of the care ex-
pected for their social status, but also in the food available to them.24 Maternal

20 “Domina Alexandra relicta uxor domini Alexandri domini Francisci de Aringheriis et filia
Ricciardi Nannis de Saracenis faciens tamen infrascripta omnia et singula in presentia et
cum expressa licentia dicti … patris sui … ad suscipiendam tutelam Francisci et Emilie
pupillorum filiorum et heredum ipsius domini Alexandri ac etiam curam ventris preg-
nantis ipsius domine Alexandre”: Siena, ASS, Notarile antecosimiano 614, fol. 30r–v.
21 For example, the guardian reports to the Curia dei pupilli that “dictus pupillus non habet
pecuniam et bona mobilia de quibus possit … satisfieri … et quod dicto pupillo expedit
vendere de bonis immobilibus ipsius”: Siena, ASS, Notarile antecosimiano 619 no. 238.
22 “tamen semper facere recusaverunt et hodie recusant licet indebite et iniuste”: Siena, ASS,
Notarile antecosimiano 1407, not foliated.
23 “Que quidam domina Evangelista … acceptavit dictam curam et tutelam his modis et
condicionibus … videlicet quod non intendit conficere inventarium nec reddere ratio-
nem sive administrationem … Et casu quo aliquid preiudicium sibi fieret … ex nunc revo-
cat dictam acceptationem”: Siena, ASS, Notarile antecosimiano 613 fol. 10r.
24 Within 15 days “le pupille de Salvani debbino esser nutrite et allevate secondo la disposi-
tione di ragione et ordini di questa città”: Florence, Archivio Niccolini da Camugliano, 28
fol. 74v.

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love, being pure and unbiased, was seen as the best chance for the upbring-
ing of youngsters.25 But it was also possible that minors asked the judge to
accept their choice. Master Antonio, a mason in Grosseto, had two sons from
two different wives: Bernardino, 15 years old at the time of his father’s death
and whose mother was Margarita, and Giovanni Battista, ten years old, from
Mitia, the new widow of Antonio. Both the boys, together and separately,
asked the judge to entrust them to Mitia, even if she was the stepmother of
Bernardino, because they trusted her. Moreover, Bernardino asked the judge
not to entrust him to his other brother Costantino, who was previously chosen
as his legal guardian.26
In some cases, the guardianship of children was not convenient for the pa-
ternal side of the family, which had no interest in supporting, for several years,
minors who were not economically self-sufficient, and were a financial burden
on the family. For example, in Florence:

Agnola … reported that none of her [deceased] husband’s kin was willing
to help her young children … she had sent the two older sons to their pa-
ternal kin, who did not even let them in but chased them away. Wandering
through the land, later that evening, [she said] they were brought back to
me, and it falls to me to keep and feed them because [the paternal kin]
did not want to hear of them in any way.27

How many children who had been taken away from their mothers or their
maternal family were then abandoned by their paternal kin, who should have
cared for them and were entrusted to the Office of Wards? When that hap-
pened, the recourse to the Office of Wards was the only possible solution to
end family disputes among wealthy families, like a case in which a Piccolomini
minor was refused by everyone. The boy was left with no legal guardian, the
mother did not want guardianship, all relatives excused themselves includ-
ing maternal relatives and grandparents, and he was entrusted to the Office
of Wards, making us wonder why that happened.28 This is, by the way, a

25 Calvi, G., Il contratto morale. Madri e figli nella Toscana moderna, Bari, 1994; and Calvi, G.,
“Cruel and Nurturing Mothers: The Construction of Motherhood in Tuscany (1500–1800)”,
L’Homme, Europaische Zeitschrift fur Feministische Geschichtswissenchaft 17 (2006),
pp. 75–92.
26 Siena, ASS, Notarile antecosimiano 3438, not foliated.
27 Kuehn, T., “Daughters, Mothers, Wives, and Widows: Women as Legal Persons”, in
A.J. Schutte, T. Kuehn, and S. Seidel Menchi (eds.), Time, Space, and Women’s Lives in Early
Modern Europe, Kirksville, 2001, p. 110.
28 “Arcangelo pupillo et filio quondam Francisci Arcangeli de Piccholominibus de Senis nul-
lus fuerit testamentarius tutor relictus ac etiam quod domina [blank] relicta uxor dicti
Francisci non vult tutelam … cum intendat dotes suas repetere et illi qui sunt ut legitimi

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particularly intriguing case, because often wealthy and powerful families

would fight fiercely for control of orphans, and it could be extremely difficult
for a mother to get the guardianship. An exception to this rule was Vittoria
Piccolomini, wife of Borghese Petrucci, Pandolfo’s son. When her husband,
ruling after his father’s death, was chased away and run from the city in
1516, Vittoria took care of their four daughters, Aurelia, Giulia, Agnese, and
Pandolfina, and all of them in 1531 were married with a hefty dowry, surely
thanks to their mother and her kin.
Thus, it appears the real tragedy seems to be the lack of a mother, by chance
or by choice, when a father dies with young children. A mother’s disappear-
ance from the scene compelled minors to be entrusted to others in what, at
times, seemed to be an ill-fitting situation, and generated an irreconcilable rift
in the life of both minor and grown-up children who had to adapt to dangerous
circumstances.
But “normal” mothers took care of their children no matter what, and we
have touching examples that show mothers protecting offspring during even
the most difficult moments, for example during the siege of the city. This was
a time when many were declared “worthless mouths” (bocche disutili), and city
dwellers who were not productive or could not bear weapons, had to leave the
city, with no place to go, caught in the middle of the facing armies. After eating
all edible animals and with no more food in town, the French supporters of
Piero Strozzi decided to keep inside the city only the defenders, so only a small
quantity of wheat would be consumed.
On the other hand, Siena, like other Italian cities, was full of nunneries
in which some women, usually belonging to the upper class, could use their
agency in economic, social or political ways to promote the nunnery, or them-
selves and their family’s interests. Some nunneries were very poor29 while
others were famous and highly valued for their expertise. The nuns of Santa
Maria Maddalena, for example, were famous for their ability in copying and
illuminating manuscripts, especially musical ones. In the 15th and at the begin-
ning of the 16th century, the powerful protection of the Petrucci family turned
this nunnery into one of the most aspired and richest nunneries of the entire
city.30 In Santa Marta, nuns were renowned for miniature painting; San Paolo
was highly valued because of its production of silver and gold threads.31 All

admitendi excusati sunt”: Siena, ASS, Notarile antecosimiano 614, fol. 22r–v. Maybe the
child was unwanted because of a disability or a birthmark.
29 “devono governarsi con la rocha e coll’acho” (they must sustain themselves by spinning
and sewing): Siena, ASS, Concistoro 2138, not foliated.
30 Jackson, “The Cult of the Magdalen”, pp. 391–403.
31 For nuns’ work in Florence, see Strocchia, Nuns and Nunneries.

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nunneries, in any case, worked and sold their products (fruits, animals, jams,
eggs, mulberry leaves), rented their lands, sold their properties or lent money
to maintain a steady income. Nuns were adept at controlling and protecting
their assets.
During the war, the northern side of the city was the most ravaged. On
12 December 1554, the nuns of San Lorenzo were ordered by the Eight Lords of
War (the Otto della Guerra) to leave the convent, which would then be used to
house the soldiers. The nuns were moved in haste to the “palazzo della dogana”
where they had to bring “in a day 30 loads of timber, trunks and other stuff of
the convent”. In order to pay the movers, the nuns had to sell their hens.32 The
nuns of the Paradiso, near the church of San Domenico, too, faced many crises
during the war. In 1549, at the end of her two years’ service, Abbess Niccola de’
Rossi reported that she spent her office in great difficulties, because of the fam-
ine, because of the arrival of the Spanish troops housed in San Domenico; and
the presence of the soldiers, together with poverty, halted the arrival of young
girls boarding there.33 The girls, kept (as in Florence) in temporary boarding
(serbanza) for a certain number of years before the family decided about their
marriage or profession, were taught reading, writing, and “good manners”, and
were an important source of revenue for the nunnery. But the building of the
fortress so close to the convent, and the fear of demolition of the convent,
ended that trend.34 Families, if boarding girls, preferred to look elsewhere.
The system of economic and political power of the city was well reproduced
in the nunneries; and especially in some convents abbesses belonged only
to a single family. The power that some women could not have through mar-
riage in the outside world, became accessible (and strongly exercised) within
the nunnery.

10.4 Dealing with Exiles

The continuous, exhausting fight for offices, and the particularly strong eco-
nomic differences among the different political groups (monti), combined with
the conflicting positions of the same monti on foreign politics (many Noveschi
were pro-Florence) led to repeated waves of exiles.
The government was concerned with how women stayed in contact with
exiles; this clarifies the important roles women could play in family fortunes,

32 Siena, ASS, Conventi 2209, fols. 34v–35r.

33 Siena, ASS, Conventi 1160, fol. 146r.
34 Siena, ASS, Conventi 1160, fol. 146r.

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even at a political level. While it was not a problem for wives and mothers
to write and keep in touch with exiles, it was strictly forbidden for women to
visit their exiled kin without permission, and the government, both in Siena
and Montalcino, tried to pay close attention to women’s movements. Frequent
fines were imposed on those who disobeyed. Letters in particular were the
“sore point” of the attempted, albeit fragile, control exerted by the government.
Prohibitions as well as menaces of terrible consequences were used to frighten
women, but the fact that they continued to disobey, shows clearly that written
threats were ineffective. Some women in fact did experience exile, but many
others managed to avoid it.
In two different occasions at the end of the 15th century, for instance, the re-
gime decided to expel all the mothers and wives of exiles, since they had been
constantly corresponding with their exiled menfolk; thus, the exiles “would
have extra trouble and expense, giving them something to think about …
other than scheming against the regime”.35 Later, the government tried again
to control all the female kin of exiles, sending away “all the women and wives
of exiles, and the mothers as well, so that they will not be sending and receiv-
ing letters from their husbands every day”.36 Indeed, some women, in addition
to helping husbands and kin with money and through political connections,
used their own resources to support their husbands’ political party. Lucrezia,
the wife of Mino Pannilini, for example, was punished in June 1489 with the
confiscation of her dowry because she had given money to the exiles, against
the interest of the city. Mino had been exiled since 1487 to the Sienese coun-
tryside, then to Pisa and later to Città di Castello, where he died leaving behind
Lucrezia and their children.37 Similarly, Onesta, the wife of Placido Placidi, was
accused soon after her husband’s execution of having taken his goods out of
the country. When ordered to pay a fine, she went to Rome and asked for the
help of Pope Innocent VIII, because her dowry had been withheld from her.
The Sienese envoy explained to the pope that she was deprived of her dowry
because “she had herself gathered infantry together and attempted to do a
number of things that imperiled the government”.38
Later again, in the difficult years of the 1530s, some women belonging (or
married into) the Monte dei Nove were active in the rebellion and in opposition

35 That happened in 1483: Shaw, C., The Politics of Exile in Renaissance Italy, Cambridge
2000, p. 120.
36 This occurred in 1491: Shaw, C., The Politics of Exile, p. 152.
37 Ibid., p. 129.
38 Ibid., p. 153.

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Sienese Women in the Troubled Years 207

to the government. Camilla Cinughi, daughter of Antonmaria and wife of

Benedetto di Giovanni Martinozzi, was exiled both from the city and the coun-
tryside for her support for the rebels. The punishment was then mitigated, al-
lowing Camilla to stay in a city nunnery chosen by her, where she presumably
could be kept under close surveillance,39 but where, in any case, she could not
receive letters from rebels. This punishment, though, was not sufficient; three
months later, Camilla was exiled again. This time, she was allowed to choose
the place where to stay, but had to reside at least four miles outside the borders
of the state; staying in the city was now completely forbidden for Camilla.40
The same punishment befell Caterina, wife of Arduino Arduini, who was also
banished. She would lose her dowry if she did not cease communication with
her husband and respect the terms of her own exile. She also had to stop pub-
licly complaining against the Balìa.41
The return of the exiles, as the Noveschi allowed in 1531, added another
problem: how the legal, previous owners of personal properties that had been
seized could now reclaim them. It was very likely that the properties had
been bought by political opponents or sold to the highest bidder if the city
was in need of money. The heirs of Domenico Placidi were quick to request
their goods, now in Saracini hands,42 while Eufrasia Petroni had to prove own-
ership of the properties confiscated from her husband Annibale, and it was
not an easy task.43 Whether lands, as in the case of Benedetto Martinozzi and
Carlo Massaini, or houses, as shown by the request of Laura, wife of Domenico

39 “deliberaverunt quod domina Camilla … stare debeat in uno ex tribus monasteriis, scilicet
sancte Marthe seu sancte Agnesis vel sancti Pauli … de quo monasterio non posit [sic]
exire sine licentia collegii balie, et quod non possit recipere literas rebellium sub pena
amissionis dotium suarum”: Siena, ASS, Balia 100, c. 83v.
40 “non possit stare propter civitatem Senarum neque etiam propter confinia dominii
Senarum per quatuor miliaria: et in aliis vero locis possit stare ad eius benplacitum”:
Siena, ASS, Balia 100, c. 199r.
41 “quod statim non manifestet contra collegium sub pena amissionis suarum dotium, et
quod sit confinata, quod non posit [sic] stare in civitate et territorio Sen. sine licentia
eorum collegii”: Siena, ASS, Balia 100, c. 19v.
42 “[domum] iam fisco applicatam et per fiscum consignata Bartolomeo et Aurelio Silvii
Nastocci de Saracinis, servatis etc., deliberaverunt quod dicta domus sit et esse intelli-
gatur restituta dictis heredibus olim domini Dominici et ad eos pleno iure spectare, non
obstante aliqua confiscatione, consignatione, traditione, contractu et deliberationibus in
contrarium, que intelligantur et sint irrite, vane et annullate”: Siena, ASS, Balia 102, c. 98r.
43 “audita domina Frasia uxore Hannibalis de Petronibus circa bona dicto Hannibali ablata
tam in rebellione quam post rebellionem sive in absolutione per Lodovicum Pulcium
comisarium [sic] de Octo, et postea audito dicto Lodovico, deliberaverunt quod dicta do-
mina Frasia debeat probare de rebus ablatis et quo tempore”: Siena, ASS, Balia 102, c. 52r.

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208 Brizio

Placidi, representing her children, the reclamation process resulted in endless

difficulties and inconveniences.44
Some women were in fact good managers of their family goods and imped-
ed property seizure through the claim of their dowries. This trick obliged the
creditors, but also the Commune, to receive payments for debts, or compensa-
tion for the confiscation of the goods, only after the wife received her dowry
portion. As the first creditor of her husband, the wife was the first to be paid;
the statutes in fact tended to protect a woman’s property, among other matters,
against the possible financial incompetence of her husband, so that her prop-
erty might pass intact to her heirs.45 The Florentine author of a letter dated
around 1560 noted with a certain degree of disappointment:

… the other [document?] is the list of the rebels and exiles with the list of
their goods … and while I investigate who kept them [the goods] and the
fruits too, even if many are fallow, so to seize them, I can see that many of
them have been taken by wives, so that they will remain free.46

Some Sienese women were strong enough to face all the worst vicissitudes of
fortune for the family, while others remind us how difficult and complicated
exile could be. Cassandra Chigi, daughter of Sulpizia Petrucci and Sigismondo
Chigi, and granddaughter of Pandolfo Petrucci, was married at the age of 16

44 Respectively: “audito Benedecto Martinozio super eo quod d. Carolus Massainus tenet

duo eius predia nec ea relinquere vult, eo quod dicit a publico emisse”: Siena, ASS,
Balia 102, c. 91v; “pluries petitum fuerit in collegio per heredes olim domini Dominici
de Placitis sive per d. Lauram eorum matrem supplicando eis restitui debere ex forma
capitulorum eorum domum sitam Senis”: Siena, ASS, Balia 102, c. 98r. On 1 June, Laura
and the minors got the house back: “die primo iunii domina Laura predicta vigore dicte
deliberationis, nomine suorum filiorum et heredum dicti domini Dominici, intravit et
accepit tenutam et corporalem possessionem suprascripte domus, stando, ambulando et
claudendo et aperiendo ianua eiusdem et alia facendo que sunt necessaria in similibus
actis”: Siena, ASS, Balia 102, c. 98r. The Saracini family would have been reimbursed for
their loss through repayment from public funds.
45 On the specific case of the restoration of the dowry constante matrimonio, if the eco-
nomic condition of the husband was so badly imperiled that he risked falling into pov-
erty, see Kirshner, J., “Wives’ Claims Against Insolvent Husbands in Late Medieval Italy”,
in J. Kirshner and S.F. Wemple (eds.), Women of the Medieval World. Essays in Honour of
John H. Mundy, New York, 1985, p. 260.
46 “… l’altra è la nota de ribelli e sbanditi con l’espressione de loro beni … et intanto anche fo
ricercare chi ha preso e frutti ancora che molti beni restino sodi, per sequestrargli, ma mi
par di vedere che molti siano stati presi dalle moglie [sic] et che al netto liberi resteran-
no”: Florence, Archivio di Stato di Firenze (henceforth ASF), Mediceo del Principato 1864,
c. 162r. Unless indicated otherwise, all translations are mine.

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Sienese Women in the Troubled Years 209

to Fabio Placidi. Placidi was exiled for many years. In letters to her mother,
Cassandra conveyed her sadness regarding the physical distance that separat-
ed her from her mother and the places of her youth, stressing the geographi-
cal isolation in which she was obliged to live. The feeling of loneliness that
Cassandra expresses in her letters turns out to be a sort of protest against
her husband’s defection. Due to his continuous moving from place to place,
Cassandra was obliged to manage the family fortune without any male help.
In fact, she was obliged by her husband to stay in a property in the country-
side she probably did not like. She felt lonely, even if her sacrifices were highly
praised by the same Fabio, who was more used to exile.47
Many other women lived their Montalcino exile in despair, without the
possibility to receive food or clothing, and with their properties having been
confiscated by the government. This is the case, for instance, with two differ-
ent women: Cassandra Piccolomini and Porzia Bargagli Martinozzi. Cassandra
Piccolomini captures our attention because of her family name. In the petition
to the government, Cassandra requested some wheat to sustain “my wretched
bones” explaining that “there is no need to tell you how many difficulties, de-
privations, afflictions, deaths and crosses I, miserable woman, must bear”.48
The government decided “to look for a way to find a small quantity of grain to
give to madonna Cassandra”.49 On the other hand, it is interesting, but at the
moment difficult to explain, why some women of the Piccolomini family had
so many difficulties in “making ends meet” while others seemed not to have
any problems, even when accused of rebellion.
Madonna Beatrice Piccolomini, married to a member of the Amerighi clan,
had four sons, one of whom was Amerigo, actually a member of the Sienese
government in Montalcino, while another, Alessandro, was exiled as a rebel
(presumably because he sided for Spain). Rich landowners on the side of
Bagno Vignoni, Amerigo, and his brother Pier Maria, both belonging to the
Monte del Popolo, were notorious French partisans. Both participated in the

47 Fantini, M.P., “Lettere alla madre di Cassandra Chigi (1553–1556): grafia, espressione, mes-
saggio”, in G. Zarri (ed.), Per lettera, La scrittura epistolare femminile tra archivio e tipogra-
fia, secoli XV–XVII, Rome, 1999, pp. 111–50.
48 “per me Casandra Piccolomini povera gentildonna si supplica dinanzi alle Signorie Vostre
Illustrissime, avenga che non faccia di bisogno raccontarle, quante sieno le necessità, le
povertà, le afflitioni, morti et croci ch’io, meschinella, sopporti … mi faccino grazia et
amorevolezza di uno pocco [sic] di grano, acciò più oltra (quanto piace alla bontà div-
ina) possa sostentare queste mie ossa disaventurate”, ASS, Repubblica senese ritirata in
Montalcino 44, not foliated.
49 “Comisseno allo illustrissimo Capitano di populo … di veder di trovare un modo dove si
potesse cavare un moggio di grano, e quel trovato s’intenda donato a madonna Casandra
Piccolomini”: Siena, ASS, Repubblica senese ritirata in Montalcino 2, fol. 55v.

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210 Brizio

1552 conspiracy: Amerigo was sent as permanent envoy to don Diego Hurtado
de Mendoza in Rome, where he did double-dealing for the French; Pier Maria,
on the other hand, was one of the army captains and led the troops against the
Spanish. Madonna Beatrice stayed on at Alessandro’s side, and the Montalcino
government decided to exile her as well to one of her country properties, pro-
hibiting her to leave the place without authorization, and prohibiting her to
write or to receive letters from outside. Amerigo had to pay a bail for her, and
he was allowed to write only one letter to his brothers, warning them that they
were forbidden to write to their mother.50 Indeed madonna Beatrice was a
powerful woman as, on the same day she was exiled, she was allowed to go to
mass and, less than a week later, she got permission to leave for Vignoni ear-
lier than expected. Less than one month into her “condemnation” to exile, and
madonna Beatrice was free to come back to Montalcino, moving and attending
freely to her business.
Porzia Bargagli is presumably an example of the worst that some women
had to face in exile.

Unusual is the petition of the unhappy … Portia Bargagli, as remarkable

is the pain she stands because of the ways of her husband Giulio … [who
is] limiting her food, or not providing it to her at all, and in exchange for it
[the food] there are harms, assault and battery and endless agony, so that
she was obliged to run away from the house like an animal.51

Because she was obliged to live on the run from her husband, Portia asked for
her dowry back or at least the possibility that Giulio be obliged to give her food
and clothes “suitable for Portia”.52

50 “et confinorno madonna Beatrice Piccolomini delli Amerighi sua madre a Vignone,
luogo suo, per tre mesi prossimi a venire: donde non si possi partire senza licentia del
Magistrato né possa scrivere né ricever lettere di fuor del dominio, sotto pena di scudi
dugento d’oro … si facci precetto [to Amerigo] che, sotto pena di scudi dugento, non …
scriva fuor del dominio se non una sola lettera alli fratelli per avvisarli che non li devino
più scrivere”: Siena, ASS, Repubblica senese ritirata in Montalcino 3, fol. 50r–v.
51 “Insolita è la domanda della infelice et humil serva vostra Portia Bargagli, come è straor-
dinaria la pena che ella patisce per li modi inusitati et fuore di ogni ragionevol costume
che usa Giulio Martinozi suo marito … negandogli il vitto, o vero non provedendone, in
cambio del quale sonno ingiurie, percosse et stratii infiniti, per che [sic] è stata forzata
partirsi di lì come ancho fanno tutti li animali, che van fugendo la morte per natura”:
Siena, ASS, Repubblica senese ritirata in Montalcino 44, not foliated, ad nomen.
52 “Et per che convien vivare anchor fugendo suplica … che faccino talmente che il detto
Giulio non li molesti in modo alcuno le possesioni della sua dote et lor fructi … o almeno

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Sienese Women in the Troubled Years 211

10.5 Cultural and Artistic Agency

Already in the mid-15th century, literature connected Siena and Florence.

The first edition of the Bucoliche elegantissime by Bernardo Pulci and other
authors, printed in 1484 under the auspices of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was
dedicated to the most important women of Siena: Francesca Scotti, Ginevra
Luti, Francesca Benassai, and Bianca Saracini.53 The women of the next cultur-
al generation belonged to different political groups; collections of love poems
written in vernacular language were dedicated to them. During the Sienese
visit of Emperor Frederick III of Hapsburg in 1452 to meet his bride Eleanor
of Portugal, chronicles report that Battista Petrucci presented a Latin oration,
as if the exceptionality of the thing was almost natural.54 Throughout the
course of the first half of the 16th century, some women were involved, only
apparently in a frivolous manner, with academies and literary and cultural ac-
tivities that had distinctive political agendas, whether partisan to the Spanish
and Florentine cause, or the French.55 This confirms that for some talented
women, a political role, even if filtered through cultural avenues, was possible.
The cases of Girolama Carli Piccolomini and Eufrasia Marzi, show the devel-
opment of the use of the vernacular language as a cultural tool, at time when
Siena held an avant-garde position in the Italian cultural overview.56 For many
of the women who were important in the cultural life of Siena, biographies
have yet to be written, but some family names recur: Filiziana Bichi, whose
precious Libro d’ore is today at the Pierpoint Morgan Library in New York;57 to
Bianca Saracini, whose portrait was included in an illumination by Francesco
di Giorgio Martini (now at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence) to her mother,

strengino il detto Giulio far compromesso in homini che facessero … dare il vitto et vestito
ragionevol alla detta Portia”: Siena, ASS, Repubblica senese ritirata in Montalcino 44, not
foliated, ad nomen.
53 “Bucoliche elegantissime composte da Bernardo Pulci fiorentino et da Francesco Arsochi
[sic] senese et da Hieronimo Benivieni fiorentino et da Iacopo Fiorino de’ Buoninsegni
senese, Firenze 1484”; see Ascheri, M., and Pertici, P., “La situazione politica senese del
secondo Quattrocento (1456–79)”, in R. Fubini (ed.), La Toscana ai tempi di Lorenzo il
Magnifico: Politica, economia ed arte, Pisa, 1996, p. 1001.
54 Gigli, G., Diario sanese, in cui si veggono alla giornata le cose importanti, Siena, 1722, p. 38.
55 See the essay by Eisenbichler in this volume.
56 Belladonna, R., “Gli Intronati, le donne, Aonio Paleario e Agostino Museo in un dialogo
inedito di Marcantonio Piccolomini, il Sodo Intronato (1538)”, BSSP 99 (1992), pp. 48–90.
57 Pertici, P., “Per la datazione del Libro d’ore di Filiziana Bichi”, in M. Ascheri, (ed.), Siena e
il suo territorio nel Rinascimento / Renaissance Siena and its Territory, vol. 3, Siena, 2000,
pp. 161–69.

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212 Brizio

Onorata Orsini, carefully studied recently by Marilena Caciorgna.58 These

women were sophisticated art connoisseurs, though their patronage is diffi-
cult to reconstruct, such as with the case of Eleonora Bellanti, who inspired
a painting featuring the suicide of Scipio Africanus, thus making direct refer-
ence to the political misfortune of her father, Antonio Bellanti.59 Women like
Eustochia and Laura Bichi had the economic and cultural freedom to hire the
most important artists of the time, like Signorelli and Pintoricchio, to sculpt or
paint important works.
Art was also used to forge new political alliances, as the beautiful cassone
with the “Triumph of David”, now housed in the Sienese Pinacoteca—made for
the marriage between a Buoninsegni and a girl belonging to the Piccolomini
family—demonstrates. Similarly, the three beautiful spalliere which recount
the “Story of Griselda” were commissioned to celebrate the marriages of
Antonio and Giulio Spannocchi, sons of Ambrogio. There are also the panels
attributed to the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, who was working at this
time on the cathedral mosaics. The astonishing “camera bella” in the Petrucci
building, was painted by Luca Signorelli and Pintoricchio to celebrate the mar-
riage in 1509 between Borghese Petrucci and Vittoria Piccolomini. Its message
about the role of the family and the importance of women has been carefully
analyzed by Maddalena Sanfilippo.60
The Biccherna book cover by Sano di Pietro, illustrating the marriage be-
tween Lucrezia Malavolti, daughter of Agnolo, and Roberto Sanseverino of
Naples (c.1473),61 sheds light on the political commitment that the Malavolti
family had with the Medici and the Sforza, even in the most difficult times of
the city’s history. Another example of artistic female patronage is the Palazzo
Piccolomini “delle Papesse” the most Florentine-style palace in Siena. Started
around 1460, this magnificent building was strongly desired by Caterina
Piccolomini, sister of Pius II. To her, probably the most important woman in
15th-century Siena, we must assign not only the idea for, but also the effective

58 Caciorgna, M., “‘Mortalis æmulor arte deos.’ Umanisti e arti figurative a Siena tra Pio II
e Pio III”, in A. Angelini (ed.), Pio II e le arti. La riscoperta dell’antico da Federighi a
Michelangelo, Siena, 2005, pp. 151–81.
59 Caciorgna, M., “‘Biografia dipinta.’ Storie di Scipione e Camillo in Palazzo Chigi alla
Postierla a Siena / The Palazzo Chigi alla Postierla in Siena”, in Bichi Ruspoli I., Caciorgna M.,
Fargnoli N., Nevola F., (eds.), Quaderni della Soprintendenza per il patrimonio storico, artis-
tico ed etnoantropologico di Siena e Grosseto 8 (2007), 28–57.
60 Sanfilippo, M., Coniunx semper Ulixis ero. Penelope nell’arte e nella letteratura dall’antichità
a Cesare Ripa, Milan, 2013.
61 Tomei, A. (ed.), Le Biccherne di Siena: Arte e Finanza all’alba dell’economia italiana, Siena,
2002, pp. 208–10, no. 37.

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Sienese Women in the Troubled Years 213

ownership of, the building.62 Caterina’s freedom to buy property, to petition

the city, and to hire an architect and workers raises questions about female
patronage. But, despite the independence of Caterina, the palazzo must be
framed in a more general sense as the glorification of the Piccolomini family
and all its members, male and female.

10.6 Two Examples

As a consequence of the military crises that affected the social life of the city
and its political structures, some women took advantage of the situation and
the measure of freedom within which they could now operate. The turmoil
that disrupted daily life in the city had many negative results for both men and
women, but it also created tears in the social fabric that allowed some women,
in particular, to exercise a small (or not so small) amount of power and exert
personal independence in areas that, otherwise, were simply not available
to them.
One such woman was Elena Sforza Piccolomini, daughter of the count
of Santa Fiora Bosio I, who married Antonmaria di Enea Piccolomini in
September 1530.63 Antonmaria belonged to the bloodline of Laudomia, Pius II’s
sister and is remembered for his strenuous resistance against the Spanish
troops. In 1552 he led the expulsion of the Spanish from Siena, while Elena,
on the other hand, was sister to both Sforza—general of the Florentine cav-
alry who was appointed captain and governor of the imperial army in Siena in
1555—and to Mario, formerly in the French army, but later on Cosimo’s and the
imperial side. She presumably was living most of the time in the countryside,
managing the family business, where her son Iacopo was allowed to bring her
a letter. In August and October 1554, she was allowed to leave Siena with her
family, servants, goods, and personal belongings, without any limitation on
her movement.

62 Jenkens, A.L., “Caterina Piccolomini and the Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena”, in S. Reiss
and D. Wilkins (eds.), Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy,
Kirksville, MO, 2001, pp. 77–91.
63 “die xxviii septembris … dominus Antonius Maria olim domini Enee de Picholominibus …
duxit in uxorem dominam Elenam filiam comitis Sante Floris cum promissione dotis
nomine schutorum tria milia quingentorum”: Siena, ASS, Gabella 534, fol. 43. Elena
was sister-in-law of Costanza Farnese, daughter of Pope Paul III: Feci, S., “Signore di
curia. Rapporti di potere ed esperienze di governo nella Roma papale (metà XV–metà
XVI secolo)”, in L. Arcangeli and S. Peyronel (eds.), Donne di potere nel Rinascimento,
Rome, 2008, p. 213.

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214 Brizio

As the most important person in her household, presumably because her

husband was still serving in the enemy army, she was taking care of her chil-
dren and grandchildren, who were traveling with her, together with “another
young age girl” who perhaps was Isabella, a natural daughter. As the sister of
the general of the Florentine army, she was given an escort to make her travel
safe. In the previous month of August 1554, during the siege, she was allowed
again to leave the city at her pleasure, without time or movement limitations,
as the marquis of Marignano complained to Cosimo in a letter:

Yesterday I wrote the safe-conduct to Lady Helena Sforza Piccolomini as

instructed by letter … but today she wrote to me that she would have it
for 44 people, because the one she has does not include all her family, and
this sounds strange to me.64

The case of Maddalena della Gazzaia (or Agazzari) in 1557 is also intriguing,
and shows that there were tricky situations, each completely unique, in the
face of which even a talented politician like Agnolo Niccolini, the Florentine
governor sent by Cosimo I, was hard pressed to find a solution. Maddalena be-
longed to a prominent and rich family and was married to a scion of the Placidi
family. According to the city’s baptismal records, Maddalena was born in 1523,
presumably the only child of her late father, Renaldo della Gazzaia, and in 1539
she married Marcantonio di Aldello Placidi, her senior by two years, with a
dowry of 5,000 florins.65 Maddalena stirred up scandal by choosing to marry
a Spanish soldier living in Siena with whom, as the governor himself noted to
Cosimo I, the woman had already been having an affair while still married to
Marcantonio Placidi.
Maddalena broke established conjugal bonds, acted contrary to current
social practices and demonstrated a level of female freedom that was rare in
Siena or elsewhere in Italy at that time. Her unusual case, which came be-
fore the courts of the occupied city of Siena in 1557, demonstrates that some
women had the strength and initiative to affirm their own autonomy even in

64 “Ieri feci il salvacondotto alla signora Helena Sforza Piccolomini conforme alla lettera …
hora lei mi scrive che vorrebbe che glielo facessi per 44 persone, che quel che gli è con-
cesso non conclude [sic] tutta la sua famiglia, che a me pare una cosa molto strana”, ASF,
Mediceo del Principato 1853, fol. 900v. The number of members of the household report-
ed in the 1554–55 city official book for the counting of “mouths,” though, was not very
distant from this: it listed 32 bocche: Siena, ASS, Balia 956, fol. 13r.
65 Siena, ASS, Biccherna 1115, c. 59r.

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Sienese Women in the Troubled Years 215

matters as fraught with politics and social expectations as marriage. One rea-
son why Maddalena’s decision created such a scandal was because it disrupt-
ed the well established pattern of endogamous marriage: that is, of marriage
within the same social and political level. In the crisis years that eventually
led to the collapse of the Republic of Siena and its incorporation into the
dual duchy of Florence and Siena, endogamy was also a way to defend and
sustain the local elite against interference from foreigners, in particular
Florentines. Maddalena’s marriage to a Spaniard aroused animosity in Siena
toward both Florentine and Spanish outsiders, while also raising questions
about female autonomy.
Governor Niccolini wrote to Cosimo how this “family [was] messing up and
all the city [was] worried and ashamed”, and that Maddalena had no intention
of leaving Luis Carvajal d’Avela.66 She is described as “almost thirty, without
children” and rich: “they say that between legal assets and dowry she has about
15 to 20,000 ducats; she belongs to the very noble Gazzaia family, her husband
was Marcantonio Placidi … the most handsome and honored young man of
this city”.67 Governor Niccolini added: “he [Marcantonio] died in Naples … in
August last year when already, the woman recalled, her affair with the Spaniard
had begun”.68 Maddalena was temporarily detained in a nunnery, and showed
no hesitation in telling the Captain of Justice and other representatives of the
government that she wanted to stay married to the Spaniard. “She confessed
everything proudly and even more than what she was asked”, added the gov-
ernor. The city was totally involved in this scandal, which quickly transformed
into a political matter. Maddalena lived with Luis at least until 1573, when
Luis again represented her in court, but then she fades back into obscurity.
In 1587, at the age of 67, Maddalena married for a third time. On this occa-
sion she wed a Sienese widower belonging, like her first husband and like her-
self, to a rich and noble local family, Cornelio di Cesare Marsili. In 1598, again
widowed, Maddalena took care of the marriage of Virginia Agazzari, a sister

66 “Li parenti tutti rimoreggiono et l’universale della città ne mostra molto dispiacere et
vergogna”: ASF, Mediceo del Principato 1864, fol. 267r. Her lover’s name is reported as
“Aloysius Diegi d’Avela” in Siena, ASS, Notarile antecosimiano 2799 (not foliated).
67 “La donna è di circa trent’anni, non ha figliuoli et dicano che fra heredità et dota ha xv
o xxm ducati; è di casa della Gazzaia nobilissima, il marito fu Marcantonio Placidi …
il più bello et più honorato giovane di questa città”: ASF, Mediceo del Principato 1864,
fol. 267r–v.
68 “[Marcantonio] morì in Napoli … d’agosto fece l’anno che di già secondo l’attestatione
della donna era cominciato la pratica con lo spagnolo”: ASF, Mediceo del Principato 1864,
fol. 267v.

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216 Brizio

of the famous musician Agostino Agazzari, whose relationship to Maddalena

remains unclear.69
We know about Maddalena because she broke the rules, but for every
woman who was able to take advantage of her independence, many others
faced great difficulties. In a different case dated 1559, a rural widow, living in
the country town of Belforte, was sexually assaulted by a man from the Usinini
family, along with a priest who had already been involved in other sexual
assaults.70 Such instances continued to remain a rather frequent occurrence,
even after Duke Cosimo I in 1558 issued a law condemning anyone who com-
mitted violent crimes, especially those of a sexual nature, against women.
The archives show that most prominent women, whether living in urban
or rustic settings, enjoyed a certain degree of personal freedom determined
by wealth, intelligence, or age. On the other hand, they also show that women
who belonged to a lower social status, like the widow of Belforte, or those who
lived in more conservative communities, had little autonomy. Those cases,
combined with the continued occurrence of violence, confirm the tendency
present in some scholarly literature to see a submissive and dependent role for
Sienese women in this period.

10.7 Conclusions

These examples show how difficult life for some women could be, especially
in the wake of the annexation to the Duchy of Florence, after a long and harsh
struggle to remain independent. Mothers, widows, even nuns, helped their
families by alleviating, as much as possible, the difficulties of occupation or
exile. Some of them, while taking care of their families, were fined for allowing
prohibited foods to be moved from one place to another; others were asking
for their dowries back as a way to get enough money to live on. It has become
evident that many struggled while trying to live a “normal” life, facing difficul-
ties in finding suitable husbands for daughters, or brides for sons, and many
more were asking for alms and help from the government, especially in the
final days of the Republic.

69 “Virginia’s dowry was fixed at 2000 scudi, 1500 of which were to be paid outright by a
certain Maddalena, widow of Cornelio Marsili and daughter of Rinaldo Agazzari”:
Reardon, C., Agostino Agazzari and Music at Siena Cathedral, 1597–1641, Oxford, 1993, p. 10.
70 ASF, Mediceo del Principato 1869, c. 45r–v.

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Sienese Women in the Troubled Years 217

Mothers were asked to renounce their freedom and take care of their or-
phaned children in order to be good mothers. Some had the strength and the
willingness to do it, while others (“the cruel mothers”) were obliged to choose
a more difficult path, possibly away from their children. Many mothers tried to
protect their children and their families through a period of war, while those
who became nuns prayed for the city. The archives show us that all suffered
the effects of famine, fear, and deprivation during the period of occupation
and exile. Both the internal political instability of Siena in the first half of the
16th century, as well as the final years of war, took a toll on the city, but women
paid the highest price.

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 chapter 11

“Sotto un Lauro in corona”: Literate Women in

16th-Century Siena

Konrad Eisenbichler

Abstract

In the dedicatory letter to his astronomical compendium De la sfera del mondo (1540),
addressed to the Sienese poet Laudomia Forteguerri, Alessandro Piccolomini men-
tions that he had heard that Laudomia had spent a warm afternoon that previous
springtime sitting in a circle under a laurel tree in the garden of her villa just out-
side Siena discussing Dante’s Paradiso with some of her women friends. Piccolomini’s
comment points to a very important aspect of Sienese cultural life in the mid-
16th century: the involvement of literate women in learned discussions of literature.
In his other works Piccolomini tells us even more: some of these women were, in fact,
accomplished poets in their own right, ready to compose not only love sonnets in the
Petrarchan style that was all the rage at that time, but also poetry that was profoundly
engaged with current political or religious matters. Not only this, but some of these
women were also ready to engage in poetic exchanges (tenzoni) with male poets such
as Piccolomini. My contribution to the volume will thus examine the various ways, and
the extent to which 16th-century women contributed, with their own poetry, to Siena’s
literary, political, and religious culture.

In the dedicatory letter of his astronomical compendium De la sfera del mondo

(1540), the Sienese scholar Alessandro Piccolomini tells the book’s dedicatee,
the Sienese noblewoman Laudomia Forteguerri, that he had heard how the
previous spring she had spent a warm and sunny afternoon in her garden sit-
ting “in a circle under a laurel tree” with a number of other women and how
she had engaged in “most beautiful and very learned and philosophical dis-
cussions” that eventually led them to talk about “the beauty and splendor of
the heavenly bodies, and of the marvelous order in which, without the least
error, they keep, and other similar things”.1 Forteguerri’s learned conversations

1 “Mi è per infin qua venuto a l’orecchie (Nobilissima e Bellissima LAUDOMIA) che trovandosi
in questa primavera passata, la S.V. un giorno con altre nobilissime Donne in un giardino a

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Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 219

come as no surprise to Piccolomini who, as he mentions further along in the

letter, fondly remembers hearing her expound on Dante’s Divine Comedy, and
especially on the Paradiso, “so subtly that I marvel at it every time I think back
on it”.2
Piccolomini’s letter and its fulsome praises for a woman who was, at that
time, his poetic muse are certainly to be taken with a grain of salt, but the
references he makes to her interest in “learned and philosophical” conversa-
tions, in Dante’s Divine Comedy, and in the study of astronomy point to a very
real woman who, breaking away in several ways from contemporary conven-
tions and societal norms, had pursued interests that, at that time, were nor-
mally associated with men. In praising Forteguerri, Piccolomini also indirectly
points out that she was not an anomaly among Sienese women: her words are
part of a conversation among women. And this, in turn, reveals that in mid-
16th-century Siena there were literate women who gathered to discuss such
things as philosophy, astronomy, and Dante’s Divine Comedy. Such an observa-
tion should not come as a surprise to scholars who have worked on Sienese
learned academies such as the Accademia degli Intronati (f. 1525) or the
Congrega de’ Rozzi (f. 1531). Although membership in these cultural and schol-
arly organizations was generally restricted to men only, their meetings were
open to women, and women did, to a certain degree, participate in them.3
Women were also an important and active element in the less formalized and
more relaxed Sienese soirées (veglie) famously celebrated by Girolamo Bargagli
in his Dialogo de’ giochi che nelle vegghie sanesi si usano di fare (1572), a work
that describes and eulogizes the parlor games that were popular in Siena in the

sollazo, e essendo tutte insieme, nelle più calde hore del giorno, quasi in un Coro celeste e
angelico ridutte sotto un Lauro in corona; bellissimi e molto dotti e filosofici ragionamenti
accader tra voi. Dove doppo che varij e ingegnosi discorsi furon’ havuti hor da questa hor da
quella, cadute finalmente in proposito dele cose Divine, come di cose simili a voi, da poi che
per gran peza si fu ragionato e dela bellezza e splendor dei corpi celesti, e del maraviglioso or-
dine, che senza un minimo fallo tra lor del continuo s’osserva, e d’altre cose simili a queste.”:
Piccolomini, A., De la sfera del mondo, Venice, 1540, fol. Here and henceforth, all translations
are mine unless otherwise indicated.
2 “A questa impresa m’ha spinto parimente il saper io quanto sia familiare a la S.V. la Comedia
di Dante e massimamente il Paradiso, del qual mi ricordo haverle sentito esporre alcuni
Capitoli, sì sottilmente, che mi dà maraviglia sempre che in mente mi viene”: Piccolomini, De
la sfera del mondo, fol. 3r.
3 “le Siennoises de la bonne société jouissaient d’une culture qui leur permettait de s’intéresser
aux travaux et discussions des Intronati d’une façon qui n’était pas seulement formelle”:
Piéjus, M.-F., “Venus bifrons: le double idéal féminin dans La Raffaella d’Alessandro
Piccolomini”, in id., Visages et paroles de femmes dans la littérature italienne de la Renaissance,
Paris, 2009, p. 93.

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220 Eisenbichler

mid-16th century.4 As Bargagli reveals, women participated in these games on

a par with the men and at times even outshone them in linguistic, cultural, and
intellectual abilities.
Accustomed to engaging in learned discussions both among themselves and
with men, Sienese women were also accustomed to engaging poetically with
their male counterparts. In fact, one could well argue that mid-16th-century
Siena was at the forefront, on the Italian peninsula, in the number of women
composing poetry and, through poetry, engaging with contemporary issues
and questions. Of the 54 women included in Lodovico Domenichi’s ground-
breaking collection of women’s poetry Rime diverse d’alcune nobilissime, et
virtuosissime donne (1559), the first ever such collection published in Europe,
we find that 12 of the female contributors are Sienese (22 per cent of the total)
and that they contributed 85 of the 318 poems (by women) in the volume,
an astounding 26.7 per cent of the total.5 These two simple statistics suggest
that Siena far outstripped other Italian cities in the production of poetry by
women, at least as far as Domenichi’s editorial choices seem to indicate. The
second most productive group of women in the volume comes from Florence
and Pistoia, with only four women each contributing 16 and seven poems
respectively. Third down the list is Bologna (three women and 14 poems), fol-
lowed by Naples, Novara, and Pavia (each with two women with six, 12, and
four poems respectively), and then various other cities with just one female
representative each. In examining these statistics, we should also note that
Lodovico Domenichi (1515–64) was clearly not conditioned by parochial senti-
ments towards Siena; he was born in Piacenza and spent most of his adult life
in Venice and Florence. He never worked in Siena and seems to have had no
personal reason to highlight the work of Sienese women to the point of so far
outweighing in their favor the body of poems in his collection.
In order, then, to bring into better focus the contribution of Sienese women
to the vitality and diversity of poetic endeavors in 16th-century Siena (and, by
extension, Italy), this article will trace that phenomenon through the analysis
of a tenzone (poetic exchange) between a Sienese man and six Sienese women,

4 Girolamo Bargagli, Dialogo dei giuochi che nelle vegghie sansei si usano di fare, ed. P.D. Ermini,
Siena, 1982. See the extensive analysis in McClure, G., Parlour Games and the Public Life of
Women in Renaissance Italy, Toronto, 2013.
5 The Sienese women in the collection and the number of their contributed poems are: Aurelia
Petrucci (two poems); Atalanta [Donati] Sanese (one); Cassandra Petrucci (13); Ermellina
Arringhieri de Cerretani (one); Francesca B. Sanese (three); Laudomia Forteguerri (six);
Lucrezia Figliucci (seven); Onorata Pecci (two); Ortensia Scarpi (two); Pia Bichi (two); Silvia
de’ Piccolomini (one); and Virginia Martini Salvi (45).

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Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 221

and then through an examination of the distinctive poetry of a few individual

Sienese women poets who will serve as exemplary figures for our investigation.

11.1 Literate Women in Siena

When we think of literate women and Siena, St Catherine (1347–80) immedi-

ately comes to mind. Though one could argue that she was neither learned nor
literate (she dictated her letters and works to her various amanuenses), one is
certainly impressed by her acumen and intellect; not surprisingly, in 1970 Pope
Paul VI named her a Doctor of the Church. In the century after Catherine, there
were a number of Sienese women who are remembered for having been both
literate and learned, and especially for having delivered orations, both in Latin
and in the vernacular, on various public occasions. One of these was Battista
Berti who, in 1451, delivered an oration in Latin in the Piazza del Campo in
praise of the visiting Eleanor of Portugal, future wife of Emperor Frederick III
von Habsburg, in the presence of the imperial couple.6 By the mid-17th centu-
ry, Isidoro Ugurgieri Azzolini (?–1665) could actually devote an entire section
of his Sienese prosopography to women (chapter 34). In it, he lists 108 women
ranging from St Catherine in the 14th century to Margarita Biringucci in his
own century, accompanying most of them with a short note describing their
accomplishments.7 In many cases he praises the women’s learning and literacy,
saying, for example, that St Catherine:

… was so highly instructed by the Holy Spirit that, not only with her words
but with her example, she brought many back to the path to Salvation, in
fact, several times she orated in the presence of High Pontiffs and the sa-
cred College of Cardinals. As testimony, she left a book of Dialogues, and
another of most devout letters to different people written in the mother
tongue from which, as from a most abundant fount, pour forth divine
sentences dictated in such an elegant style, and sincere, that if one were

6 Gigli, G., Vocabolario cateriniano, ed. G. Mattarucco, Florence, 1866, pp. 35, 105. See also
Gigli,G., Diario sanese, in cui si veggono alla giornata tutte le cose importanti, Siena, 1722, p. 38;
De Angelis, L., Biografia degli scrittori sanesi, Siena, 1824, vol. 1, p. 29 where she is listed as
“Aldobrandini (Battista Berti).” Having married Achille Petrucci, she generally appears as
Battista Berti Petrucci.
7 Ugurgieri Azzolini, I., Le pompe sanesi o’vero realzione delli huomini e donne illustri di Siena
e suo stato, vol. 2, Pistoia, 1649, pp. 394–433 (chapter 34: “Donne sanesi illustri, e degne di
memoria”). For a brief analysis of Ugurgieri Azzolini’s list from the perspective of the games
in which the women participated, see McClure, Parlour Games and the Public Life, pp. 123–25.

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222 Eisenbichler

to compare the works of St Catherine and any other book written in the
Tuscan idiom it will always be judged by those who know that not even
Boccaccio surpasses her in purity of devout speech.8

Similar praises of the literary and intellectual abilities of other Sienese women,
though not as hyperbolic as the one for St Catherine, can be found in many of
the entries. For Francesca Scotti, for example, Ugurgieri Azzolini says that:

… aside from the beauty of her face and the sweetness of her habits, she
energetically applied her non-feminine talents to the study of literature
(belle lettere), in which she made such profit that she was admired by
everyone in the country. She was a great poet, as we read in the book of
the dead buried in the Church of San Francesco in Siena. She was known
even to Sannazzaro, who celebrated her in a distich in which he called
her in the Neapolitan fashion Cecca Sanese; and [Pietro] Feretrio in his
Sena vetus similarly mentions her honorably. The wise woman died in
Siena on 3 August 1509 to the great displeasure of her fellow citizens who
claimed that with her the sun of literate Gentlewomen had set.9

Margarita Biringucci, to give another example, is described as:

… formerly Lady in Waiting to the Most Serene Grand Duchess of Tuscany

and today wife of [blank] Cervini. Though still a girl ( fanciulla), on several

8 “Ella fu dallo Spirito Santo così altamente addottrinata, che non meno con le parole, che con
l’esempio ritornò molti alla via della salute, anzi che più volte orò alla presenza de’ Sommi
Pontefici e del sagro Collegio de’ Cardinali. Lasciò per testimonianza della sua dottrina un
libro di Dialoghi, ed un altro di lettere devotissime scritte a diversi in lingua materna, dalle
quali, come da fonte abbondantissimo scaturiscono sentenze divine, dettate con stile così
elegante, e sincero, che se si fa il paragone tra l’opere di S. Caterina, e qualsivoglia altro libro
scritto in idioma Toscano, sarà sempre giudicato da gl’Intendenti, che ne meno il Boccaccio
supera la purità di quel divoto parlare”: Ugurgieri Azzolini, Pompe sanesi, vol. 2, p. 395.
9 “Francesca Scotti de’ Grandi di Siena, moglie di Sozzino del Cavalier Niccolò Saracini, oltre
alla venustà del volto, ed alla soavità de’ costumi, applicò vivacemente i suoi non femminili
talenti alli studij delle belle lettere, nelle quali fece tanto profitto, che nella patria era da
ogn’uno ammirata. Fu gran Poetessa, come si legge nel libro, ove sono notati i morti sep-
pelliti nella Chiesa di S. Francesco di Siena. Fu nota fino al Sannazzaro, che la celebrò in un
distico, nominandola alla Napolitana Cecca Sanese; ed il Feretrio nella sua Sena vetus ne fa
parimente honorata menzione. Morì la saggia Donna in Siena l’anno 1509 li 3 d’Agosto con
grandissimo disgusto de’ suoi concittadini, che pretesero fusse con essa tramontato il sole
delle Gentildonne letterate”: Ugurgieri Azzolini, Pompe sanesi, vol. 2, p. 396.

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Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 223

occasions she defended philosophical conclusions to the admiration and

applause of all who heard her.10

In drawing his list of noteworthy Sienese women to a close, Ugurgieri Azzolini

prays “that God might awake the pen of a more eloquent Panegyrist who might,
more extensively, bring the accomplishments of those Ladies to immortality,
for our now tired [pen] needs to rest”.11
Although there certainly were quite a number of literate and learned
women in Siena in earlier centuries, the flowering of women poets in particu-
lar may well be said to start in the fall of 1540. The catalyst was a tenzone, or
sonnet exchange, between the young Sienese scholar Alessandro Piccolomini
(1508–79), at that time a student at the University of Padua (in the Republic of
Venice), and five of his Sienese women friends residing in Siena. The exchange
was sparked by a pilgrimage Piccolomini had made in August of that year to
Petrarch’s tomb in the nearby Venetian town of Arquà and the sonnet he com-
posed to mark that event. Five Sienese women responded to Piccolomini’s
sonnet and they did so per le rime, that is to say, rhyme for rhyme. In their
poems, the five women used not just the same rhymes, but the same rhyme
words that Piccolomini had used in his original poem. In his response to these
women Piccolomini, not to be outdone, also responded per le rime to each of
their poems, thus keeping the same rhyme words from his own original poem
and their responses. This technical tour-de-force on everyone’s part clearly il-
lustrates not only the rhyming skills of all involved, but also the type of poetic
games that were played and the linguistic virtuosity that was often displayed
in the Renaissance. Aside from its technical aspects, the sonnet exchange also
illustrates a type of gendered dialogue between elegant noble men and women
of the time, a dialogue colored by reciprocal respect and, in some cases, per-
sonal affection, a conversation rich in gallantry but not devoid (in one case, at
least) of subtle reprimands, full of expressed wishes and implied limitations.
Reading carefully between the lines, we become aware of the social reali-
ties and cultural restrictions that conditioned the daily life of noble Sienese
women, and this in spite of the level of literacy, literary knowledge, and social

10 “già Dama d’honore della Serenissima Gran Duchessa di Toscana‚ ed hoggi Sposa di
[blank] Cervini, la quale benche fanciulla, ha sostenuto più volte conclusioni filosofiche
con ammirazione, ed applauso di tutti che l’hanno udita”: Ugurgieri Azzolini, Pompe sa-
nesi, vol. 2, p. 433.
11 “Piaccia al Cielo di svegliare la penna d’eloquente Panegirista, che più diffusamente porti
i vanti di quelle Dame all’immortalità, che alla nostra homai stanca conviene riposarsi”,
Ugurgieri Azzolini, Pompe sanesi, vol. 2, p. 433.

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224 Eisenbichler

standing such women might enjoy. Although many of these women had al-
ready engaged with their fellow male citizens in elegant and learned conversa-
tions at meetings of the Intronati or the Rozzi, or at pleasant veglie in town or
at their estates in the countryside, the 1540 tenzone marks a debut, of sorts, for
Sienese women writers who, starting in these years, suddenly begin to engage,
first-hand, in poetic composition in the Italian vernacular in a manner, and to
an extent, previously unseen either in Siena or elsewhere in Italy.
While there certainly were other women composing vernacular poetry
in Italy at this time—for example, Veronica Gambara (1485–1550), Vittoria
Colonna (1492–1547) or, in the previous century, Lucrezia Tornabuoni (1427–
82)—such earlier women were all operating independently of other women
and did not constitute part of a cohesive female group such as we find in Siena.
This makes Siena a special case, at least until other such groups of women
might be identified elsewhere in the peninsula. The Sienese women I discov-
ered operating in the mid-16th century were part of a veritable group of literate
women who knew and frequented each other, several of them were related
to each other by blood or by marriage, and many of them were, in fact, rath-
er young, in their 20s and 30s. These are: Ermellina Arringhieri de’ Cerretani
(b. ca. 1520–25), Pia Bichi (vixit pre-1559), Laura Civoli (doc. 1553–54), Atalanta
Donati (1530–88), Lucrezia Figliucci (vixit pre-1559), Laudomia Forteguerri
(1515-post 1555), Virginia Luti Salvi (b. 1513), Eufrasia Marzi Borghese (b. 1512),
Onorata Tancredi Pecci (1503-post 1563), Camilla Piccolomini de’ Petroni
(b. 1506), Aurelia Petrucci (1511–42), Cassandra Petrucci (doc. 1530s–40s),
Girolama Biringucci de’ Piccolomini (b. ca. 1500), Silvia Piccolomini (b. 1526?),
Virginia Martini Casolani Salvi (doc. 1530s–70s), and Ortensia Scarpi (vixit
pre-1559). The sonnet exchange between five of these women and Alessandro
Piccolomini thus points to, but clearly does not exhaust, the presence in Siena
of literate women who composed poetry and engaged in poetic dialogue with
their male counterparts in the final two decades of the Sienese Republic.

11.2 The Women’s tenzone with Alessandro Piccolomini (1540)

In August 1540, Alessandro Piccolomini took time away from his university
studies to travel to nearby Arquà, a sleepy provincial town 21 km from Padua,
to visit Petrarch’s tomb. Having respectfully stood at the grave of the great poet,
Piccolomini then composed a sonnet that he, allegedly, left on the red-marble
sarcophagus in front of the local church, but which he, more realistically, sent
around to a number of friends in Padua, Siena, and other cities in Italy. The re-
sult was an extensive sonnet exchange that included responses from about 25

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Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 225

to 30 members of the recently founded Academy of the Infiammati in Padua,

plus a good number of responses from people in Siena, all of which Piccolomini
gathered into a manuscript volume that he then, apparently, sent as a gift to
the writer and satirist Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) in Venice.12 In his funeral ora-
tion for Piccolomini, the Sienese writer and erudite Scipione Bargagli referred
to the collection as the Tombaide and added that it was warmly received every-
where (“desiderosamente ricevuto nel Mondo”).13 Unfortunately, the collection
has not survived and what is left from this alleged wealth of responses is very
little indeed: five sonnets composed by five Sienese women and Piccolomini’s
responses to them, plus three sonnets composed by three men—Leone Orsini
from Rome, Benedetto Varchi from Florence, and Emanuele Grimaldi from
Genoa—all connected, at that time, with the Accademia degli Infiammati of
Padua. The exchange between Piccolomini and the five Sienese women sur-
vives as a group in four manuscripts, while those by the male participants
survive only individually and in scattered sources.14 What we have left, there-
fore, points clearly to a poetic dialogue that is predominantly feminine and
Sienese, not, as one might assume, a dialogue among male poets from various
parts of the peninsula with some token women included.
The overwhelming participation of Sienese women and the thoughts they
expressed in their response sonnets open a window onto a fascinating world
of personal connections between a Sienese literato and literate women in

12 Procaccioli, P. (ed.), Lettere scritte a Pietro Aretino, vol. 2, Rome, 2002, pp. 130–31, letter 116
dated 31 May 1541. See Eisenbichler, K., The Sword and the Pen: Women, Politics, and Poetry
in Sixteenth-Century Siena, Notre Dame, IN, 2012, pp. 20–21, 31–32.
13 Bargagli, S., “Orazione di Scipion Bargagli in morte di Monsignor Alessandro Piccolomini
Arcivescovo di Patrasso, Eletto di Siena 1579”, in id., Dell’imprese di Scipion Bargagli,
genil’huomo sanese: alla prima parte, la seconda, e la terza nuouamente aggiunte, Venice,
p. 556. See also Cerreta, F., “La Tombaide: alcune rime inedited su un pelligranaggio pe-
trarchesco ad Arquà”, Italica 35 (1958), pp. 15–57.
14 For the women, see: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, MS Palat. 228,
fols. 76v–81r (olim 65v–70r); Siena, Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati di Siena (hence-
forth SI-BCI), MS H.X.2, fols. 21v–25v; SI-BCI, MS H.X.2, fols. 65r–66r; SI-BCS, MS H.X.45,
fols. 95v–98r. Orsini’s sonnet survives in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Manuscripts ital-
iens 1535, fol. 73r, and is published in Flamini, F., “Il Canzoniere inedito di Leone Orsini”,
in id., Raccolta di studi critici dedicata ad Alessandro D’Ancona, Florence, 1901, pp. 637–
55; Salza, A., “Da Valchiusa ad Arquà”, in id., Raccolta di studi di storia e critica letter-
aria dedicata a Francesco Flamini da’ suoi discepoli, Pisa, 1918, p. 757; and Cerreta, F.,
Alessandro Piccolomini letterato e filosofo senese del Cinquecento, Siena, 1960, p. 47.
Grimaldi’s sonnet has not been located in a manuscript but survives in Cerreta, F., “La
Tombaide” p. 166; and Cerreta, F., Alessandro Piccolomini, p. 246. Varchi’s sonnet also is not
extant in manuscript, but is published in Cerreta, F. “La Tombaide”, p. 166; and Cerreta, F.
Alessandro Piccolomini, p. 247.

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226 Eisenbichler

mid-16th-century Siena that is, in many ways, quite novel and fascinating. In
reading the sonnets, we quickly realize that the five women were well educat-
ed, conversant with at least some of the classics of Italian and Latin literature,
and linguistically quite competent. They were also socially aware and politi-
cally engaged.
Virginia Martini Casolani Salvi,15 for example, opens her sonnet in the
Tombaide with a direct question: “Why can I not see the great tomb” (“Perché
veder non poss’io la gran tomba”). Her words allude to the restrictions contem-
porary women of her social class faced when it came to travel. Unable to make
her own pilgrimage to Petrarch’s tomb, she is limited in her ability to honor
Petrarch’s ashes and sing his praises: “Happy are you”, she says to Piccolomini,
“because your Trumpet clear / to Heaven lifts such splendid work and you /
in learned verses sing, your voice both rare / and vibrant, and your name
on high resounds”.16 In Salvi’s view, the restriction on travel is also a restric-
tion on acquiring fame and thus a glass ceiling (to use a modern term) that
holds her back from rising to higher (literary) status. Her only option is to ask
Piccolomini to go to the tomb himself and bring, on her behalf, “Arabian scents
to that pure and sacred breast.” Piccolomini responds acknowledging that
“Although the dreadful sling of Fate forbids / your coming to the Tomb of the
great lover / of the well born laurel”, the “clear trumpet” of Salvi’s “lofty verses”
still resounds “from everywhere here below up to the highest Heaven” and thus
honors Petrarch.17 In this manner Piccolomini praises Salvi’s poetic skills and
implies that she has, indeed, gained earthly and heavenly fame through them.
The comment is clearly a genteel compliment, but perhaps it is not too far from
the truth. Virginia would, in fact, go on to enjoy fame in her own time and, as
we shall see below, enjoy the honor of having some of her poems set to music
by such leading contemporary composers as the Italian Giovanni Pierluigi da

15 On the problems in identifying this woman correctly, and not confusing her with her
namesake Virginia Luti Salvi, see Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen, pp. 166–68. Both
women were married into the Salvi family, but differed in their natal families, one being
a Casolani and the other a Luti. For a more extensive study of Virginia Martini Casolani
Salvi, see Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen, pp. 26–33, 165–214; for Virginia Luti Salvi,
see pp. 33–39 in the same work.
16 “Felice voi, poiché la chiara tromba / Vostra alza al Ciel così ricco lavoro / E in dotti versi
e in stil raro e sonoro / Cantate, e ’l vostro nome alto rimbomba”: Eisenbichler, The Sword
and the Pen, p. 27.
17 “Benché il venir voi stessa a la gran tomba / Del gran cultor di quel ben nato alloro / Che
s’erse u’ non mai pini ascesi foro, / Le vieti del suo fato invida fromba, / Felice è pur, poi-
ché sì chiara tromba, / Verginia, in onor suo l’alto lavoro / Dei vostri versi, in suon dolce e
sonoro, / Qua d’ogn’ intorno al Ciel alto rimbomba”: Ibid., p. 29.

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Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 227

Palestrina (1525/26–94) and the Flemish Jean de Turnhout (c.1550–1614).18 She

would also hold a place of honor in Lodovico Domenichi’s 1559 collection of
women’s poetry where her works will outnumber those of any other woman
poet in the volume. She would top the contributors’ list with 45 individual
poems, a considerable number when we consider that the average number
of poems per woman poet in the collection is 5.8 and that the second most
represented poet, the Venetian noblewoman Olimpia Malipiero (b. ca. 1535),
has nearly a third less poems in the collection (33, to be exact) than she does.
What is fascinating about Virginia Martini Salvi is not only her extensive
production, but also the fact that she was adamantly and inextricably engaged
in the political life of Siena.19 Her husband, Matteo Salvi, and his brothers were
described by historian Roberto Cantagalli as “seven ambitious brothers, all to
various degrees turbulent adventurers”.20 Virginia fit perfectly into that group.
In 1546 she was arrested on charges of sedition against the state for having
composed a number of poems (stanze and strambotti) highly critical of the
current government. The injury to the state was aggravated by the fact that
these poems were circulating anonymously in town for everyone to read and
they were stirring up a lot of talk. Salvi was saved from possible capital punish-
ment and set free only by the direct intervention of Emperor Charles V who
let the Sienese government know that he firmly wished her to be released; a
somewhat unexpected wish, seeing that Salvi and her marital family were all
firmly anti-Spanish.21 Years later, when the Sienese overthrew their Spanish
protectors and realigned themselves with France, Virginia composed a series
of laudatory sonnets congratulating King Henry II for his intervention into
Sienese politics and encouraging him, even urging him, to intervene in other
Italian states so as to free the peninsula from the rapacious claws of the impe-
rial eagle. In the aftermath of the capture of Siena by Florentine forces and its

18 Ibid., pp. 207–11.

19 The first full edition of Virginia Martini Salvi’s works is in Eisenbichler, K., L’opera poetica
di Virginia Martini Salvi (Siena, c. 1510–Roma, post 1571), Siena, 2012, which also contains an
extensive biography of the poet. For a biography in English, see Eisenbichler, The Sword
and the Pen, pp. 165–77.
20 Cantagalli, R., “Un inedito del 1553 dell’Archivio di Stato di Siena. La sentenza di con-
danna pronunciata dai Quattro Segreti di Badìa e la relazione del Capitano di Giustizia
sulla congiura antifrancese di Giulio Salvi Capitano del Popolo”, BSSP 67 (1960), p. 128. On
the Salvi family’s political plots and vicissitudes, see Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen,
pp. 168–71.
21 On this episode, see Lusini, A., “Virginia Salvi ed un processo politico del sec. XVI”, La
Diana 5 (1930), pp. 130–54; and Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen, pp. 171–77. Though
released, Virginia was condemned to one year of exile from the city and house arrest at
her father’s palazzo in Casole Val d’Elsa.

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228 Eisenbichler

eventual incorporation into the newly created Medici dual-duchy of Florence

and Siena, Virginia Salvi, now an exile in Rome, addressed several poems to
Henry II, his wife Catherine de’ Medici, and his sister Marguerite de Valois,
Duchess of Berry, urging them to liberate Siena (and Florence) from Medicean
rule. Her appeals seem to have gone unheard by the French royal family, but
not so by Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici who (unlike Emperor Charles V) proved
to be unforgiving towards her. When, in August 1559, she appealed to him for
permission to return to Siena and to her possessions, Cosimo seems simply not
to have responded, thus tacitly denying her request. In 1571 Virginia was still an
exile in Rome, where she apparently died some time later.22
Her sister-in-law and namesake, Virginia Luti Salvi, wife of Matteo’s brother
Achille, was very much unlike her. This Virginia was not interested in political
engagement, but in religious reform, at least that is what seems to transpire
from a careful reading of her only surviving poem. She was also, it seems, a
very accomplished and even intellectual poet. The 17th-century Sienese eru-
dite Isidoro Ugurgieri Azzolini writes that

Virginia Luti, a Sienese noblewoman, was the wife of Achille Salvi, and at
the Sienese soirées she showed such a sublime spirit that on many occa-
sions she persuaded the loftiest wits among the Sienese academicians to
loosen their tongues and move their pens in order to consecrate her rare
abilities with voice and with ink. We have seen many of the octaves and
sonnets she composed, very beautiful and numerous.23

Though he says she was a prolific poet and a lively wit who inspired a lot of
members of the Sienese academy of the Intronati to engage in discussion with
her, her only surviving poem reflects a much more serious and rather under-
stated modus operandi. In responding to Alessandro Piccolomini’s paean to
Petrarch, she subtly suggests that he should focus on his immortal soul and the
afterlife, not on earthly love and passing beauty.24 Piccolomini seems to have
understood the subtle message; in his response sonnet he informs Virginia Luti

22 On Virginia Martini Salvi’s troubles with the law and her political poetry in favor of
France, see Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen, pp. 171–88, 195–98.
23 “Verginia Luti nobil Sanese fu moglie d’Achille Salvi, e con l’occasione delle veglie Sanesi
dimostrò spirito così sublime, che persuase i più elevati ingegni degli Accademici Sanesi
a sciogliere la lingua, e muovere la penna più volte per consagrare con la voce, e con
l’inchiostro le rare virtù di lei all’immortalità. Habbiamo vedute molte ottave, e sonetti da
lei composti molto vaghi, e numerosi”: Ugurgieri Azzolini, Le pompe sanesi, vol. 2, p. 402.
24 For a full analysis of this sonnet as an invitation to religious reform, see Eisenbichler, The
Sword and the Pen, pp. 33–39.

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Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 229

Salvi that Jupiter never strikes the laurel with his thunderbolts, thereby imply-
ing that God does not punish poets nor was He contrary to Petrarch’s love for
Laura. We do not have any further samples of Virginia Luti Salvi’s works or
evidence of her engagement with Christian reform ideas circulating in Siena in
the 1530s–40s, when reformers such as Bernardino Ochino and Aonio Paleario
were in town. It is conceivable that some of her religious or spiritual poems
may, in fact, have been misattributed to her namesake, or that they might sur-
vive, still unidentified, in other manuscript collections.
The other three women who took part in the tenzone with Alessandro
Piccolomini point to other fascinating aspects of Sienese culture al femminile.
Eufrasia Marzi (b. 1512), wife of Ludovico Borghesi, not only composed poet-
ry but was also one of three interlocutors in a dialogue on beauty composed
by Marc’Antonio Piccolomini in 1538. The topic to be discussed was whether
beauty is created by chance or by design, that is, whether beauty occurs spon-
taneously in Nature or is created in line with God’s providential plan.25 In 1530s
Siena, home to a number of reformed-minded spirits, the topic was highly
controversial and even dangerous; it touched, for example, on such “hot” top-
ics as fate, free will, and the existence of Purgatory. Marc’Antonio’s purpose in
using three living local women as his interlocutors is not at all clear; suffice
it to say, however, that Eufrasia Marzi and her two interlocutors—Laudomia
Forteguerri and Girolama Carli Piccolomini—stood to lose a lot should
they be personally linked with some of the heterodox views expressed in the
dialogue.26 In her sonnet for the Tombaide, Eufrasia seems to steer clear of con-
troversial topics and limits herself to praising Alessandro and saying that his
“trumpet” is “revered / by heads bedecked with ivy, laurel and flowers”, a subtle
reference, perhaps, to the group of Sienese women keen to praise the poetic
abilities of their city’s native son.27
The sonnet by Camilla Piccolomini de’ Petroni (b. 1506) alludes instead to
the world of nymphs and shepherds. Such a pastoral setting echoes the setting
of Alessandro Piccolomini’s original sonnet and can be found in several re-
sponse sonnets. Camilla’s poetic world is a tranquil, peaceful place that, how-
ever, like most pastoral settings, also contains an element of fear and the threat

25 Marc’Antonio Piccolomini’s dialogue remained in manuscript form until it was exam-

ined and published in Belladonna, R., “Gli Intronati, le donne, Aonio Paleario e Agostino
Museo in un dialogo inedito di Marcantonio Piccolomini, il Sodo Intronato (1538)”, BSSP
99 (1992), pp. 59–90.
26 For a discussion of this dialogue, its context, and its potential impact on the three women,
see Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen, pp. 40–42.
27 “Per cui sei celebrata intorno intorno / Da teste cinte d’edra, allori e fiori.” For a transcrip-
tion and discussion of this sonnet, see Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen, pp. 44–47.

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230 Eisenbichler

of danger and turmoil. Alessandro picks up on this suggestion of possible dan-

ger and, in his response, seems to eroticize it, thus re-enforcing the ambivalent
nature of the pastoral present in the poem.28
Camilla’s kinswoman, Girolama di Giovanni Biringucci (b. c.1500) follows
suit, adhering to the pastoral theme, but introducing into her sonnet a mel-
ancholic tone with her allusion to the myth of the nymph Phyllis who com-
mitted suicide when she wrongly thought she had been abandoned by her
lover Damon. With Girolama’s sonnet we come full-circle: while Virginia
Martini Casolani Salvi had raised her voice to ask why she could not go to visit
Petrarch’s tomb, Girolama calmly suggest that she, in her alter-ego as Phyllis,
did go: “When Phyllis reached the famous tomb … ”. Though not in person, the
Sienese women could thus travel to Arquà at least in their poetic imagination
and enter into a pastoral world that revolved around the poet’s unending love
of his beloved.29
The five women who engaged in the tenzone with Alessandro Piccolomini
were part of a much larger group of women in sixteenth-century Siena who
composed poetry and contributed to the literary/cultural life of the city.

11.3 Aurelia Petrucci

One of these women from the larger group was Aurelia Petrucci (1511–42),
daughter of the recently deposed signore of Siena, Borghese Petrucci and
Vittoria Todeschini Piccolomini. When her father fled into exile in the wake
of a coup against him organized by Pope Leo X de’ Medici (16 March 1516),
Aurelia remained behind with her mother and younger sisters in the Palazzo
Piccolomini in nearby Sarteano. She must have grown up well aware of her il-
lustrious pedigree (both paternal and maternal) and her family’s place in the
government of Siena over the previous several decades. A curious comment
from her kinsman Alessandro Piccolomini suggests that she might well have
had the abilities to govern Siena herself, as her father Borghese and grandfa-
ther Pandolfo had done. In his eulogy for her untimely death, Alessandro re-
gretted that Sienese law did not allow women to hold public office because,
had it been otherwise, Aurelia could have contributed, very much like a man,
to the government of Siena.30 Knowing that Aurelia was the eldest of the four

28 Ibid., pp. 47–51.

29 Ibid., pp. 52–55.
30 “Questo solamente dir voglio ancora, che considerando io il discorso, e la prudenza id
questa Donna non so giudicare, se quella istituzion, che le Donne nei negozi pubblici

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Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 231

female children of Borghese Petrucci, Piccolomini seems to be suggesting

that Aurelia could have inherited the mantle from her father and her grand-
father and that she could have governed the city as they had. This may well
be funerary hyperbole, but it is, nonetheless, a very unusual statement to be
made on the death of a young noble woman, especially in a republic where the
right to govern is based on election and not on inheritance. Alessandro’s com-
ment remains strictly theoretical and even imaginative; we have no evidence
(so far) that Aurelia might have played a political role, of any sort, in Siena in
the 1530s–40s, but we do have a poem from her that points to what her politi-
cal views and hopes for Siena were.
In the sonnet “Dove sta il tuo valor, Patria mia cara” (Where is your valor,
beloved Homeland”), Aurelia offers a poignant analysis of the current politi-
cal situation in her faction-ridden city. She laments the internal divisions that
open the door to foreign intervention and warns her fellow citizens that dis-
cord will be the ruin of her homeland. Her words proved prophetic not only for
the Republic of Siena, but for all of Italy, soon to fall under near-total control
by Spain. Her sonnet and its warning must have struck a chord with the poly-
math Lodovico Domenichi who, in assembling his 1559 variorum collection of
women’s poetry, gave Aurelia’s sonnet pride of place by using it as the opening
sonnet in the anthology, thus making a subtle but clear political statement.31
The sonnet was republished a century and a half later by Antonio Bulifon, a
French expatriate working in Naples, in his variorum collection of women’s po-
etry (the second in Italy) and, once again, it appeared first in the anthology as if
to indicate that, even as late as 1695, Aurelia’s warning message about internal
discord in Siena, and by extension in Italy, was current and valid.32
Tempting though it might be to see Aurelia Petrucci as a political figure,
it is probably more useful to see her in the more traditional role of a much

non s’intermettano, era vivendo Aurelia cagion di maggior utile o danno alla Città vostra;
essendo questa repubblica per causa di questa legge priva nei maneggi, che più importas-
sero della bontà, e giudizio di tanta Donna. Però che si può in una parola affermare, che
se parte alcuna ha di non buono la donna, tal parte non fu già in Lei: e tutte quelle parti
importanti, che stan bene all’uomo, furono in Essa sì compiutamente, che mancando
Lei dell’imperfezion della Donna, ed abbondando della perfezion dell’uomo, singolaris-
sima, qual noi la vedemmo, si rese al mondo”: Piccolomini, A., Orazione di Monsignore
Alessandro Piccolomini fatta in morte di Aurelia Petrucci nel 1542, Florence, 1771, p. 19.
31 Domenichi, L. (ed.), Rime diverse d’alcune nobilissime, et virtuosissime donne, Lucca,
1559, p. 9.
32 Bulifon, A. (ed.), Rime di cinquanta illustri poetesse. Di nuovo date in luce e dedicate
all’Eccellentissima Signora D. Eleonora Sicilia Spinelli Duchessa d’Atri, &c., Naples, 1695,
p. 2. For a more in-depth analysis of the poem, see Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen,
pp. 73–76.

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232 Eisenbichler

respected woman whose beauty, charm, and wit were praised by other writers
who then dedicated some of their works to her.
One of these was Mariano Lenzi, who opened his editio princeps of Leone
Ebreo’s extremely influential Dialoghi d’amore (1535) with a dedicatory letter
to Aurelia. In it, Lenzi describes Aurelia as a model to be imitated by everyone;
and here his gendered language seems to suggest that the “everyone” to which
he is referring is masculine, not feminine, thereby turning Aurelia the woman
into a model to be emulated by men. Whatever such an implication might sug-
gest, it seems clear that Aurelia is to be seen as an exemplary figure. Lenzi’s
praises elicited a response sonnet from Aurelia in which she claimed, as might
be expected, that she was not worthy of such an honor or such praises, “Di
quel ch’il buon Filon disse a Sofia” (Of that which good Filone said to Sofia).
Though not a profound or noteworthy piece of poetry, the sonnet does end
with a subtle reference to the current troubles in Siena and with a clear allu-
sion to Dante’s lament “Ahi, serva Italia, di dolore ostello” (Purgatorio 6.76–78)
that bemoaned the condition of Italy at his time. Such a reference reinforces
our earlier insight into Aurelia as a politically aware and savvy woman.

11.4 Laudomia Forteguerri

Siena was not short of such politically savvy women. One of these was Virginia
Martini Casolani Salvi, whom we have already met and who, unfortunately,
aligned herself with the losing side in the battle for control of Siena. Another
was Laudomia Forteguerri, who appears as quite a multifaceted figure. She is a
heterodox thinker in Marc’Antonio Piccolomini’s dialogue on whether Nature
creates beauty by chance or by design; as a beautiful muse in Alessandro
Piccolomini’s poetry and prose; as a passionate lover of Margaret of Austria in
her own sonnets to her; as a stalwart leader of women in the preparations for
the defense of Siena; and more. Clearly a complex individual, Forteguerri may
have been both a traditional woman, obediently fulfilling her roles as daughter,
wife, and mother, and a maverick who dared to break conventions and pursue
different paths from those normally trodden by noble women of her time. The
jury is still out on her, but the evidence seems to point to a verdict of guilty on
all accounts.
Noble, elegant, and beautiful, already as a young woman in her late teens
Laudomia Forteguerri had attracted the roving eyes of Alessandro Piccolomini,
who sang her praises in verse and prose. I have already mentioned the astro-
nomical compendium De la sfera del mondo (1540) he dedicated to her and the
dedicatory letter that tells of her interests in Dante’s Paradiso and in astronomy

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Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 233

in general. In that same letter, Piccolomini also reported that Laudomia had
said that:

… aside from the sorrow she had always felt for not having been able to
dedicate her life to some worthy study and honored Science, on account
of having been born a Woman, what most grieved her was that she had
not been able to feed her soul with matters of Astrology, to which she felt
herself most inclined.33

Piccolomini’s reference to Forteguerri’s lament for having been born a woman

reveals not only the cultural restrictions that prevented even literate women
from carrying out research (“worthy study”) in a respected scientific area
(“honored Science”), but possibly also Laudomia’s own discomfort with the lot
of being a woman: she regretted not having been born a man. In other words,
Forteguerri is not only displeased with the restrictions imposed on her sex,
but possibly also with her sex. Admittedly, we do not have solid evidence to
support such a claim, but her five sonnets of affection for Margaret of Austria
and the information Alessandro Piccolomini provides in his lecture (Lettura)
on one of these sonnets, do suggest that Forteguerri may have been breaking
gender parameters.
In her sonnet “Ora ten vai superbo, or corri altiero” (Now you go proudly,
now you run haughtily), Forteguerri laments the distance that separates her,
in Siena, from Margaret, in Rome.34 She speaks directly to the river Tiber say-
ing that it can certainly flow proudly now that Margaret strolls by its banks

33 “che oltra ’l dispiacer ch’ella ha sempre havuto, che per esser nata Donna, non le sia stato
conceduto di poter donare gli anni suoi, a qualche pregiato studio e honorata Scientia,
per questo ciò le dolea più che per altro, ch’ella non havea possuto pascer l’animo suo, de
le cose d’Astrologia, a le quali la si sentia più che ad altro inclinata”: Piccolomini, A., De
la sfera del mondo. It is clear from the context that Forteguerri uses the word “astrology”
to mean what we today refer to as “astronomy”; she is not interested in foretelling the fu-
ture from the movements of the stars (astrology), but in understanding scientifically the
movements of the stars (astronomy).
34 The sonnet was first published in 1541 in Piccolomini, A., Lettura del S. Alessandro
Piccolomini Infiammato fatta nell’Accademia degli Infiammati, M.D.XXXXI, Bologna,
1541, sig. Biiiv; it was then republished many times over the centuries starting with
Domenichi, L. (ed.), Rime diverse di molti eccellentiss. auttori nuovamente raccolte. Libro
primo, 2nd edn., Venice, 1546, p. 246; and its 1549 re-edition; then in Domenichi (ed.),
Rime diverse d’alcune nobilissime, p. 102, this time with five other poems by Forteguerri
(pp. 102–04). More recently, it was published and discussed in Eisenbichler, The Sword
and the Pen, pp. 128–30. Piccolomini’s lecture on the sonnet was delivered on Sunday,
6 February 1541 at the newly founded Accademia degli Infiammati of Padua, and then
published in Bologna the following July.

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234 Eisenbichler

and makes them bloom with flowers by her mere presence. The language and
imagery Forteguerri uses are very much in line with current Petrarchan poetry
and reveal her command of the medium, but this is nothing new. What is ab-
solutely innovative, however, is that the Petrarchan medium and its language
are being used to express a profound sentiment of affection by one woman
for another woman. Forteguerri’s sonnet may, in fact, be the earliest case of
“lesbian” poetry in Italian literature.35
The extraordinary affection that Forteguerri felt for Margaret is mentioned
by Alessandro Piccolomini in his lecture on the sonnet. He says that the two
women first met in 1536 when Margaret passed through Siena on her way from
Naples to Florence to marry Duke Alessandro de’ Medici: but his information
is incorrect. Margaret made this journey by sea and, having landed at Livorno,
she proceeded directly to Pisa and thence to Florence without detouring to
Siena. Such a detour would have been highly unusual not only because it
would have taken her far out of her way but also because Siena was a com-
pletely different country. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, Piccolomini is prob-
ably confusing this date with Margaret’s earlier stay in Siena in late April 1533
when she travelled from the Netherlands, where she was born, to Naples, where
she was to be educated in anticipation of her marriage to Duke Alessandro.36
The two women then met again in October 1538 when the widowed Margaret
travelled through Siena on her way to Rome to marry her second husband,
Ottavio Farnese. Piccolomini’s narrative describes how, the first time they met,
“as soon as Laudomia saw Madama [Margaret of Austria], and was seen by
her, suddenly with the most ardent flames of Love each burned for the other,
and the most manifest sign of this was that they went to visit each other many
times”.37 The second time Margaret passed through Siena “they renewed most
happily their sweet Loves and today [that Margaret is in Rome], more than
ever, with notes from one to the other they warmly maintain them”.38 The cor-
respondence between Margaret and Laudomia that Piccolomini mentions

35 I use the term “lesbian” as a convenient short form to indicate those women whose pri-
mary emotional and/or sexual focus was placed on other women, without at all imply-
ing that the construction of same-sex desire has remained unchanged through time: see
Eisenbichler, K., “Laudomia Forteguerri Loves Margaret of Austria”, in F.C. Sautman and
P. Sheingorn (eds.), Same-Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages, New
York, 2001, pp. 277–304; and id., The Sword and the Pen, pp. 114–23.
36 Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen, p. 116.
37 “La qual [Laudomia] come prima uidde Madama, e dà quella fù ueduta altresì, subito di
ardentissime fiamme d’Amore, l’una de l’altra si accese, di che manifestissimo segno fù,
che più uolte da poi con ambasciate si uisitarono”: Piccolomini, Lettura, sig. Biijr.
38 “felicemente i dolcissimi loro Amori rinnouarono, & oggi più che mai, con auisi e da ques-
ta parte e da quella caldamente conseruano”, Piccolomini, Lettura, sig. Biij r.

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Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 235

has not yet been located; should it come to light, it may well provide us with
invaluable insights into the two women’s affections for each other and into
16th-century women’s friendship in general. It might also provide us with more
sonnets by Forteguerri whose corpus, for the moment, is limited to five sonnets
of affection for Margaret and one of praise for the poet Alda Torella Lunata
from Pavia.39

11.5 Virginia Martini Casolani Salvi

Much of the poetry composed by Sienese women in the 16th century is, in fact,
still to be located, edited, and published in modern editions. What we have
comes mostly from Domenichi’s ground-breaking 1559 collection of women’s
rime and, to a much lesser extent, from his other variorum collections. So far,
the most prolific Sienese woman poet is Virginia Martini Casolani Salvi, whose
more than 60 extant poems I recently edited and published.40
Virginia Martini Salvi can well serve as a case-in-point for the difficulties
we encounter in trying to identify and establish a corpus of works by early
modern women poets. No sooner was my edition of her poetry in print than
my colleague and friend Virginia Cox wrote to me to say she had found a new
one hidden away in the index at the back of Curzio Gonzaga’s Rime (1591).
In this sonnet, Salvi praises Gonzaga’s “Orsa”, which leads him to respond
with three sonnets of his own to thank Salvi but also to display his poetic
skills; in his sonnets Gonzaga uses three different response techniques: “per
le desinenze”, “per le rime”, and “per le confuse”.41 Virginia Cox’s message in-
spired me to look further into Gonzaga’s collection and this, in turn, led me to

39 The poem for Lunata is published in Domenichi (ed.), Rime diverse d’alcune nobilissime,
p. 104; Bulifon, A. (ed.), Rime di cinquanta illustri poetesse, p. 96; Forteguerri, L., Sonetti di
Madonna Laudomia Forteguerri poetessa senese del secolo XVI, ed. A. Lisini, Siena, 1901,
p. 20; and Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen, p. 249.
40 Eisenbichler, L’opera poetica.
41 Curzio Gongaza, Rime […] gia ricorrette, ordinate, & accresciute da lui; e hora dinuovo ris-
tampate con gli Argomenti ad ogni compositione, Venice, 1591, sig. L3r. Salvi’s poem, “Tal da
le vaghe Stelle hoggi splendore” appears, transcribed in full, in an index entitled “Sonetti
di diversi” in an unfoliated section near the end of the book. It elicited three response son-
nets from Gonzaga that are given, independently of the original sonnet, near the front of
the collection in the paginated section “Parte prima” dedicated to “Amor pungente. They
are “Se come il mio infedele, empio signore” (p. 21), in which Gonzaga answers “per le
desinenze”; “De la nov’Orsa già tanto splendore” (p. 21), in which he answers “per le rime”;
and “Novella Clio, tal già sostenni amore” (p. 22), in which he responds “per le confuse”.
I am grateful to Virginia Cox for this reference.

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236 Eisenbichler

discover that Salvi’s poem had first been published in 1585 in the editio princeps
of Gonzaga’s Rime (1585), and to note that in this edition her name had been
left blank: the poem was identified simply as “Di Madonna….”.42 The reason for
the extended ellipsis and the silence it articulated is not clear. A year after Cox’s
message, I received another message, this time from Francesca Maria Gabrielli,
an Italian scholar at the University of Zagreb, who wrote to tell me of two more
poems by Salvi that I had missed and she had found. They had been printed,
probably in 1569, in a self-published volume by the relatively unknown south-
ern Italian poet, Speranza Vittoria di Bona (b. 1536 in Manfredonia), a woman
on whom Gabrielli was currently working. The two sonnets, both inspired by
the political situation in Siena in 1553 or very shortly thereafter, elicited four
response sonnets from Bona that constitute a forceful diatribe against Salvi
and the pro-French camp in Italy.43 Taken together, the six poems in Bona’s
book serve to illustrate not only the strong reactions Salvi’s political poetry
could raise in the pro-Spanish areas of Italy, but also the extensive dissemina-
tion and circulation of her works, reaching as far south as a fairly small town in
the kingdom of Naples.44 More recently, the Italian scholar Johnny L. Bertolio
discovered and published two more poems by Virginia Salvi that he found at
the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in a manuscript collection of poetry by the
Sienese erudite Lattanzio Benucci (1521–98).45

42 Gonzaga, G., Rime, Vicenza, 1585, sig. Cc2v–Cc3r; a transcription of her sonnet then fol-
lows, after which there is the indication “Al quale il Sig. Curtio risponde con quelli, che
incominciano”, and the incipit of the three response sonnets mentioned above (which
appear independently of the original sonnet on pp. 16–17) are given.
43 Bona, S.V., Difesa de le rime et prose de la signora Speranza, et Vittoria di Bona in difesa di
suo honore, et contra quelli, che ricercò farli infamia con sue rime, n.p., [1569?]. Salvi’s two
poems are on fol. 29r–v (“Serennissimo Re de franchi invitto”) and fol. 29v (“Tu credi Don
Garzia carco di sdegno”) and are probably to be dated to 1553; they are followed by the
four response sonnets by Speranza Vittoria di Bona on fols. 29v–30v (“Virginia salvi è pur
quel Carlo invitto”; “Se mosse Don Garzia con giusto sdegno”; “Del gran Carlo fatal l’invita
gloria”; and “Mentre che Marte intorno al sacro busto”).
44 Named in honor of King Manfred of Sicily (r. 1258–66), Manfredonia was erected in 1256–
63 to house the displaced inhabitants of the nearby Siponto who had been obliged to
abandon their ancient town in the wake of a disastrous earthquake (1223) and the sub-
sequent development of unhealthy marshland conditions. In 1528, Manfredonia success-
fully withstood an attack from the French armies of Odette de Foix, Viscount of Lautrec.
45 Bertolio, J.L., “Su alcune poesie inedite di e a Virginia Martini Salvi”, BSSP 122 (2015),
pp. 173–83. Salvi’s sonnets are “Quella rara, infinita, alma bontade” in response to Benucci’s
“O donna, esempio a noi d’alta bontade” (both p. 181), and “Se la luce immortal ch’ ogn’hor
m’accende” to which Benucci responded with “Quella beltà ch’in voi, donna, risplende”
(both p. 182). All four sonnets were found in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
MS Chig. I.VIII.295, fols. 325r–326v. A third set of proposta/risposta sonnets by Salvi and
Benucci appears on fol. 327r–v, with her “Dal vostro almo splendor pres’io la luce” and

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Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 237

These three examples of serendipitous discoveries clearly reveal that there

are long-lost works by Sienese women still to be found in manuscript collec-
tions and in long-overlooked 16th-century editions. And perhaps there may be
some poems extant even in the music of the time; Virginia Martini Salvi, as was
noted above, had some of her poetry set to music by none other than Giovanni
Pierluigi da Palestrina in Rome and Jean de Turnhout in Brussels. Also, as I
noted elsewhere, one of her poems was extemporaneously set to music by
Count Ottavio Landi, a proficient amateur musician who sang it while accom-
panying himself on a viuola at a meeting of the Academy of the Ortolani in
Piacenza.46 Published music scores from the 16th and 17th century may thus
provide us with more poetry composed by literate Sienese women and help us
to expand our knowledge of their works, interests, and abilities.

11.6 Onorata Tancredi Pecci

One of these Sienese women who most definitely needs fuller consideration
and more research is Onorata Tancredi Pecci (1503–post 1563).47 Although
highly praised by her contemporaries, she remains completely unknown to
modern scholars, probably because only two of her (apparently many) poems
have survived to the present day. Among her contemporaries she enjoyed the
reputation of being a lively, witty woman who “discusses philosophy so subtly
that everyone is amazed by it”.48 She was also known for her wit and quick rep-
artee. The polymath and poet Lodovico Domenichi, in his collection of witty

his response “Deh qual fero destin or mi riduce”, but they were already known because
they had been previously published in Domenichi (ed.), Rime diverse d’alcune nobilissime,
p. 193; Bulifon, A. (ed.), Rime di cinquanta illustri poetesse, p. 181; and Eisenbichler, L’opera
poetica di Virginia Martini Salvi, pp. 157–58.
46 Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen, pp. 210–11. The event is mentioned in Antonfrancesco
Doni, Dialogo della musica, in Monterosso Vacchelli, A.M., L’opera musicale di
Antonfranesco Doni, Cremona, 1969, pp. 137–39.
47 On Onorata Tancredi Pecci and her surviving poetry see Eisenbichler, The Sword and the
Pen, pp. 224–35.
48 “So pur, M. Claudio, che voi mi avete più fiate detto, che M. Onorata Pecci vostra Sanese
così accortamente ragiona delle più ascose cose di filosofia, che i più gentili spiriti di
quelle contrade, oltre al piacere, ne prendono grandissima maraviglia: nè me ne ha mai
parlato alcuno (che me ne han parlato molti), che non me la abbia dipinta uguale alla
mia M. Gostanza in ogne sorte di virtù”: Firenzuola, A., “Epistola in lode delle donne”,
in id., Opere, vol. 2, Milan, 1802, p. 18. Gostanza Amaretta is one of the interlocutors in
Firenzuola’s Ragionamenti.

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stories entitled Facetie, motti e burle (1562), gave an example of Onorata’s ready
wit when he narrated the following:

In a gathering of gentlewomen and worthy gentlemen the conversation

had turned upon a Sienese gentlewoman generally reputed to be beauti-
ful and very proper, who was praised by everyone as she deserved; but
one man, moved either by a desire to be contrary or by some rejection
he had received from her, charged her with vanity and frivolity; at which
point Madonna Onorata Pecci, who was present, immediately said: “Now,
if you take vanity away from women, what will be left for them?” (A mod-
est and most virtuous gentlewoman.)49

This lively, witty, and philosophical personality is not, however, what Onorata’s
two surviving poems suggest about her.50 They reflect a profound spirituality
and voice a fairly commonplace appeal to God to turn his eyes upon the poet
and thus help her rise above her earthly desires. The first sonnet, “Se la parte
miglior vicina al vero” (If the better part, near to the truth) argues that as long
as the poet’s desires are focused on a mortal beloved she will be unable to raise
her thoughts to God, but if God were to look down and gaze upon her soul, her
affections could then rise happily to Him. A similar concept is expressed in
Onorata’s second sonnet, “Mira, vero Signor, mira quest’alma” (Look, true Lord,
look at this soul), where she again asks the Lord to cast His eyes upon her. This
time, however, Onorata’s appeal is couched in terms of her soul’s losing battle
against earthly desires. Both poems beg for God’s assistance arguing that, with-
out His help, the poet will remain mired in earthly desires and, consequently,
in perdition. The appeal to God to enter actively into the poet’s life and raise
her soul to heaven is reminiscent of some of the mystical poetry by the likes

49 “In un ritrovo di molte gentildonne, e gentilhuomini di valore era caduto il ragionamen-

to sopra una gentildonna sanese, communemente tenuta per bella, e molto honesta: la
quale ancora che quivi fosse lodata quasi da tutti, si come quella che il meritava, vi fu
però uno, il quale o per studio di contradire, o per qualche repulsa ricevuta da lei, la tassò
di vanità e di leggierezza: onde Madonna Honorata Pecci, la quale era quivi, subitamente
disse; ora se voi levate la vanità alle donne, e che rimarrà più loro? (Modesta, e virtuosis-
sima gentildonna.)”: Domenichi, L., Facetie, motti, & burle, di diuersi signori et persone pri-
uate. Raccolte per M. Lodouico Domenichi, & da lui di nuouo del settimo libro ampliate. Con
una nuoua aggiunta di motti; raccolti da M. Thomaso Porcacchi, & con un discorso intorno
a essi, con ogni diligentia ricorrette, & ristampate, Venice, 1581, pp. 363–64.
50 The two sonnets were first published in Domenichi (ed.), Rime diverse d’alcune nobilis-
sime, p. 72; then in Bulifon, A. (ed.), Rime di cinquanta illustri poetesse, p. 63; Bergalli, L.
(ed.), Componimenti poetici delle più illustri rimatrici d’ogni secolo, raccolti da Luisa Bergalli.
Parte prima, che contiene le Rimatrici Antiche fino all’Anno 1575, Venice, 1726, pp. 177–78;
and finally in Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen, pp. 288–89.

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Literate Women in 16th-Century Siena 239

of Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo Buonarroti. The hint of a schuldcom-

plex, that is, the admission of personal guilt or inadequacy, and the expressed
desire to be consumed by the burning fire of God’s love, merely confirm this
interpretation. Instead of being remembered as a “philosopher”, as Firenzuola
and others have suggested, Onorata Tancredi Pecci might thus better be re-
membered as a religious, perhaps even mystical poet, one whose ardent ap-
peals to God contain the urgency and force typical of a passionate, not rational
or devout, relationship with the Almighty.
Onorata’s spiritual/mystical “side”, so to speak, was probably already evident
in the 1530s–40s when Siena was a hotbed of religious reformist ideas fostered,
in no small way, by the presence in the city of popular reformist preachers such
as the Capuchin friar Bernardino Ochino, humanists such as Aonio Paleario,
and local intellectuals such as Bartolomeo Carli Piccolomini. Given Onorata’s
exceptional intellectual talent, it is not unfeasible to think that she could have
been drawn to the ideas advanced by these engaged and stimulating minds,
and that she could have begun to turn her thoughts to topics that were, at that
time, both current and controversial.
Having demonstrated her wit and intelligence in her youth and an inter-
est in reformist religious thought in her mature years, Onorata seems to have
been ideally placed to enter into the circle of reform-minded Italian women
connected with the Colonna, d’Avalos, and Gonzaga circles in Naples. She did
so when she was asked to serve as governess and companion to the young
Ippolita Gonzaga (1535–63), daughter of Ferrante Gonzaga, governor of Milan,
and great-grand-niece to Giulia Gonzaga (1513–66), a leading lay figure among
the Italian Spirituali and the person responsible for the publication of the
works of the exiled Spanish friar and reformer Juan de Valdés. In the seven
years Onorata served as Ippolita’s governess (1548/49–56), she resided mostly
in Naples and was in constant contact with Giulia Gonzaga. It is more than
likely, then, that earlier contact with reform elements in Siena and later con-
tact with reform elements in Naples, led Onorata to focus more on spirituality
and less on philosophy or witty conversations. Further research on her, and a
thorough search for more of her works, may well add a new voice to the choir
of 16th-century Italian women who quietly advocated religious reform.

11.7 Conclusion

As the 16th century turned towards its close, the female voices that were heard
in the middle of the century seem to fall silent. Many of these women had
passed away, as had the Republic of Siena. The demise of the Republic and its
incorporation into the new dual duchy (soon to be grand duchy) of Florence

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and Siena brought to a close the lively intellectual atmosphere that had charac-
terized the city in the first half of the century and which many contemporaries,
first among them Girolamo Bargagli, had extolled in their works. The Catholic
reform movement had also silenced most, if not all, conversation on religious
renewal. The silence would last until the mid-17th century when, under the
patronage of the Grand Duchess of Tuscany Vittoria della Rovere, the first
all-female academy was established in Siena, the Accademia delle Assicurate
(f. 1654), that flourished into the next century.51 It was, however, an academy
founded on and dedicated to the playing of witty games that allowed partici-
pants to display their cultural knowledge and linguistic talents, very much as
had been the case in the Sienese veglie of a century earlier so nostalgically de-
scribed by Girolamo Bargagli. The Assicurate were, generally speaking, playing
parlor games (to use George McClure’s phrase); they were not, on the whole,
composing poetry that engaged, for example, with current politics or religion.
The flourishing of women poets that we noticed in the mid-16th century had
simply come to an end.
The presence in mid-16th-century Siena of a fairly large group of literate
women who used poetry to connect with other men and women and to express
their views on current issues—whether these might touch on love, politics, or
religion—is noteworthy, if not even unique. The sheer number of women com-
posing poetry is remarkable and in need of an explanation: perhaps it can be
credited to the women’s participation in the parlor games played during the
veglie or to their attendance at the meetings of the academies of the Rozzi and
the Intronati, or perhaps to a cultural climate peculiar to Siena that actively
encouraged them to engage in the literary and cultural life of the city. What is
also unique is that so much of their poetry circulated outside Siena and even
found its way into print and, in the case of at least one woman, into song.
While the poetry of these literate women definitely opens a new window
unto the cultural, literary, social, and political world around them, it also pro-
vides us with invaluable insights into their own network of contacts and, of
course, into their own interior world. Their works may not have entered into
the (overwhelmingly male) canon of Italian literature, but they may well help
modern scholars gain a more nuanced insight into the lives of educated and
talented women who clearly enjoyed writing poetry, conversing with intellec-
tuals, and engaging with the world around them.

51 On the Assicurate, see McClure, Parlour Games and the Public Life, pp. 125–33;
Scaglioso, C.M., Un’accademia femminile. Le Assicurate di Siena, Siena, 1993; and Paoli, M.P.,
“A veglia e in accademia. Le letterate senesi (sec. XVI–XVIII)”, in A. Savelli and L. Vigni
(eds.), Una città al femminile: protagonismo e impegno di donne senesi dal medioevo a oggi,
Siena, 2012, pp. 98–104.

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 Chapter 12

“An Occasion to Banish Melancholy”: Musical

Culture in Early Modern Siena

Colleen Reardon

Abstract

Histories of Sienese politics, art, and music often end in 1557, the year Siena was
forcefully absorbed into the Florentine Grand Duchy. It might be said, however, that
early-modern Siena provides a fascinating case study of how a population manages
to maintain a distinct identity even after the loss of political independence. Although
even the imaginative historian Judith Hook saw only a city of “a thousand empty cer-
emonies”, those ceremonies were vital as a means of maintaining and promoting a
distinct senesità. Music was an important element in this cultural program and the
Sienese took care to strengthen long-standing institutions and to promote and expand
those festive traditions in which music figured prominently. This chapter examines
the role of musical rites and ritual within the most prominent sacred and devotion-
al institutions in the city, including public churches, lay confraternities, and female
monastic institutions. It investigates the various forms of music education available
in the city, both institutional and private, and their importance for the formation
of a class of both professionals and amateurs who could participate in the city’s
festive culture. Finally, it considers the significance of the Sienese academies in the
city’s self-representation. These institutions promoted the distinctly Sienese par-
lor games (in which music played an important role) and were the driving force be-
hind the flowering of operatic performance in Siena during the late 17th and early
18th centuries.

It is no mystery why historians of Siena often focus on the 13th through the
mid-16th centuries. Not only do they have access to a rich and well-preserved
documentary record, they are also able to explore the admittedly compelling
period when Siena was an independent republic. It was during these centu-
ries that much of the city’s urban landscape took shape and when its most
well known and characteristic artists flourished. Histories of Siena often end
around the mid-1550s, the years in which the city first capitulated to besieg-
ing forces and was then forcefully absorbed into the Florentine Grand Duchy.

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242 Reardon

Judith Hook spoke for a number of historians when she lamented the loss of
“vigorous cultural leadership” in the city during the 16th and 17th centuries.1
Two 17th-century sources suggest that the Sienese did not entirely share this
attitude. The first is a manuscript compiled during the reign of Pope Urban VIII
(r. 1623–44) by Filippo Montebuoni Buondelmonti, a priest at Santa Maria dei
Servi. Montebuoni Buondelmonti assembled the names and accomplishments
of prominent Sienese in every walk of life. Isidoro Ugurgieri Azzolini picked up
Montebuoni Buondelmonti’s format in his printed volumes Le pompe sanesi
of 1649, acclaiming the virtues and talents of his countrymen. Both sources
provide a starting point for anyone with an interest in what happened in Siena
after 1555. They have proved invaluable for my ongoing investigation of musi-
cal culture in the city during the early modern period, for both Montebuoni
Buondelmonti and Ugurgieri Azzolini provide lists of singers, instrumentalists,
and composers active in Siena in the 16th and early 17th centuries.2 Rinaldo
Morrocchi carried this project forward in the late 19th century, adding more
names and new biographical information.3
Contemporary historians in several different fields have also found that the
years “after the fall” provide a fascinating case study of how the city’s inhab-
itants managed to maintain their unique identity even when stripped of the
ability to determine their own political fate. Hook noted the long-standing
importance in civic life of “games and ritualized play” and Gerald Parsons ob-
served that “communal festivals and games” constituted “important expres-
sions of the Sienese determination to preserve and maintain their distinctive
culture, traditions, and identity” after their defeat.4 Both Hook and Parsons,
among others, focused most of their attention on the city’s famous horse race,
the Palio, to illustrate this point. It probably the best known of such festivals
because it has continued right into the present day. As it turns out, musical per-
formance also had an important role to play in expressing just what it meant to
be Sienese—senesità—especially when it was associated with venerable rites
and with festive culture.
This essay furnishes an overview of the sites and modes of music making
in Siena from the mid-16th century through to the beginning of the 18th cen-
tury. The sounds of music regularly issued from churches and convents, from

1 Hook, J., Siena: A City and its History, London, 1979, p. 205.
2 See Siena, Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati (hereafter I-Sc), Ms. A.IX.10, fols. 238r–240r;
and Ugurgieri Azzolini I., Le pompe sanesi o’vero relazione delli huomini e donne illustri di
Siena e suo stato, vol. 2, Pistoia, 1649, pp. 3–16.
3 See Morrocchi, R., La musica in Siena, Siena, 1886, pp. 79–141.
4 Hook, Siena: a City and its History, p. 221; Parsons, G., Siena, Civil Religion, and the Sienese,
Burlington, VT, 2004, p. 33.

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Musical Culture in Early Modern Siena 243

public theaters, from educational institutions, from piazzas, and from private
homes. Both men and women, some dedicated to music as a profession and
some talented dilettante performers, contributed to create the variegated
soundscape that defined early modern Siena. A number of proud Sienese fami-
lies promulgated and promoted this musical culture, among them the Bichi
Ruspoli, the Brancadori, the Gori Pannellini, the Marsili, the Piccolomini, and
the Spannocchi. None, however, played a greater role than the native but expa-
triate branch of the Chigi family, whose members included Pope Alexander VII
(r. 1655–67), Cardinal Flavio Chigi (1631–93), Cardinal Sigismondo Chigi (1649–
78), and Prince Agostino Chigi (1634–1705). The family’s influence in Siena was
at its peak during the last third of the 17th century: after the death in 1667 of
one Medici governor, Mattias, the hiatus in which no Medici family member
ruled Siena (1667–83), and the first two decades (1683–1704) of the absentee
rule of another Medici governor, Cardinal Francesco Maria. Although the Chigi
supported various kinds of music making, their patronage was particularly im-
portant in the public, secular sphere where they provided the Sienese with an
alternative to the ruling Medici and stood as a potent symbol of senesità.

12.1 Sacred Spaces, Devotional Practices

Siena’s loss of political independence coincided with a major upheaval in the

religious world: the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic response to
Protestantism. Bishops met at Trent over a period of almost 20 years (1545–63)
to discuss matters of doctrinal importance and to formulate decrees that would
guide the church for the next four centuries. A Sienese musician, Agostino
Agazzari (c.1580–c.1642), played a large role in creating one of the most endur-
ing legends to come out of the Council of Trent. In a treatise aimed at advising
musicians how to play the organ and how to exploit instruments to accompany
the newest kind of sacred music then in vogue—written for one to three solo
voices rather than choirs of six to eight parts—Agazzari disparaged “ancient
music, full of fugues and counterpoints”. He then declared that the bishops had
been close to banishing sacred music from services, but that they desisted from
doing so after hearing a performance of the Pope Marcellus Mass.5

5 Agazzari, A., Del sonare sopra ‘l basso con tutti gli stromenti e dell’uso loro nel conserto (Siena,
1607), published in facsimile in Bibliotheca Musica Bononiensis, Bologna, 1969, section 2,
n. 37, trans. O. Strunk, Source Readings in Music History, revised edn. by Leo Treitler, New
York, 1998, p. 628.

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244 Reardon

It was in this very passage that Agazzari created the myth of Giovanni
Pierluigi da Palestrina as the “savior” of church music in the post-Tridentine
era. For it was indeed a myth: the Council’s decrees said virtually nothing about
music, except that those who assisted in the divine services should “praise the
name of God reverently and devoutly in hymns and canticles in the choir es-
tablished for psalmody”. The Council furthermore delegated the responsibility
for the “proper manner of singing and playing” in church to the local bishop
or archbishop. As Craig A. Monson has pointed out, this ruling “would have
as decisive an impact on church music as any other official Tridentine pro-
nouncement. It ensured that post-Tridentine Catholic church music would be
anything but uniform and monolithic”.6
As we turn to examine the place of music in the religious culture of Siena,
it is important to keep this point in mind. The performance of sacred music,
especially in liturgical rites, was a matter for the local archbishop to sort out.
Siena’s walls enclosed many churches, a seminary for training young men to
the priesthood, and numerous male and female monastic houses. The few
establishments that survived outside the walls (such as the convents of Santi
Abbondio e Abbondanzio and the Osservanza) were still closely tied to the
city. Polyphonic music played a large role in services at many religious institu-
tions, and sacred compositions were not the only repertory heard within them.
Since most men appointed archbishop of Siena during this period were from
the town itself, they saw little reason to restrict music making in churches,
seminaries, or even in convents, where prelates from other Italian urban cen-
ters found it much more problematic.
The cathedral was one of the most venerable institutions in Siena. As
Frank A. D’Accone has demonstrated, singers of polyphony were present at
the institution from the late 14th century on, and the choir gained in quality
and distinction as the organization grew in the 15th and 16th centuries. The
siege of Siena in the mid-1550s did not hamper the activities of the choir, de-
spite the terrible conditions; they sang to keep up the spirits of the population
through the darkest days.7 Before Siena’s political defeat, the choir boasted
members who came from outside the city, often from faraway locations. The
leaders of the ensemble, too, were often not Sienese. But, beginning with
the appointments of Ascanio Marri (c.1530–75) and then Andrea Feliciani
(d. 1596) as maestri di cappella in 1575, the tendency was to employ musicians

6 Monson, C.A., “The Council of Trent Revisited”, Journal of the American Musicological Society
55.1 (2002), pp. 18–19.
7 D’Accone, F.A., The Civic Muse: Music and Musicians in Siena during the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance, Chicago, 1997, pp. 320–22.

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Musical Culture in Early Modern Siena 245

who were native sons. The few “out-of-towners” who did join the choir did not
come from Florence, seat of the Medici overlords. This trend intensified in the
17th century, when nearly every member of the organization—the singers, the
organists, and especially the chapel masters, including Francesco Bianciardi
(c.1571–1607), Marcantonio Tornioli (d. after 1617), Annibale Gregori (d. 1633),
Agazzari, Cristofano Piochi (d. 1677), Andrea Florimi (d. 1683), and Giuseppe
Fabbrini (d. 1708)—were Sienese-born-and-trained musicians.
Most of the chapel masters were also composers, and records of music pur-
chases, 17th-century inventories of the repertory available to the choir, and
the music that survives in the Duomo archive today, show that the musicians
must have often performed both large-scale and small-scale music by native
composers at religious rites. That said, one of the ironies of sacred musical cul-
ture in Siena (or in any other urban center in the post-Tridentine era) was the
relative absence of sacred texts that were truly “local”. Masses and psalms, of
course, had unchanging texts. The most ubiquitous genre of sacred music was,
however, the motet: a work intended to be interpolated in both liturgical and
devotional services without being a prescribed part of that service. Composers
had nearly complete freedom when putting together motet texts, which drew
on Biblical passages as well as newly composed devotional poetry. The dictates
of the market, were, nonetheless, strong, and a composer who wanted his vol-
umes of printed music to sell and to be performed all over the Italian peninsula
and beyond would strive to set universally applicable texts that could be sung
on any number of occasions.
This much is clear when we examine the printed volumes of sacred music
that Agazzari issued over a 40-year career as a composer. His Sacrae laudes,
issued in Rome in 1603 and still present in the Siena Cathedral music library,
is typical. Here, either the composer or printer furnished a label for every one
of the 19 motets to make its function clear. Over a third were “For Jesus”; three
were for “The Blessed Virgin”; and the remaining works were intended for mar-
tyrs, virgins, pontiffs, confessors, angels, and apostles, as well as for Pentecost,
Ascension, and the Nativity. With such a collection in hand, a choir master
would have had motets for a great number of the most important feast days
of the universal liturgical calendar, and could accommodate local saints who
were, for example, also martyrs and virgins (e.g., Saints Ansano and Catherine
in Siena).
Even if published masses, psalms, and motets were usually not specifical-
ly tailored to homegrown saints, the Siena Cathedral collection prominently
featured settings of all these genres by local composers: Feliciani, Bianciardi,
Gregori, Tornioli, and Agazzari. When the singers did not perform works by
their compatriots, they often turned to composers who were Roman or who

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246 Reardon

had spent most of their working lives in Rome, including Palestrina, Ruggiero
Giovannelli, Lorenzo Ratti, Francesco Soriano, and Antonio Cifra. The only
sacred works by Florentine composers to appear in the cathedral invento-
ries were Magnificats by Giovanni Animuccia and responsories by Francesco
Corteccia, dating from 1568 and 1570 respectively.8 The cathedral repertory,
just like the personnel, seems to have become more and more Sienese (or
Roman-influenced) as the 17th century wore on. Fabbrini, who held the post
of chapel master from 1685 through 1708 (with one hiatus near the end of his
life) published very little; most of his surviving works for liturgical rites are
preserved in manuscript, and clearly intended solely for local consumption.
The cathedral was the most important sacred space in the city, but it was not
the only one. If one non-monastic institution can be designated as second in
Siena to the Duomo, it was Santa Maria in Provenzano, which housed a simple
terracotta bust of the Madonna that had escaped destruction during the siege
of Siena. The Sienese petitioned the Roman authorities to build the sanctuary
when tales of the image’s miraculous powers spread far and wide and attracted
the faithful in large numbers. Santa Maria in Provenzano thus stood as a pow-
erful architectural monument to senesità, and the Sienese became so attached
to the institution that in the mid-17th century they began to celebrate a Palio
on the titular feast of 2 July, a tradition that continues to this day.
Soon after its 1611 dedication, the church boasted an ensemble of four to five
musicians—that is, about a quarter of the size of the musical organization at
the Duomo—who sang and played at Mass and Vespers on feast days (especial-
ly on vigils and feasts of the Virgin Mary); extra musicians filled out the choir
on special occasions. Agazzari and Gregori were among the first chapel mas-
ters at the institution. It is possible that Agazzari published his Sertum roseum,
op. 14 (Venice, 1611), to coincide with the dedication of Siena’s newest church.
The print, with a dedication to the Virgin Mary, comprises one-, two-, three-,
and four-voice settings of Marian texts, that is, works easily performed by a
small group. Agazzari’s Stille soave di celeste aurora, op. 19 (Venice, 1620), may
have also been inspired by his tenure as maestro di cappella at Provenzano. This
print, too, is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and contains a collection of spiritual
madrigals honoring the Madonna, all intended for relatively small-scale musi-
cal forces.9 The ceremony for which Provenzano was best known, however, was

8 For inventories of the music collection at Siena Cathedral in the 17th century, as well as a list
of Agazzari’s sacred publications and their contents, see Reardon, C., Agostino Agazzari and
Music at Siena Cathedral, 1597–1641, Oxford, 1993, pp. 183–87, 196–206.
9 For more on the singers and possible repertory during the tenures of Agazzari and Gregori,
Reardon, C., “Music and Musicians at Santa Maria di Provenzano, 1595–1640”, Journal of
Musicology 11 (1993), pp. 112–18.

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Musical Culture in Early Modern Siena 247

the performance in polyphony of the litany of Loreto on Saturdays. By the late

1670s, the close association of this practice with the church prompted Cardinal
Flavio Chigi to make a yearly donation to assure its continuation.10
Gregorian chant appears to have been the music featured most prominent-
ly at the city’s many male monastic churches, such as San Domenico, Sant’
Agostino, and San Francesco. The absence of complex polyphony at their rites
from the late 16th century right through the end of the 17th century is sug-
gested by the fact that Siena Cathedral’s choir rosters often include a monk
from one of the city’s monasteries. Clearly, they would not have joined the ca-
thedral choir if they were needed to sing polyphony at their own institutions.
From the late 17th century and into the 18th century, however, male monaster-
ies were often sites for the performance of oratorios: dramatic works in Latin
or Italian based on stories from the Bible, the lives of saints, or allegories of
Christian virtues, and set to continuous music. Such works often exploited the
same singing styles as found in opera—recitative, arioso, and aria—and could
be semi-staged, although they were often presented as devotional concert
performances.
In the 1680s, Fra Giovanni Battista Filippo Luti wrote several oratorios that
might have been intended for performance by his brothers at San Francesco;
Fra Girolamo di San Carlo did the same for the Discalced Carmelites at San
Michele. The Augustinians, Capuchins, and Camaldolese also sponsored
oratorios in their churches, usually to honor important guests, to celebrate
the founders of their order, or simply to stimulate devotion among their
compatriots. It is interesting that only one of the oratorios that can be docu-
mented in Siena between 1680 and 1731, Il sacro volto di S. Caterina incorrotto
(1683), celebrates a Sienese saint.11 It should also be noted that only a few of
the oratorios performed in Siena came from Florence, despite the capital city’s
intense production of such pieces. On the other hand, Siena’s own playwright,
diarist, and librettist Girolamo Gigli wrote several oratorios first performed in
Siena and then exported elsewhere (including Florence). Other such works
came to Siena via Rome or Ferrara, probably under the auspices of Leonardo
Marsili, who held the position of archbishop from 1682–1713, the period during
which oratorio performances in the city reached their apogee.

10 Reardon, C., A Sociable Moment: Opera and Festive Culture in Baroque Siena, New York,
2016, p. 62.
11 Reardon, C., “Oratorio and Sacred Opera in Siena, 1680–1731”, in A. Addamiano and F. Luisi
(eds.), Atti del congresso internazionale di musica sacra in occasione del centenario di fon-
dazione del PIMS, Roma, 26 maggio–1 giugno 2011, vol. 2, Vatican City, 2013, pp. 838–42.

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248 Reardon

Male voices were not the only ones heard in Siena’s sacred spaces; a number
of female monasteries cultivated thriving musical ensembles that performed
on the feast of the saint to whom their nunnery was dedicated, as well as at
the distinct rites of passage associated with a girl’s entrance into the convent
(investiture or clothing), her acceptance as a fully-fledged member of the com-
munity (profession), and the rarer rite in which she dedicated her virginity to
God (consecration). Local control of monastic institutions by mostly Sienese
archbishops who seem to have prized the musical talents of these women
meant that Sienese nuns had fewer restrictions placed on them than female
monastics in other Italian urban centers. Talented women were trained as in-
strumentalists and as singers, and were well known enough in the city to gar-
ner recognition in Ugurgieri Azzolini’s 1649 encomiastic publication.12
Nuns’ musical performances were often a form of entertainment in a way
that traditional men’s ensembles were not. Olimpia Chigi Gori noted that on a
dull Sunday in 1671 when nothing else was going on, people flocked to the con-
vent of Il Refugio to hear the female choir performing Mass and Vespers.13 The
attraction of women’s voices, especially the “disembodied” voices singing from
behind the grated enclosures that were meant to separate the nuns from the
evils of the outside world, proved to be irresistible to the general public. A de-
cree that Archbishop Ascanio II Piccolomini issued in 1666 acknowledged the
attraction that such voices exercised on the ears of the public when he ordered
the women to close the doors to their churches during rehearsals, except in
cases where the light was insufficient. As Robert L. Kendrick has noted, a num-
ber of commentaries from the period, including several from Siena, equated
the sounds of women’s voices echoing in the cloister with the sounds of angels
singing in the New Jerusalem, thus offering those fortunate enough to hear
them a foretaste of life in the world to come.14
The documentary record in Siena does not identify female monastic com-
posers. The only extant printed music for nuns is by the Sienese dilettante
Alessandro Della Ciaia (1600–c.1677). His 1650 publication is useful for what
it tells us about the occasions upon which holy women generally sang, for it
features solo motets appropriate for rites of passage, the feast days of saints,
and the Eucharist, as well as a complete set of the Lamentations of Jeremiah

12 See Reardon, C., Holy Concord within Sacred Walls: Nuns and Music in Siena, 1575–1700,
Oxford, 2002, p. 3.
13 Reardon, C., “The Good Mother, the Reluctant Daughter, and the Convent: A Case of
Musical Persuasion”, in T. LaMay (ed.), Musical Voices of Early Modern Women: Many-
Headed Melodies, Aldershot, 2005, p. 284.
14 Kendrick, R.L., Celestial Sirens: Nuns and their Music in Early Modern Milan, Oxford, 1996,
pp. 161–62.

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Musical Culture in Early Modern Siena 249

for Holy Week. The latter works, in which the personification of Jerusalem la-
ments her downfall, were considered especially appropriate for nuns.
It is entirely possible that holy women and professional musicians from the
city’s churches sang together, especially during the elaborate consecration cer-
emonies. Documents note that male maestri from the cathedral were hired to
teach the nuns their music for these occasions, music which they might have
composed. Male singers were often hired for the ceremony as well. It was also
the tradition to hold such rites inside the internal church of a convent, where
the female and male musicians could see each other. Della Ciaia’s Veni, veni
soror nostra, from his Sacri modulatus (Bologna, 1666) offers an example of a
piece that might have featured the two highly trained ensembles combining
forces to spectacular effect.
A lively tradition for devotional music was evident not only in the produc-
tion of oratorios, as discussed above, but also in the activities of lay compa-
nies or confraternities. A brief survey of documents preserved in the State
Archives of Siena reveals that at the turn of the 17th century, the city could
boast nearly 40 confraternities dedicated to almost as many different santi and
beati.15 Some confraternities were named in honor of local figures (Ambrogio
Sansedoni, Andrea Gallerani, St Ansano, St Bernardino, and St Catherine) and
others celebrated saints of the universal Church (St Peter, St John the Baptist,
St Sebastian). Confraternity membership spanned all social classes, although
the most active members were probably not from the aristocracy. That is,
Agostino, Flavio, and Sigismondo Chigi all joined the quintessentially Sienese
confraternity of Santa Caterina in Fontebranda because it was expected that
they do so, but they probably did little more than pay dues.16
Names of singers and instrumentalists frequently appear among the mem-
bership rolls. Many musicians, for example, joined the confraternity of San
Pietro in Duomo. Alberto Gregori, who served as trombonist or as chapel mas-
ter for nearly every institution in Siena with a musical ensemble, including the
cathedral, the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, Santa Maria in Provenzano,
and the Palazzo Pubblico, was a member of the confraternity of San Sebastiano,
San Sigismondo, and San Rocco, as was his son, Annibale. Agazzari belonged
to the lay company of Corpus Domini, whose members he entrusted with
his burial.17

15 Archivio di Stato di Siena, Guida-inventario dell’Archivio di Stato, vol. 2, Rome, 1951,

pp. 43–80.
16 Reardon, A Sociable Moment, p. 46.
17 I-Sc, Mss. A.II.20, A.II.21, A.I.36 (San Pietro in Duomo); and Ms. A.II.13 (San Sebastiano,
San Sigismondo, and San Rocco). For Agazzari’s relationship with Corpus Domini, see
Reardon, Agostino Agazzari, pp. 27, 30.

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250 Reardon

Documents suggest that confraternities sometimes sponsored or performed

liturgical music. An inventory from San Giovanni Battista in Pantaneto lists
volumes of Gregorian chant and falsobordoni (a manner of singing psalms in
block chords).18 But undoubtedly, the music most frequently heard in con-
fraternity settings was the strophic, unaccompanied devotional song in the
vernacular: the lauda. The popular nature of the lauda and its probable trans-
mission in oral culture (rather than in written sources) means that it could give
voice to a direct, emotional connection with the divine.
Laude probably featured prominently in city-wide processions, especially
the one held regularly on the Sunday after Easter, or Low Sunday. Every year,
the confraternities in charge of the event carried a religious artifact of par-
ticular importance to the Sienese. These could be grisly relics: the arm of
St Ansano, the head of St Galgano, or the body of Blessed Giovanni Colombini.
Occasionally, they were religious objects, such as the cross from which
St Catherine had received the stigmata. Sometimes, they were artistic cre-
ations: paintings and statues held to be miraculous by the populace, such as
the “Madonna of the Manger” belonging to the convent of Ognissanti. In 1684,
when the body of Colombini lay in state before the procession, the Sienese
were “moved to devotion” by the sight of little girls, dressed as angels, who
went through the city “searching for the blessed one and singing all together”.19
The girls were probably singing a lauda in honor of the blessed man, perhaps
a well known tune set with newly composed words for the event. The city re-
sounded with music on these occasions, not only with the devotional songs
that doubtless accompanied the actual processions, but also with motets and
other sacred music provided by the religious communities at all the churches
and convents at which the procession stopped along the way. The devotional
sphere allowed the Sienese to celebrate and glorify their local saints to a great-
er extent than was possible in the universal religious calendar.
Siena, like other cities on the Italian peninsula, had a vibrant tradition for
both sacred and devotional music in the early modern period. Public and mo-
nastic churches celebrated rites and feasts important to them, to their order,
and to the city. The Sienese also considered themselves and their city to be
under the particular protection of the Virgin Mary; thus, Marian feasts were
of special significance and became even more important after the construc-
tion of Santa Maria in Provenzano. When the Chigi, for example, erected a

18 I-Sc, Ms. A.I.29, fols. 38v, 53r.

19 Reardon, C., “Cantando tutte insieme: Training Girl Singers in Early Modern Sienese
Convents”, in S. Boynton and E. Rice (eds.), Young Choristers, 650–1700, Woodbridge, 2008,
p. 199.

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Musical Culture in Early Modern Siena 251

family chapel within Siena Cathedral during the late 1650s and early 1660s,
they dedicated the altar to the Immaculate Conception, long associated with
the Sienese victory over the Florentines in 1526.20 Flavio Chigi had two organs
constructed for the chapel to assure that the feast could be celebrated with
appropriate musical pomp.21 Gigli’s Diario sanese of 1723, perhaps the most im-
portant guide to 17th- and early 18th-century Siena, provides a day-by-day list
of important religious feasts as well as histories of the churches and monastic
institutions that celebrated those feasts with the greatest splendor. Gigli thus
preserves a record of a manifestly Sienese cycle that linked specific institutions
with specific holy days: a “civic itinerary” for his compatriots.22

12.2 Musical Instruction

The importance of music in the cultural life of Siena meant that training in the
art was widely available in the city. The cathedral was the seat of a fine music
school for boys from the 15th century on.23 From about 1670 or so, maestri di
cappella and the administrators of the institution also promoted and paid for
the castration of promising young boys to make sure they had enough high
voices for the choir. Payment for the operation (or reimbursement to fathers
who had already had the surgery performed on their sons) was linked to a con-
tract that acknowledged that many castratos would try to go on to a career in
opera. The contract stated that the boys had to serve the cathedral for six years,
otherwise the institution would demand restitution of half the fees paid for
the surgery as well as half the salary the boy had earned while on staff at the
church. Whether they feared the financial cost of leaving or simply realized
that the training they received was first-rate, most castratos fulfilled the terms
of their contracts. Several did go on to successful, often international careers in
opera, including Domenico Graziani (fl. 1671–98), Giovanni Battista Tamburini
(1669–after 1719), Andrea Martini (1761–1819), and most notably, Francesco

20 Mussolin, M., “The Rise of the New Civic Ritual of the Immaculate Conception of the
Virgin in Sixteenth-Century Siena”, Renaissance Studies 20.2 (2006), pp. 253–75. See also
Bradley R. Franco’s essay in this book.
21 Reardon, A Sociable Moment, p. 62.
22 The term is borrowed from Riccò, L., “L’invenzione del genere ‘Veglie di Siena’”, in id.,
Passare il tempo: la letteratura del gioco e dell’intrattenimento dal XII al XVI secolo; Atti del
convegno di Pienza, 10–14 settembre 1991, vol. 1, Rome, 1993, p. 390. See also Parsons, Siena,
Civil Religion and the Sienese, pp. xiv–xvii (“civil religion”).
23 D’Accone, The Civic Muse, pp. 184–86.

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252 Reardon

Bernardi (1686–c.1759).24 Bernardi’s fundamental instruction in voice took

place at Siena Cathedral, where he sang until 1708. At that point, his career
took him to Venice, Dresden, and eventually to London, where George Frideric
Handel wrote some of his best-known operas for the singer.
Music also figured in the curriculum of the local institution dedicated to
training young men for the priesthood, the Seminario di San Giorgio, refound-
ed through an initiative of Pope Alexander VII (Chigi) in 1666. At the very least,
the young men must have learned to sing plainchant, but near the turn of the
century, Archbishop Marsili also sponsored oratorio performances by students
at the institution, doubtless to reinforce their religious training with “spiritual
fun”.25 From about 1577 to 1642, even poor, orphaned boys at the Hospital of
Santa Maria della Scala received musical instruction so that they had a chance
to make a career in the field when they left the charitable institution.26
Talented girls and women in convents, both those destined to be nuns and
those boarding at the institution before marriage, received lessons by respect-
ed male musicians in the community. Most often the instructors were men on
staff at the cathedral, who came to the convent’s parlor grates to teach. Teachers
included chapel masters Bianciardi, Tornioli, Piochi, and Fabbrini as well as a
host of gifted singers and instrumentalists on staff at the Duomo and at Santa
Maria in Provenzano. The girls and women not only learned to sing chant and
polyphonic music (both sacred and secular), they also took violin, viola, organ,
harpsichord, theorbo, and guitar lessons. In some convents, it is clear that once
women reached a certain level of training, they were able to teach younger
members of the community. Angelo Brancadori, for example, saw to it that his
daughter Angela had guitar lessons at the nunnery of Monnagnese; the clois-
tered women were her teachers.27 Nuns at institutions that enclosed talented
women still sought to engage men, who could bring them information on the

24 For a list of all the singers castrated at the cathedral’s expense between 1673 and 1775,
see Reardon, C., “Siena Cathedral and its Castrati”, in K.K. Forney and J.L. Smith (eds.),
Sleuthing the Muse: Essays in Honor of William F. Prizer, Hillsdale, NY, 2012, p. 204; the
contract for Bernardi is translated on p. 202.
25 See Sangalli, M., “A sua immagine e somiglianza: Siena e il Seminario arcivescovile 1614–
1785”, in id. (ed.), Il Seminario di Siena: da arcivescovile a regionale 1614–1953/ 1953–2003,
Soveria Mannelli, 2003, p. 25; Reardon, “Oratorio and Sacred Opera in Siena”, p. 825. The
term “spiritual fun” is borrowed from Weaver, E.B., Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy:
Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women, Cambridge 2007.
26 Reardon, C., “Insegniar la zolfa ai gittatelli: Music and Teaching at Santa Maria della Scala,
Siena, during the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries”, in I. Alm, A. McLamore,
and C. Reardon (eds.), Musica Franca: Essays in Honor of Frank A. D’Accone, Stuyvesant,
NY, 1996, pp. 119–38.
27 Reardon, A Sociable Moment, p. 33.

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newest trends and connect them to the outside world. Male musicians were
also eager to accept positions at convents, because, evidently, the most gen-
erous payments for their talents came not from their steady day jobs at the
Duomo or at Provenzano, but from holy women.28
Siena also had an enthusiastic dilettante class of men and women, gen-
erally of patrician families, for whom music was a pastime and a form of
entertainment.29 Such persons doubtless received private instruction.
Although a number of young women probably began their musical training
in convents, some probably received lessons in domestic environments. The
“little master of the cittern”, Andrea Moretti (fl. 1589–1612) trained at least
one woman to play that instrument.30 In the early 18th century, Siena could
boast a female guitar teacher, Anna Mascarpini, who taught her pupils in their
homes.31 Such instruction was not just for the nubile girl awaiting matrimony.
A number of married women found time to pursue musical activities in their
daily lives and even to continue formal or informal training. The noblewom-
an Ginevera Guidini wrote to Flavio Chigi to express regret that the talented
singer Giacomo Campaluci had left town to pursue an operatic career; she was
disappointed that he had failed to provide her with the arias she requested
because, as she declared, no one knew her voice as he did. Angelo Brancadori
and his bride Margarita Bargagli found time in the first years of married life to
take music lessons on violin and guitar.32
Noblemen also received musical training, either in private settings or in
public institutions. They most likely had broader opportunities to perform
than noblewomen, and they often learned compositional skills as well. Several
took their studies seriously enough to print their own works, sometimes while
pursuing careers in other fields. The nobleman Desiderio Pecci (1593–1638),
for instance, was one of Siena’s most celebrated jurists and law professors.

28 Reardon, C., “Musical Dispatches from the Heavenly Jerusalem”, in D.V. Filippi and
M. Noone (eds.), Listening to Early Modern Catholicism: Perspectives from Musicology,
Leiden, 2017, p. 90.
29 It should be noted that such accomplishments might not have been prized as highly
among the non-patrician classes. The chronicler Giovanni Battista Nuti reported to the
absent Governor Francesco Maria de’ Medici in 1693 that a merchant threw a brick at his
wife’s head because she would not stop singing when he expressly forbade it: Florence,
Archivio di Stato, Mediceo del Principato 5806, fol. 267r.
30 Ugurgieri Azzolini, I., Le pompe sanesi o’vero relazione delli huomini e donne illustri di
Siena e suo stato, vol. 2, Pistoia, 1649, pp. 6–7.
31 Reardon, C., “Getting Past No or Getting to Yes: Nuns, Divas, and Negotiation Tactics in
Early Modern Italy”, in K. Nelson (ed.), Attending to Early Modern Women: Conflict and
Concord, Newark, 2013, p. 30.
32 Reardon, A Sociable Moment, pp. 33–34.

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254 Reardon

Renowned for his skill in counterpoint, he published both Latin motets and
Italian secular works and regularly opened his house to teach and to hold con-
certs. One of his pupils was the patrician Alessandro Della Ciaia, who played
harpsichord, lute, and theorbo, composed and published sacred works, and
played for his friends and in the city’s churches out of the sheer joy of doing
so.33 Tomaso Pecci (1576–1604) and Claudio Saracini (c.1586–1630) were two
other well known aristocratic composers whose works, like those of Della Ciaia
and Pecci, circulated beyond the city’s walls.
If they did not receive training at home, young men could learn music at
the Collegio Tolomei, a Jesuit school that opened in 1676, attracting scions of
noble families from throughout the Italian peninsula. By the 1690s, the school
enrolled over 250 students, a number that would never be equaled. As in all
Jesuit institutions, music was an important part of the curriculum. Early on,
the administrators at the school hired the chapel master at the cathedral,
Fabbrini, to direct music there; he served in that position until his death in
1708. Students could also learn to play instruments such as the guitar for an
additional fee. Even before Gigli obtained a position on staff as a teacher of the
“Tuscan language” in 1698, he wrote opera and oratorio librettos that Fabbrini
set to music and that the students at the institution performed for the public.
The Gigli-Fabbrini collaboration started in 1685 and probably lasted until 1706.
After Fabbrini’s death, the students seem to have performed mostly plays with
musical interludes and accademie in which they showed off all of their talents,
including music. Although operas and oratorios featured continuous music,
all dramatic works offered the students at least some opportunity to act, sing,
play, and dance.34
For those not enrolled at the Collegio Tolomei, but at university, the
Accademia degli Intronati established an “Academy of Fine Arts” around 1689
with the intention of training young men in such disciplines that were “nec-
essary ornaments to a nobleman” and that promoted the “glory of the city”.
These included fencing, drawing, equestrian skills, dancing, and music.35 The
Intronati decided upon a fee schedule for lessons, hired appropriate profes-
sors for each subject, and students signed up for the classes they wanted to
attend. A 1692 broadside advertising the academy seems to be aimed not only

33 Reardon, Holy Concord, p. 155.

34 For a list of theatrical productions at the Collegio Tolomei between 1678 and 1767, see
Lorenzetti, S., “‘Per ricreazione et diletto’: Accademie e opere in musica nel Collegio
Tolomei di Siena (1676–1774)”, in A. Colzani, N. Dubowy, A. Luppi, and M. Padoan (eds.),
Il melodramma italiano in Italia e in Germania nell’età barocca: Atti del 50 convegno inter-
nazionale sulla musica italiana del secolo XVII, Como, 1995, pp. 225–41.
35 I-Sc, Ms. B.II.20: “Libro di deliberazioni dell’Accademia degl’Intronati”, pp. 1–3.

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at Siena’s youth, but also at the large contingent of Germans resident in the
city, who had come to study at the local university.36 The academy lasted only
until 1697, but another similar institution, the “Academy of Gentlemanly Arts”,
sprang up to replace it in 1702.

12.3 Music and Sociability

As we have seen, music-making in Siena was a popular and respected pastime

among the nobility. Men and women not destined for either the priesthood or
the convent received musical training and displayed their skills in intimate,
domestic settings as well as at larger social gatherings.37 Chronicles from late
17th-century Siena make it clear that both formal parties and informal get-
togethers, often called conversazioni, featured a combination of activities,
including card playing and dancing, as well as men and women singing and
playing instruments for their own enjoyment and that of others. According to
Ugurgieri Azzolini, patricians such as Sinolfo Saracini, Pandolfo Savini, Fabio
Buonsignori and Scipione Chigi were excellent singers and instrumentalists
who regularly held musical “jam sessions” in their homes for talented mem-
bers of their social class.38 Later in the century, in 1694, a group of women
sang “beautiful cantatas” for the arrival of an important guest and derived such
pleasure from it that they decided to meet on a regular basis to continue to sing
together: an Italian version of what Jane Austen’s Mrs Elton might have called
a “musical club”.
The most important seats of sociability were, however, the city’s academies.
In his magisterial Storia delle accademie d’Italia, Michele Maylender named
at least 50 such institutions that flourished in the city from the 16th through
the 18th centuries. Academies were organizations that both men and women
formed to discuss common interests or to engage in activities with like-minded
companions. A number of those that Maylender included in his five-volume
compendium had formal statutes, officially documented meetings, and a for-
mal process for admitting new members, but others sprang up for specific oc-
casions and disbanded soon afterwards. Among the latter, more ephemeral
academies, many of which do not appear in Maylender’s foundational work,

36 I-Sc, Ms. B.II.20, pp. 90–99; Siena, Archivio di Stato, Piccolomini-Naldi-Baldini 60, not
foliated.
37 See Reardon, A Sociable Moment, pp. 21–46, for an in-depth discussion of sociable pas-
times among the Sienese nobility.
38 Ugurgieri Azzolini, Le pompe sanesi, vol. 2, pp. 5, 6, 8, 9–10.

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256 Reardon

were the “Academy of Fine Arts” and the “Academy of Gentlemanly Arts” men-
tioned above, as well as the “Academy of Good Spirits” (Conversazione del
Buon Umore), formed in the last years of the 17th century by young gentlemen
who liked to meet and sing together.
In the 16th century, most professional musicians in the city belonged to the
Accademia dei Filomeni. They celebrated the patron saint of music, St Cecilia,
by electing a “king”, holding a feast, and performing musico-dramatic scenes
in which they displayed their skills.39 The two most important and vener-
able academies in the city were, however, the Accademia degli Intronati (the
Stunned), established around 1525 for patricians, and the Congrega dei Rozzi
(the Uncouth), founded shortly after the Intronati, whose members were arti-
sans and professionals (and included musicians). In their earliest years, mem-
bers of both academies dedicated themselves to playwriting and to performing
before members of their own social class.
The Medici instituted a ban on both the Intronati and the Rozzi in 1568,
but the “Academy of the Stunned” was allowed to reopen in 1603, and it did
so in great style. Its members (including Agazzari) recited Latin poems, and
musicians performed numerous madrigals. The Intronati regularly invited
the town’s noblewomen to a gathering at least once a year at which they re-
cited poetry, although musical performance began to assume a much more
prominent place in the 1690s and early 1700s. In 1654, the Intronati joined with
another Sienese academy, the Filomati. The Intronati took control of the pub-
lic theater in the Palazzo Pubblico at that point and served as managers of
the space, renting it out to those who wanted to put on plays or operas. The
Rozzi reconstituted as a more refined “academy”, and in the last decade of the
17th century were heavily involved in producing opera on the stage of the pub-
lic theater, as well as in another, smaller theater that Grand Duke Cosimo III
bequeathed to them in late 1690.
One of the most fascinating organizations of this kind in Siena was the
Accademia delle Assicurate, the Assured, perhaps one of the first all-female
academies in Italy. The institution was born in 1654, the same year that the
Intronati and Filomati joined ranks, and its members included some of the
most exalted families in Siena. Among the 16 women who banded together to
form the Assicurate were Olimpia Chigi Gori and Virginia Chigi Piccolomini,
nieces to Pope Alexander VII, cousins to Cardinal Flavio Chigi, and half-sisters
of Cardinal Sigismondo Chigi. In his Diario sanese, Gigli assumed that the
academy was dedicated to Vittoria Della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany,
because of the emblem the women adopted: a leafy oak (rovere in Italian). The

39 Reardon, Agostino Agazzari, p. 75.

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leafy oak was, however, also a Chigi emblem and it functioned perfectly as a
polyvalent symbol for the Sienese. They could count on the Florentines read-
ing the emblem as a sign of dutiful submission to Medici rule while they were
really paying homage to a powerful Sienese family.
The Assicurate were famous for one of the most Sienese of pastimes:
the gioco di spirito, which took the form of a conversation among men and
women of the nobility relating to a proposed topic that had nothing to do
with professional concerns or status. The Assicurate transformed those events
into dazzling ritual displays. The women “performed” for important social
occasions—often for the arrival in town of members of the Roman branch of
the Chigi family—and detailed written records of several of the games survive.
In 1690, for instance, the subject of a gioco di spirito was “Love Takes a Bride”.
Members of the Assicurate and the Intronati devoted the evening to a spir-
ited conversation about whether Love should marry, whom Love should marry,
and so forth, down to the smallest details of how their home should be con-
structed and how the wedding celebrations should unfold. George McClure has
noted that the “Sienese games” differed radically from those found elsewhere
on the Italian peninsula in that they were not intended to control women or
to teach them “proper behavior”. Women were expected to exhibit their wit,
intellect, and creativity with great boldness.40 Such games often ended with a
musical performance; the 1690 game concluded with three Assicurate “sirens”
singing ariettas with grace and beauty.41

12.4 Opera

As noted above, Sienese academies were heavily involved in the production of

opera.42 Although the first surviving opera was staged at the Florentine court
in 1600, the documentary evidence suggests that it took nearly half a century
for an operatic production to be mounted in Siena. Mattias de’ Medici, gov-
ernor of the city in the late 1640s, spared no expense in renovating the space
inside the Palazzo Pubblico for his theatrical project and in commissioning a
libretto and score from Pietro Salvetti and Michele Grasseschi respectively. He
served as impresario for the project, hiring the singers, supervising the dance

40 McClure, G., Parlour Games and the Public Life of Women in Renaissance Italy, Toronto,
2013, pp. 21–24.
41 See also Elena Brizio’s essay in this book.
42 Reardon, A Sociable Moment, furnishes a comprehensive history of opera in Siena be-
tween 1647 and 1704.

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master, and requesting costumes from Florentine storerooms. The opera, La

Datira, paid homage to his success as a military man, and the premiere was
scheduled to coincide with his birthday in May 1647, although the date slipped
due to factors beyond his control. Mattias was in complete command of the
event, and although the production must have featured some Sienese musi-
cians in minor roles, most of the singers were imported; Mattias did not involve
the Sienese in any significant way in the project.
The cost of the opera seems to have put a damper on any subsequent pro-
ductions by Mattias in Siena. But shortly after he died, opera production re-
sumed in the city, this time under the patronage of the expatriate Chigi family
in Rome. The Chigi concentrated most of their patronage in the Eternal City
during the reign of their relative, Pope Alexander VII. After his death in 1667,
they turned their eyes homeward and began to sponsor opera in their native
city. A large number of the musico-dramatic works performed in Siena be-
tween 1669 and 1704 are linked to the Chigi in some way, and were intended
to celebrate the family. For many Sienese, these events were an expression of
senesità in that they paid fealty to native sons rather than foreign rulers.
Most of the operas the Chigi sponsored were imported from Rome: two were
works the Chigi had commissioned and others seem to have come through
their contacts with composers under their aegis or through other Roman pa-
trons. The 1669 production of Antonio Cesti’s L’Argia celebrated the rebuild-
ing and reopening of the city’s public theater. Although the Medici supplied
large sums for the remodeling, surviving documents place the emphasis on
the financial contributions of the Chigi and of the Sienese patriciate. The Chigi
established hegemony over the space by commissioning Carlo Fontana, an
architect under their protection, to renovate the theater, and by purchasing
and decorating family boxes. The painting of a leafy oak on the theater’s ceil-
ing, sponsored by the Assicurate, put the finishing touches on their control of
the space.
Three opera productions mounted in June 1672—La Dori (G.F. Apolloni /
A. Cesti), Il Tito (N. Beregan / A. Cesti), and Il Girello (F. Acciaioli / J. Melani)—
all by librettists or composers linked to the Chigi—heralded the first visit of
Maria Virginia Borghese, Agostino Chigi’s wife, to Siena. Generally, she and
her husband came to place a daughter in the convent of San Girolamo in
Campansi, and their visits often spurred the Sienese to mount opera. Cardinal
Sigismondo Chigi’s passage through town in 1673 on his way to take up his po-
sition as papal legate to Ferrara, instigated his sisters, Olimpia and Virginia,
to sponsor a revival of Il Tirinto (G.F. Apolloni and F. Acciaioli / B. Pasquini),
an opera that the Chigi first staged at their villa in Ariccia in 1672. In 1676, the
Assicurate dedicated the libretto Amare e fingere—an opera that Sigismondo
Chigi probably commissioned from Alessandro Melani—to Maria Virginia

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Musical Culture in Early Modern Siena 259

Borghese, who was in town at the time. When Flavio Chigi bought his nephew,
Bonaventura Zondadari, a proper fiefdom and the title of marquis, he celebrat-
ed this occasion—which also meant the continuation of the family name, to
be appended to the Zondadari surname after Flavio’s death—by sponsoring
the opera L’Adalinda (G.F. Apolloni and F. Acciaioli / P.S. Agostini) in Siena in
1677, a work that had premiered at Ariccia in 1673.
Opera under the aegis of the Chigi was always a sociable enterprise, inte-
grated into the fabric of activities that the Sienese practiced as part of their fes-
tive culture, their expression of senesità. The patrician class sponsored parties
and balls; the Assicurate often performed a gioco di spirito; and sometimes a
Palio took place, too. Flavio Chigi seems to have been the prime mover, espe-
cially after the untimely death of Sigismondo in 1678. Once Flavio died, then it
was up to local institutions to sustain the tradition. The Accademia dei Rozzi
quickly found out how expensive operatic production could be when hiring
professional singers from outside the city. They turned to the music-loving
writer Gigli, who drove them more deeply into debt. Another local academy,
the Academy of Good Spirits, tried their hand successfully in 1698, and Gigli
soon worked with them for a 1700 production of the wildly popular Cammilla,
regina de’ Volsci (S. Stampiglia / G. Bononcini). This production marked the
debut of the 13-year-old Francesco Bernardi, who would go on to fame and for-
tune under the nome d’arte that harked back to his origins: “il Senesino”.
Gigli continued to serve as impresario through the early 18th century, but
his operas were based on a business model, not a sociable one: he wanted to
present the best of Italian opera and he divorced his productions from Chigi
visits. He loved opera and singers, but was not financially successful as an
opera impresario, losing money on nearly every production. After suffering
a financial disaster during Carnival of 1704, Gigli could not go on. Instead, a
group of gentlemen in the city decided to sponsor a little pastoral opera for the
spring 1704 visit of Agostino Chigi, his wife Maria Virginia Borghese, and their
married daughter, Costanza Chigi Altieri. La forza d’amore (G.F. Apolloni /
B. Pasquini) was a revival of a work that had probably premiered at a Chigi villa
in 1677, nearly 30 years earlier. Old-fashioned in style, it harked back to the hal-
cyon days of Chigi dominance and was the last opera performed in Siena until
the advent of Violante di Baviera as governor of the city in 1717.

12.5 Epilogue

In a telling letter from March 1717, Ludovico Sergardi wrote to his friend Giulio
Del Taia, who was responsible for organizing the festivities to greet the new
Medici governor of Siena, Violante di Baviera. Sergardi was pleased with the

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260 Reardon

excellent preparations because their success would exasperate the Florentines,

who wanted to keep the Sienese under their thumb. The various festive occa-
sions at which the Sienese so excelled can be construed as moments of play,
in which time and space were “emptied of their quotidian power restraints”.43
Such events opened up a reality in which Florentine authority was momen-
tarily absent, thus allowing for the expression of senesità. This is not to say
that the Sienese could ever forget that they no longer controlled their own
political destiny; it could be that the constant string of celebratory events
served to keep at bay an existential despair. Chronicles of lackluster Sienese
Carnival seasons often use the word “melancholy”, the antidote for which was
sparkling entertainment. But no season was immune. As Alfonso Finetti wrote
to a member of the Chigi family in July 1659, “[here in Siena] we are waiting
for Signora Cice, the singer, and Signora Diana … and this will be a good occa-
sion to banish melancholy”.44 In the 17th century, the Sienese managed to ban-
ish melancholy more often than not by incorporating music into their most
important festive occasions.

43 Giannetti, L., “On the Deceptions of the Deceived: Lelia and the Pleasures of Play”, Modern
Language Notes 116.1 (2001), p. 58.
44 Reardon, A Sociable Moment, p. 36.

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 Epilogue
The Foundations of Contemporary Siena

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The “Gothic Queen”: the Myth of Siena in the
19th and 20th Centuries

Saverio Luigi Battente

Abstract

Between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Siena was the
subject of a renewed interest on the part of nationalist intellectuals who were influ-
enced by the Florentine journals circulating at the time. Beginning with Corradini,
Siena began to mythologize their civic virtues as an example on which to forge their
national equivalents, first by the nationalist movement and later, in expanded form,
in the Fascist era. However, in the background remained the challenges posed by
modernization and the proper response to them, including even its repudiation. As
a “daughter of the road”, so termed by E. Sestan because of the city’s location on the
Via Francigena, Siena was at the time one of the stops on the Grand Tour of Italy and
styled herself a sort of time capsule, zealously enclosed in her glorious past. It was in
this period, following the late 16th-century refeudalization indicated by the myth of
R. Romeo’s Italia mille anni, that the city took on the task of rewriting the history of
the “Gothic Queen” in order to convey her from the Renaissance to the Risorgimento in
an unaltered form. To accomplish this, they even enlisted the House of Savoy who, do-
nating their heraldic banners to those of the contrade of the Palio (the heritage of the
medieval guilds), sought to connect a non-existent national past with a still unwritten
present. Moreover, the attention being given to Sienese history was not unknown to
Sismondi who was seeking an explanation of the system of tenant farming.
My contribution intends to analyze the “making” of a cultural operation that func-
tioned as the glue for a political, economic, and social project lasting more than a cen-
tury, in which the history of medieval Siena was pivotal not only for how it was defined
but for how it was intended to justify the choices made in the present. In certain ways,
this procedure is similar to what the Fascist regime would later do to glorify and justify
itself, according to G. Volpe. Through an analysis of the history of Siena, my essay will
seek to highlight the disparity between reality and myth. In addition, it will analyze
the coming to fruition of various initiatives, such as: the birth of the Art Institute, the
Defense of Monuments, the school of Falsi d’Autore, the myth of the contrade and the
Palio, and the International Exhibition of Sienese Art held in London. All succeeded
in giving stability to a rural Siena confronted with the challenges of modernity, while
legitimizing the historical past, revisited and altered according to the requirements of
the “here and now”.

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264 Battente

In 1905, Enrico Corradini, recalling his stay in Siena on the 18th of March 1895,
for the performance of his play Dopo la morte (After Death), staged at the Teatro
dei Rozzi, wrote that he was “one evening … in a Tuscan city all built in stone
and renowned for its wrought iron … emerging, from the conflicting and fierce
centuries, as an exquisite work of art from the mind of a single genius”.1 His
visit to the city was not unintentionally connected to a theater outing, given
the important social role played by the theater in Siena, as in the rest of Italy.2
The Teatro dei Rozzi, moreover, was connected to the Academy of the same
name, one of the most important and vital centers of the city’s cultural ac-
tivity, around which revolved some of the middle and upper members of the
city’s bourgeoisie. It was the perfect audience for the writings and speeches of
Corradini, a bourgeois himself.3 Siena, in fact, fascinated him because it had,

… in every valley a fountain of living water, for the humble necessities

of its people, and on every hill a church for their faith, … as a helmsman
who steers the ship … and admiring the view of the countryside below
with its vineyards, olive groves, and woods … as an observatory for the
contemplation of nature.4

We can see emerging here some of the distinctive features that contributed to
forging the myth of Siena over the centuries. First, nature uncontaminated by
modernity, where the bucolic world of an ancient regime seemed to have re-
sisted the passing of time. And along this, the city’s civic virtues, an expression
of its municipality, jealously guarded within the old medieval walls, no longer
responsible for the physical defense of the city, but of its very identity. Lastly,
the role of religion as a glue and ethical-political guide for the urban commu-
nity, anchored in the traditions of the past.
Corradini, however, was neither the only nor the first one to rediscover
Siena. To create the myth of the city, in fact, over the centuries, were the nu-
merous illustrious travelers who arrived in the Tuscan city. Every epoch, as
Attilio Brilli has pointed out, “interpreted, misunderstood, and, in its own way,

1 This anecdote can be found in several collections of Corradini’s writing: see, especially, “La
virtù nazionale”, Il Regno 2 (1905); La Vita nazionale, Siena, 1907; id., Scritti e discorsi 1901–1914,
Turin, 1980.
2 For more information on the role of theater in Italy in this period, see Sorba, C., Teatri. L’Italia
del melodramma nell’età del Risorgimento, Bologna, 2001.
3 A good source for Corradini’ speeches, see Siena, Accademia dei Rozzi, vol. 1, 1993; Pellegrini, P.,
(ed.), Siena e i Rozzi nel Risorgimento, vol. 18, Siena, 2011, n. 34.
4 Corradini, La Vita nazionale, p. 7.

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the Myth of Siena 265

discovered Siena”.5 The second half of the 19th century saw a peculiar rediscov-
ery of the city in a Gothic tone, whose roots went even further back in time,
and which found a precise connotation between the end of the 19th century
and the period between the two world wars in the 20th century. Hence, this
rediscovery can be associated more with the idea of a “long 19th century”, than
with a “short 20th century”.6
For a long time, almost exclusively foreign intellectuals and men of art were
the ones who engaged with the myth of the city.7 Corradini, on the contrary,
represented the attempt by a section of Italian culture, between the 19th and
20th centuries, to add to the considerations of the numerous foreign travelers
who visited the Tuscan city, creating in turn, a new Siena. The city’s Gothic fa-
cade, however, began to be fabricated starting from its artistic penchant, which
was rediscovered and revisited.
From the 16th century, in fact, immediately after the fall of the Republic,
Siena began to perceive itself, and to be perceived, in a different way from the
past, locating in art and culture its distinctive trait. In the era of the Grand
Tour, the city immediately became a must stop, at least until the first half of
the 19th century, on that educational journey undertaken by “intellectuals, dip-
lomats and the entrepreneurial bourgeoisie”.8 A “daughter of the road”, to use
E. Sestan’s fitting definition, in fact, Siena was an obligatory stop on the Via
Francigena, to reach Rome.9 Unlike in the past, however, after 1555 the major-
ity of travelers passing through the Tuscan city were not attracted by its past
medieval glories in the political and economic spheres, but rather by its jeal-
ously preserved and guarded artistic treasures. Until the 18th century, in fact,
the rise and hegemony of the Italian monarchical states, albeit in their more
liberal versions, rendered the glorious political past of the Republic of Siena
anachronistic and of little interest to the many visitors of the city.10 Even
from an economic point of view, both before and after the industrial revolu-
tion, Siena was not considered a case study.11 This was largely the result of the
prevailing image of the city left by the local ruling class, which immediately

5 Brilli, A., Siena una regina gotica. L’occhio del viaggiatore 1870–1935, Città di Castello, 1997,
p. 10.
6 Hobsbawm, E., Il secolo breve, Turin, 1995; Mayer, A., Il potere dell’Ancien Regime fino alla
Prima guerra mondiale, Rome, 1999.
7 Brilli, Viaggiatori stranieri in terra di Siena, Rome, 1986.
8 Brilli, Viaggiatori stranieri, p. 9.
9 Sestan, E., “Siena avanti Monteaperti”, BSSP 68 (1961), p. 32; Stopani, R., La via Francigena
in Toscana. Storia di una strada medioevale, Florence, 1984; Stopani, R. (ed.), La via
Francigena nel senese. Storia e territorio, Florence, 1985.
10 Tilly, C., La formazione degli stati nazionali nell’Europa occidentale, Bologna, 1984.
11 Cameron, R. and Neall, L., Storia economica del mondo, Bologna, 2005.

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266 Battente

solidified after the loss of its independence and centered on a noticeable refeu-
dalization that survived over time.12 To this should be added an emerging idea
of “Italy”, which began to circulate abroad, anchored to the past and to tradi-
tion, without a forward-looking political identity or autonomy, and that was
mainly centered on literary artistic values.13 Through the Grand Tour, there-
fore, the attempt was to rediscover the origins of culture by tracing its roots to
classicism. The many foreign travelers ultimately came to perceive and seek
in Siena the icon of a lost city, whose ancient splendor belonged to a remote
and distant past, yet remained entombed here in the present, and could be
admired through its artistic and architectural relics.
Siena was, in effect, associated with an idea of Italy that was common in the
rest of Europe.14 With the decline of merchants and bankers’ prolonged busi-
ness trips, and less fervently felt pilgrimages of faith, what remained was an elit-
ist idea of traveling, somewhere between education and leisure, for European
leaders in search of the origins of classicism.15 Siena, in the imaginary identity
of its ruling class, saw itself reflected in its past, evoking certain traits in har-
mony with a profound conservative spirit centered on its rural traits as the
basis of its political and economic supremacy within its ancient city walls. This
image, in turn, was in tune with the idea of travel that the English and French
had invented and assimilated between the 18th and 19th centuries, in search
of the foundations of culture, inspired both by the spirit of the Enlightenment
and the Romantic ideals.16 Siena was well suited to this conceptual transition
within the idea of travel, where empirical concreteness went hand in hand
with more sentimental qualities. In the Tuscan city, in fact, it seemed possible
to combine the distinctive traits of the Enlightenment journey, transformed
by the naturalistic taste for the sublime and human emotions, thanks to its
surrounding uncontaminated nature, and to ultimately reach the Romantic
haven where nature and man met, which was reflected in the urbanistic layout
of the city.17 After the unification of Italy, the era of travel seemed to decline,
leaving space for the era of “transportation”, according to Ruskin’s suggestion.18
The newly acquired taste for exploration, associated with the idea of travel

12 Cardini, A., Storia di Siena. Dal risorgimento al miracolo economico, Florence, 2009;
Romeo, R., Italia mille anni, Florence, 1981.
13 Venturi, F., L’Italia fuori d’Italia (Storia d’Italia, 3), Turin, 1973; Braudel, F., L’Italia fuori
d’Italia. Due secoli e tre Italie (Storia d’Italia, 2), Turin, 1974.
14 Cardini, Storia di Siena, pp. 13–48.
15 Brilli, A. Viaggio in Italia, Bologna, 2008, pp. 13–78.
16 Ibid., pp. 13–78.
17 Ibid., pp. 13–78.
18 Ruskin, J., Praeterita, Palermo, 1983.

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beyond the European continent, found a renewed sensibility and conceptual

thrust. Italy, on the contrary, became a travel destination, which often meant
prolonged stays by mature members of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy seek-
ing unchallenging cultural enrichments. These were followed soon after by
American intellectuals who arrived slightly late on the Grand Tour scene.19
The Gothic myth, however, was not an exclusive feature associated with
Siena. The Tuscan city, in fact, shared it with numerous other cities, which
became meeting points and stopovers for foreigners traveling in Italy: Venice,
Lucca, Verona, Florence just to name a few.20 However, Siena assumed a dis-
tinctive trait, as a sort of last outpost of civilization, between Florence and
Rome, separated by the harshness and wild nature of the Maremma and the
Pontine Marshes. In the eyes of foreigners, Siena appeared as a kind of idyll
in a harmonious balance, almost suspended in time, between civilization and
nature. On the one hand, in fact, arrival through the northern gate of Porta
Camollia represented the natural continuation of a harmonious world of civili-
zation and culture; on the other, exit through the southern gate, Porta Romana,
seemed to anticipate the force and harshness of nature, untouched by human
hands. Between the 16th and 17th centuries the image of Siena imprinted on
foreign visitors’ imagination retained the charm of the civilization of which
Siena had been an expression. It was a cultural and artistic image, unrelated
to the city’s glorious political and economic medieval past, which, neverthe-
less, seemed to want to idealize precisely the medieval urban architecture,
extending its boundaries to every artistic expression, even from later periods.
Sebastian Münster defined Siena as “the most beautiful city of Etruria, rich and
pleasant … ennobled by a university … well-fortified … surrounded by a fer-
tile land”.21 What therefore amazed travelers visiting the Sienese territory were
not the ancient splendors of the medieval Republic, but the artistic legacy ac-
cumulated through the centuries. Moreover, with the Grand Tour, and in the
wake of Joseph Addison’s eminent classicism, the Gothic label did not neces-
sarily represent a distinctive positive trait, but rather a “barbaric” artistic style,
of German origin. However, Siena, despite the impact of the Baroque, could
architecturally be defined almost as an “authentic Gothic”, and not necessar-
ily, or only partially, a revived one, unlike other municipal realities. Besides,
in Europe, the development of the Gothic style coincided with the rise of the
national monarchies, which continued to be prominent at the start of the
Grand Tour, when the Gothic revival, especially in Germany and England, was

19 Brilli, Viaggio in Italia, pp. 13–78.

20 Brilli, Viaggio in Italia, pp. 13–78.
21 Muster, S., Cosmoghraphia universalis, vol. 6, Heidelberg, 1575.

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significantly encouraged. On the contrary, for Siena, as with other important

municipal realities, the Gothic style was associated with the rising proto-
bourgeois republics, and was jealously guarded by these as the seal of these
fossilized oligarchies once they lost their enthusiasm and dynamism.
In 1549, Thomas Hoby noted how Siena was “upon hilles as the citie of
Roome”, and “is counted vj miles compasse abowt the walles”, and listed, among
the city’s sites worthy of mention: “First the highe churche … emong the sump-
tuous woorkes of Europe. The great Hospitall for the poore, the Markett Place,
made after the maner of a theater.” The city, he observed, was at times under
the French king and many other times under the emperor mainly because of
the “private discention and intestine discorde” among the Sienese, as “they
cann not be brought to anie agreement betwext themselves”.22 It was a pic-
ture of a city where the splendor of the past was perceived through the city’s
artistic treasures, which, however, were no longer matched by a corresponding
political, economic, and social dynamism. Montaigne, in fact, in addition to
the artistic beauties of the city, a legacy of Siena’s glorious past, observed how
the Duke of Florence “leaves unmolested the ancient marks and devices of the
city, which everywhere echo the cry of ‘Liberty’”.23 In addition to the artistic
beauty and the generosity and culture of its people, Siena was remembered for
its lush nature and laborious agriculture, despite a land only “fairly fertile”.24
The city had not been as “rebellious”25 as others, to deserve Florence’s di-
rect control, like Pisa, where almost no “ancient families” were left. Siena, in
Richard Lassels’ words, was “the humble servant of Florence” after “this wolf
received the muzzle”.26 Between the 16th and the 17th centuries, therefore, the
image that Siena’s visitors created was mainly associated with the city’s artistic
beauty, heritage of its glorious past.
From the 18th century and in the wake of the educational and cultural tours,
there emerged the myth of the city as a living treasure trove of the culture
of the past, in harmony with the rest of Italy.27 Addison, however, confirmed
how the city’s artistic grandeur was connected with its ancient independence
when he observed that: “when the keys and pageants of the Duke’s towns and

22 Hoby, T., Diario senese, in S.J. Masello, (ed.), A Booke of the Travaile and Lief of Me Thomas
Hoby, with Diverse Thinges Woorth the Notinge, 1547–1564, Steven J. Masello, S.J., Ph.D. the-
sis, Loyola University Chicago, 1979, pp. 23–24.
23 Montaigne, M.E. de, The Journal of Montaigne’s Travels in Italy by Way of Switzerland and
Germany in 1580 and 1581, (ed.), W.G. Waters, London, 1903, p. 65.
24 Ibid., p. 60.
25 Anonymous, Voyage d’Italie, 1606, p. 12.
26 Lassels, R., The Voyage of Italy, London, 1670, p. 235.
27 Brilli, Viaggiatori stranieri, pp. 13–78.

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governments pass in procession before him, on St. John Baptist’s day, I was told
that Sienna comes in the rear of his dominions, and is pushed forward by those
that follow, to show the reluctancy it has to appear in such a solemnity”.28 Thus,
the British writer was able to distinguish between the city’s artistic and cultural
grandeur, a legacy of its past and the basis for the search of the principles of
classicism, and the peculiar nature of its citizens. Behind the Sienese’s sincere
love for independence, there was, however, the firm will of the aristocratic
oligarchy to safeguard their prerogatives, which marked the beginning of the
mythologization of the city’s uniqueness adapted to the political context of
the time. Siena’s nobility, closely linked to the religious life of the city, soon re-
alized the impossibility of competing with Florence, but also the possibility of
maintaining its own social autonomy, thanks to the cover offered by Florence’s
control. The Siena to be rescued was therefore not the ancient Republic, able
to hold its own against Florence, albeit deeply divided by internal social strug-
gles, but rather the oligarchic one under Pandolfo Petrucci’s leadership, unre-
alistically thought to be capable of rivaling the city of the Medici, but equally
convinced of keeping alive the city’s oligarchic rule.
Therefore, the artistic myth of Siena, envisioned more as a Gothic gem and
less as a source of classicism, was not the result of Siena’s own doing, but rather
of the passing travelers. Nevertheless, the local ruling class immediately saw in
this myth a means to preserve the city’s social status quo, once they lost their
political autonomy.
The foreigners’ accounts, in fact, went into detailed descriptions of Siena’s
artistic treasures while praising the pleasing and fertile characteristics of its
countryside and nature, as well as the culture of its inhabitants with their
exquisite dialect. As evidenced by Charles de Brosse, only the members of
the local nobility, encountered at private salons, such as that of “Lady Bichi”,
counted as local inhabitants.29 The Sienese had apparently inherited the an-
cient magistracies of the Republic, under the supervision of the governor sent
by the Florentine Grand Duke, who, however, also “razed” the mighty walls
of the past, leaving only a fortress with a garrison as protection for the city.
In Alban Butler’s account, Siena “was now poor”, even though the surround-
ing country was “extremely fertile in good wine, corn, etc.”.30 Moreover, the
Sienese, as most Italians, seemed to keep themselves at a distance, except for

28 Addison, J., Remarks on Several Parts of Italy in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London, 1705,
p. 225.
29 Brosset, C. de, Lettres familieres ecrites d’Italie, 1777.
30 Butler, A., Travels through France and Italy, London, 1803, p. 204.

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the aristocracy.31 The Gothic myth of Siena, in fact, as imagined and lived by
foreigners, was limited to the city’s glorious past, of which its artistic treasures
were a tangible vestige, jealously preserved by the local aristocracy, in the face
of the city’s more rough and dangerous masses.32 But at the same time, the
Sienese, the heirs to a glorious past, were idealized as people untouched by
the dishonesty and deceit of modernity. James Boswell talked about how the
nobles lived a simple and amiable life. However, the Scottish writer mistook
the firm instinct of preservation of the local aristocracy for “an openness, a gai-
ety”, as he compared it critically to the ambition of a dynamic society such as
the British one. The Sienese nobility, moreover, for its submission to power had
none of the political relevance of its English counterpart. The nobles, never-
theless, seemed to him also “very ignorant”, and “if they have knowledge, they
make very little use of it in conversation”.33
Torn by internal conflicts, Siena had lost all the splendor and laborious vital-
ity of the past, to the point that after 1555 the city appeared to be poor and drea-
ry, with art and monuments as its only wealth.34 In his account of Siena, Peter
Beckford left the image of a city far removed from its glorious past, perched in
defense of its increasingly more rural identity, of which the local aristocracy
was the only custodian, entrenched in the beauty of its art to hide the misery of
reality; though in the eyes of visitors all this seemed quite original and unique.
The contraposition between city and countryside, perpetrated by the nobility,
was already distinguishable. The Palio was, for Beckford, a wonderful discovery
that laid bare the soul of the city and its people.35 The precision with which
the latter described the Palio suggests not only, or not so much, his own abil-
ity to understand, as a foreigner, the city’s dynamics, but rather the conscious
sedimentation of a Sienese identity, to be offered unaltered to foreigners. At
the core of this identity was the other face of the Gothic Siena, emerging from
the events of the 16th century, and the result of a mythical revival of an altered
past, suited to the needs of the present, handed down unchanged over the cen-
turies, and, at that moment, simply the fruit of the small homeland.
Great revolutions were also ushered into Siena on the notes of La Marseillaise
between the 18th and 19th centuries, forcing the city to face modernity. The
creation of the national state, popular sovereignty, and economic-industrial
development, in fact, were “inevitable” realities facing “the peninsula … and

31 Grosley, J.P., Observations sur l’Italie ed les italiences, 1770.

32 Smollet, T., Travels through Italy and France, 1766; Cardini, Storia di Siena.
33 Boswell, J., Boswell on the Grand Tour, New York, 1955, pp. 13, 123.
34 Lalande, J., de, Voyage d’un francois en Italie, 1766.
35 Beckford, P., Familiar Letters from Italy to a Friend in England, London, 1805, esp. letter 51.

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the Myth of Siena 271

individual cities”.36 The year 1799, with the arrival of the French troops led
by General Vignolle, was a watershed moment, very similar to 1555. With the
fall of the Republic in 1555, Siena lost its autonomy and its vigorous ambition
to continue to play an international role, as it used to do during the Middle
Ages. However, it also managed to prolong the social, political, and economic
arrangements of the Renaissance, well symbolized by its ruling class com-
posed mainly of the landowning nobility. Although their ancestry went back
to the Middle Ages, they represented the overcoming of that moment in his-
tory. That moment created the elitist and conservative order on which the city
rested for centuries, inert and unchanged over time and anchored to a Gothic
myth, elaborated on again and revisited as the foundation of a tradition to be
preserved and anchored to the present. In 1555 the city lost its independence,
but its identity was never in question. The events of 1799, on the other hand,
did not have an effect on the city’s independence, but rather on its identity; it
opened a debate on the themes of modernity, in the attempt to launch Siena
on a larger continental scale, and woke it from its lethargy.
Already from the second half of the 18th century, Siena had seen the growth
of Enlightenment influences. The most progressive wing of the city’s ruling
class used to gather at the salon of Porzia Sansedoni.37 The presence, albeit
episodic, of numerous foreign men of culture, visiting or even simply pass-
ing through Siena, had favored the spread of new ideals, which was also fa-
vored by the scions of Sienese aristocratic families who were traveling abroad.
However, it is interesting to note that many of these foreigners, beyond their
political credo and ideological orientation, identified Siena’s value precisely
in the city’s’ strong sense of tradition, and hoped for it to remain unchanged
and unaffected by new ideas or progressive Enlightenment ideals. The center
and synthesis of more conservative principles, in fact, was the other city salon
of Faustina Sergardi.38 The role of the Church, in this sense, was also deci-
sive, as the strong aversion to any changes and defense of the old regime ex-
pressed by Archbishop Tiberio Borghesi well attested.39 The city, however, was
also able to open up to renewed cultural ideas, such as those discussed in the
salon of Teresa Regoli Mocenni, who among her guests could count Vittorio
Alfieri.40 After all, Grand Duke Leopold II, in the wake of his enlightened des-
potism, tried to introduce some reforms into Siena, such as the abolition of the

36 Cardini, Storia di Siena.

37 Catoni, G., Sviluppo e università nella Siena dei lumi (Studi Senesi, 91), 1979, p. xci.
38 Cardini, Storia di Siena, p. 18.
39 Catoni, G., Il Monte dei paschi di Siena. Nei due secoli della deputazione amministratrice,
Siena, 1986, p. 5.
40 Catoni, G., Dimenticar la francese, Siena, 1989, p. 9.

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old magistracies, that were replaced by the civic community, and the deputa-
tion of the city’s bank Monte dei Paschi, stirring the discontent of the city’s
nobility. First, the bank’s strategic role for the city became clear, though at that
time it mainly operated to meet the city’s rural interests. Secondly, it is inter-
esting how the discontentment of the aristocracy had to do more with its role
than with its hegemony, even though, according to the definition of Diderot,
Leopold II, had a “bucolic” vision of his reforms, thus deserving the title of
“Le Roy pasteur”. Leopold’s reform of August 1786, in fact, was not intended
to disrupt the primacy of the nobility, but to change its meaning, shifting its
center of gravity to an institutional political role linked to the creation of the
modern state, as elsewhere in Europe, while continuing with the more priva-
tistic management of their lands.41
Thus, it became clear how the Gothic myth of Siena emerged at the very
moment of the collapse of its political autonomy, which was not followed by
a similarly profound renewal of the city’s social, economic, cultural and, indi-
rectly, political life. Instead, ironically, Siena defended its own status quo pre-
cisely with the myth of the Middle Ages when threatened from the outside. This
myth, however, did not have the Republic at its core, but rather an abstract and
apolitical ideal revisited and adapted to the compromise between the Medici
family and the Sienese aristocracy. According to this, in exchange for its loyalty
to Florence, Siena was granted a visible and strong autonomous identity, later
inherited by the House of Lorraine, which in the Sienese imaginary took the
form of a fierce resistance to assimilation, as a defense of its primeval identity.
Yet, there existed a social, cultural, and economic affinity between the Siena of
the late 16th century and Florence, which facilitated such exchange or defense,
and which instead later served as a reactionary bastion for the Tuscan capital,
when, in effect, Florence began to open up to moderate reforms. Siena instead
was and wanted to remain a rural city, centered on the role of the landowning
aristocracy, committed to the management of its assets and the local bank, the
Monte dei Paschi, which was fundamental to this arrangement.42
The agricultural crisis linked to the grain price of the last decade of the
18th century, a result of the Napoleonic wars, had pushed the House of
Lorraine to halt trade-related reforms, reintroducing fixed prices, thus justi-
fying the conservatism of the Sienese aristocracy, hostile to the logic of the

41 Catoni, Dimenticar la francese, p. 16; see also Venturi, F., Settecento riformatore, Turin,
pp. 4–5.
42 Mozzarelli, C. and Schiera, P. (eds.), Patriziati e aristocrazie nobiliari, Trento, 1978;
Brunner, O., Vita nobiliare e cultura europea, Bologna, 1982; F. Braudel, L’Italia fuori d’Italia,
Rome, 1974.

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market.43 The “barulli treccoloni”, that is the retailers, were heavily restricted
and controlled, thus showcasing the firm will to stifle modernity, even though
this meant an increase in poverty and deprivation throughout the city, as also
attested by the donation offered by the aristocracy on Christmas eve of 1794 for
the birth of the Grand Duke’s son, a tradition certainly linked more to a feudal
and rural medieval system than a modern one.44 The “popolino”, the masses of
the city’s contrade, on the contrary, were buttered up to with feasts, dances,
and fireworks, in the name of a medieval tradition that needed to be preserved,
and which certainly had nothing to do with the Republic’s golden age, but
rather with a medieval ideal revived and developed with the refeudalization of
the late 16th century. In short, Leopold’s enlightened reforms ended up being
poorly received by the Sienese nobility, even in their more scientific and tech-
nical aspects. They were ultimately considered and conceived as a potential
danger to the idea of preservation of the city, which the nobility promoted and
jealously guarded.
Thus, towards the end of the 18th century, the city was firmly in the hands of
both the aristocracy and the “popolino” of the contrade, on the basis of deeply
conservative, if not reactionary, principles, which were opposed to a degree by
a bourgeois and enlightened aristocratic minority. Foreigners, therefore, had
formed their ideal of a Gothic Siena on the basis of a city shaped by the local
ruling class. They also contributed in promoting its myth, in contrast to the
ideals which they were themselves expressing, connected as they were with
modernity, even if only to criticize it.
“Some of the old mansions are built in the mixt, demi-gothic style which
marks all public works”, and accompanied by a “barbarous taste” noticeable
from the cathedral, according to Joseph Forsyth, who arrived in Siena in 1802.
From the words of the Scottish visitor emerges a clear reference to the Gothic
Romantic tradition, in contrast to the purity of classicism, which was rooted
in the city’s strong sense of itself. After all, this strong sense of belonging to
Siena had remained intact, to the point of associating the biochromatic mar-
ble of the cathedral with the fact that “black and white are the colors of our
city banner”, in the words of an anonymous Sienese questioned by Forsyth on
the topic. Moreover, the Scottish visitor could see that Siena was an artistically
exhausted city: according to him, its great shops and local studios had left no

43 Aymard, M., La fragilità di un’economia avanzata: l’Italia e le trasformazioni dell’economia,

(Storia dell’economia italiana), Turin, 1991.
44 Cardini, Storia di Siena, pp. 18–26; Mengozzi, N., Il Monte dei paschi di Siena e le aziende in
esso riunite, Siena, 1909, pp. 47–51.

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trace of greatness, so much so that the Sienese were forced to rely on artists
from other regions, and, in his opinion, rather mediocre ones indeed.45
The Palio and the contrade thus seemed to him the symbols of a division
which mirrored the history of the whole peninsula, as “the strongest bond of
union among Italians is only a coincidence of hatred”. It was exactly the op-
posite interpretation of the city and of its contrade that Corradini would give
at the end of the century, identifying in it the essence of national virtues that
ought to be revived and preserved.
But it was from the study of the Sienese territory that Forsyth was able to
draw insightful considerations about Siena. Before Leopold II’s reforms, in fact,
the Sienese did not even produce enough grain for their own consumption,
while, at the time of Forsyth’s stay, they had become exporters of it and “to
a large amount”. But the aristocratic landlord class was enriching itself “un-
deservedly” thanks to “improvements to which they do not contribute”. The
noblemen, “born and bred in the city … seldom visit their estates, but for the
Villeggiatura in autumn”, and they do so “but to loiter round the villa just as
they loiter round the town”. He goes even further to say that none “of these
possess so many villas as the Chigi”.46
It was the picture of a rural world typical of an old-regime society, shak-
en by the attempt of reform on the part of Leopold’s enlightened despotism,
and in line with the physiocratic principles, which had found more fertile
ground in Florence than in Siena, as attested by the Academy of Georgophiles.
There, science and technology were cultivated not only to offer theoretical,
abstract, or scientific answers, but to find solutions to concrete problems. On
the contrary, the Sienese Academy of Physiocritics, founded thanks to Pirro
Maria Gabrielli, though an older institution, remained more scientific but less
practical.47 Siena was still operating under an archaic system whose only in-
novation was the system of sharecropping farming which had so impressed
Simonde de Sismondi.48 The commitment to sharecropping, on the other hand,
became a distinctive trait of the Sienese identity, of which the Gothic myth, re-
vived by the nationalists in the late 19th century, represented the synthesis. For
foreigners, instead, the city with its Gothic aura remained an expression of that
picturesque beauty exemplified by the “castelli” scattered along the road be-
tween Siena and “Poggi Bonzi” (Poggibonsi). These mansions, moreover, were

45 Forsyth, J., Remarks and Antiquities, London, 1813, pp. 109, 111.
46 Forsyth, Remarks and Antiquities, pp. 122–23.
47 Adorno, F., Accademie ed istituzioni culturali in Toscana, Florence, 1988, pp. 34–41.
48 Cardini, A., Al suono della lumaca. I mezzadri nel primo Novecento, Manduria, 2004,
pp. 117–18; Pagliai, L. and Sofia, F. (eds.), Sismondi e il suo tempo, Florence, 2011, pp. 195–98.

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also built more as “fortified villages” than as a “fortified house”, and thus were
rather different from the English ones. In any case, early 19th century Siena
languished in poverty. This situation was certainly a far cry from the city’s glo-
rious medieval past when commerce flourished; now instead “grass grows in
the deserted streets”, according to Joseph Woods, and the surrounding land,
although aesthetically beautiful, was not fertile enough.49
The myth of Siena, therefore, created by the European cultural ferment of
the period, was founded not so much on the vitality of its medieval Republican
golden age, but on a medieval artistic legacy sedimented from that period. It
was instead anchored to a process of refeudalization that had begun in the
16th century.
At the same time, the arrival of French troops gave new vigor to the mi-
nority faction of the city’s ruling class who were eager to shake off the Gothic
image of Siena, perceived as obscurantist and far from being felix, as abstract
bucolic principles, typical of Arcadia, maintained. If, on the one hand, in 1799,
“Jacobins, Israelites, Democrats, and Republicans” went “en masse to meet the
French soldiers greeted as liberators”, outside “the Camollia gate”, that same
year, the “Viva Maria” bands, a typical expression of rural Sanfedism, also mas-
sacred “Jacobins and Jews” and set the liberty tree on fire, while Cardinal Ruffo
of Calabria, who was passing through the city, was acclaimed by the people
of the contrade, instigated by the local aristocracy.50 In the 19th century, the
Gothic myth of Siena created by foreigners became increasingly detached
from the modernity that burst onto the European scene with the 18th-century
revolutions. Many foreign travelers, in fact, exalted the city’s bucolic pleasures,
which, after the Napoleonic wars, became a paradigm of moderation against
the opposing revolutionary and absolutist extremes, and which the sharecrop-
ping system, praised by Sismondi, was the perfect expression.
The Napoleonic presence, however, left an indelible mark on the city, arous-
ing a national consciousness, and forcing the ruling class to come to terms
with modernity. In fact, as the capital of the Ombrone district, Siena saw
Gian Domenico Romagnosi’s ideas gain traction thanks to the prefect Angelo
Gandolfo and his collaborator Giovanni Valeri.51 Romagnosi’s influence in the
city, however, was connected to an idea of the​​ Middle Ages. His vision was no
longer of the Gothic type and therefore did not promote preservation. Instead,

49 Woods, J., Letters of an Architect from France, Italy and Greece, London, 1828, p. 315.
50 Catoni, G., Il Monte de paschi di Siena; Mengozzi, Il Monte dei paschi; Turi, G., “Viva Maria”,
Florence, 1969; Cardini, Storia di Siena, pp. 22–25.
51 Catoni, G., “Siena nell’Ottocento. Un limbo come valore”, in C. Sisi and E. Spalletti (eds.),
La cultura artistica a Siena nell’Ottocento, Milan, 1994, pp. 9–53; Cardini, Storia di Siena,
p. 23.

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he saw it as the first flourishing of Italic grandeur after the decline and fall of
the classical world, characterized by urban centers and in clear contrast to the
feudal world. The Gothic myth, therefore, seemed to be a forewarning symp-
tom of a more reformist picture, in which the city was no longer conceived
as the watchful preserver of ancient prerogatives and glorious pasts, but as a
dynamic trampoline toward progress. Not by chance, even after February 1814
when the French left the city, the Napoleonic code and the administrative
structure centered on a mayor and a prefect (formal titles aside) remained
firmly the basis of city government. This was even though the same “popolino”
of the contrade, swayed by the city’s aristocracy, which had opposed the repub-
lican army in 1800, threw rocks at the imperial insignia.
In fact, with the return of the House of Lorraine, the city seemed to resume
along a path of a strongly-felt restoration, as attested by the enthusiasm shown
for the arrival of the Emperor of Austria and Metternich in 1819. The great
noble families succeeded in consolidating their economic and political power
through land ownership; they also held power by controlling the Monte dei
Paschi bank, with its strong agricultural interests. The central administration
of the credit institution had always been kept in the hands of a few families:
the Piccolomini, Sergardi, Tolomei, Spannocchi, Sansedoni, Bichi Ruspoli,
Ottieri della Ciaia, and Petrucci; all heirs of the medieval tradition from which
the Gothic myth of Siena derived, and an emblem to protect the city. On the
other hand, Governor Luigi Serristori understood the importance of widening
Siena’s horizons, yielding to a form of modernity imported from the French. At
first, he urged the creation of a second bank, the Banca Senese, thus contribut-
ing to the development of a commercial and entrepreneurial culture within
the city, of which the railway became the symbol.52
These two officials, and partly conflicting souls, however, slowly brought
about a reformulation of the city’s Gothic myth, in which progress and tra-
dition found a certain, albeit problematic, balance during the Risorgimento.
In fact, the Gothic ideal, it could be argued, was not contested but simply re-
vised and adapted to a will to modernize the city without altering its iden-
tity. Foreign travelers who continued to visit Siena changed their minds in
accordance with the more general European trend, but their vision of the city
remained intact, albeit slightly altered. Their focus was above all on Siena’s
artistic and natural treasures, since the city was devoid of any real commer-
cial vitality.53 For example, Siena was “remarkably picturesque” according to

52 Catoni, G., Un treno per Siena, Siena, 1981.

53 Ruskin, J., The Diaries of John Ruskin, vols. 3, Oxford, 1856–59.

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Nathaniel Hawthorne,54 and, according to Charles Dickens, the city was “a bit
of Venice, without water”.55 Beyond such aesthetic recognition, however, what
struck most visitors was the city’s slow agony and decay, which separated the
city from its past glory and left room only for the artistic beauty inherited and
preserved from its past. William Hazilitt commented that “Siena is a fine old
town, but more like a receptacle of the dead than the residence of the living”,
while also observing that there is “at present no enemy without to huddle them
together within the walls”.56
But if an enemy at the walls had to be found it certainly was modernity,
with its challenges. Hence, the Gothic myth that was promoted by foreign-
ers indirectly became a shield for the city’s ruling class, capable of defending
the city’s status quo through the centuries and the defeats so completely that
even Napoleon could not completely sweep it away. However, the arrival of
La Marseillaise had also made Siena aware of the impossibility of avoiding
the challenges of modernization forever: either modernization was to be em-
braced, or opposed, but in no case could it simply be ignored any longer.
Compared to previous centuries, Siena in the 19th century languished in
poverty. The woolen textile industry, which was kept alive in vain thanks to a
protectionist system, was replaced by the dyeing shops and tanneries of the
leather trade. The importance of this production system as the city’s main
asset was clearly visible to the same foreigners passing through Siena. The
social conditions of the city, however, were in a critical state.57 Hence, im-
mobilism was a risky choice, as it could open the door for more radical, hard-
to-control changes. In fact, in the city, even after the Restoration, a significant
instance of progress, freedom, and independence survived in the Congrega
Liberale Senese (the Sienese Liberal Group), which was joined by the city’s
university students and teachers, and was uncovered in 1832 by the police.58
In 1847, Ludovico Petronici was killed in Siena while singing patriotic songs
with other students in the public streets, causing riots that culminated with
the looting of the bakeries. Elements of modernity, therefore, blended with
traits typical of an ancient rural regime, where revolution and jacquerie were
pursued seamlessly.59

54 Hawthorne, N., Passages from the French and Italian Note Books, London, 1871, p. 435.
55 Dickens, C., Pictures from Italy, London, 1846, pp. 280–81.
56 Hazlitt, W., Note of a Journey through France and Italy, London, 1826, p. 270.
57 Ciuffoletti, Z. and Degl’Innocenti, M., La città nostra. Siena dal Risorgimento all’unità,
Siena, 2011.
58 Catoni, G., I goliardi senesi e il risorgimento dalla guerra del quarantotto al monumento del
novantatré, Siena, pp. 3–6.
59 Catoni, I goliardi senesi, pp. 37–57; Mengozzi, Il Monte, p. 336.

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Further examples of political unrest in Siena can be seen at Curtatone and

Montanara on the 28th and 29th of May 1848, when Sienese goliards faced the
Hapsburg troops of Radetzky, in their attempt to help the Piedmontese at Goito
the next day. In the city, the news created anxiety: the Palio was cancelled and
the prize for the winner, of 420 lire, was devolved to the students who went to
fight “for Italy” on the “fields of Lombardy”.60 The ones elected were moderate
liberalists, hostile to reactionary causes as well as to democratic and radical ex-
cesses, such as Pieri, Pianigiani, Saracini, Andreucci, and Corbani. There were,
however, outbreaks of legitimist revolt. On the 13th of April 1849, after the de-
feat of Novara, the “popolino” occupied the Piazza to take down the liberty tree
while invoking Grand Duke Leopold II. And in October 1849, on the occasion
of the inauguration of the Siena-Empoli railway line, an extraordinary palio
took place during which the people (this time) showed their passionate patrio-
tism by honoring the Italian flag.
Thus, within 15 years, Siena had finally found its place in the 19th centu-
ry. The causes of the Risorgimento, although initially ignored, were later em-
braced by Siena, as they represented the best way to preserve the city’s political
equilibrium. The Gothic myth of Siena, therefore, which began as a foreign
creation, gradually became a deliberate civic identity. In fact, the moderately
liberal upper-middle class tried to instill national sentiments in the Palio and
the contrade, creating communal space separate from the oppression of the
nobility, as they realized that the positions of an ancient regime inherited from
the past were unrealistic. After initial resistance, a significant part of the city’s
aristocracy understood that leading the Sienese Risorgimento movement was,
in the end, a minor evil, or in any case a means for reaffirming their hegemony.
This could also explain the change of heart, in less than a year, of the contrade
in relation to the Risorgimento movement, reconfirming the strong bond be-
tween the “popolino” and the nobility. Similarly, the university played an es-
sential role in helping the city open up to the outside world, albeit moderately,
without destroying the city’s aristocracy. In the end, it reconfirmed its role as
an institution firmly connected to the city’s social fabric. There were grounds
for a change in the educational system, even though the role of the school and
secondary education was not intended to disrupt the civic fabric, but to expand
the base for its protection, by making room for the middle classes alongside
the landowning nobility and the “popolino” of the contrade. After the Battle
of Solferino, the Italian flag was hoisted above the Municipal Palace (Palazzo
Pubblico). Yet, during the mass commemorating the fallen at Curtatone and
Montanara (16th September 1859) presided over by Don Carlo Sancasciani in

60 Catoni, I goliardi senesi, p. 57; Mengozzi, Il Monte, pp. 296–97.

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the church of San Domenico, the overtly patriotic tone was strongly criticized
by the legitimist faction of the nobility, which included the bishop as well.61
However, on the 26th of April 1860, King Vittorio Emanuele II’s visit to Siena
was greeted enthusiastically and was organized by the “Committee for the Unity
of Italy” presided over by Professor Bartolomeo Aquarone of the Faculty of Law.62
The city’s ruling class, therefore, seemed to be split on the question of the
nation-state: on the one hand, a unitary, heterogeneous, constitutional group
ranging from liberal conservatives, moderates, to radicals, and, on the other,
those who for opposite reasons disputed the legitimacy of the new nation-state
configuration. These also included the republican mazzinians opposed to the
monarchy, and the clericalists who were against the separation of Church and
state. However, the legitimist faction must have remained active in the city if,
in 1862, the newspaper Il Flagello, and in 1864 the magazine Libero pensiero still
felt the need to argue fiercely against the nostalgics of the past.63 The priest
Leopoldo Bufalini, on the other hand, from the columns of L’Operaio in 1865,
launched his own attack against bourgeois liberalism, guilty of exploiting the
poor more than the nobility itself, proclaiming not to “bend to the will of those
who always want to subdue and bully through deceitful means”.64 Thus, the
conflict was between different factions within the ruling class and fell along
social and ideological lines.
The myth of Gothic Siena, therefore, seemed to be a valid and sufficiently
elastic glue to unite moderates, progressives, and Catholic liberals, while work-
ing to isolate the legitimist right wingers and the leftist revolutionary extrem-
ists. In fact, the early post-unitary period witnessed a centripetal clash between
the more moderate liberal faction, in which an important part of the city’s no-
bility was involved, with the Democratic Association, which was more progres-
sive and middle class, and which in the end succeeded in electing Policarpo
Bandini against Giovanbattista Giorgini, in 1865. Two years later, Bandini him-
self, supported by the moderates, after the breakup of the Risorgimento unitary
front, was beaten by Tiberio Sergardi who was supported by the leftist electoral
committee. In 1870 instead, the first round of election went to the moderate
candidate Ferdinando Andreucci, with the support of the clericalists, who then
lost to Sergardi in the run-off. In fact, the ruling class was empirically building
new alliances within the newly unified state as an attempt to combat the chal-
lenges imposed by modernization with the city’s centuries-old attachment to

61 Mirizio, A., I buoni senesi, Brescia, 1993, p. 28.

62 Cardini, Storia di Siena, pp. 26–32.
63 Talluri, B., La politica italiana nei giornali senesi, Milan, 1993, pp. 37–57.
64 See Bufalini, L., “Programma”, in L’Operaio, 15 maggio, 1865.

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280 Battente

tradition. On the one hand, the dreadful conditions within the city-imposed
changes that were no longer avoidable, even if that only meant just warding off
more radical revolutionary disruptions in the future. On the other, there was
the will to combine these social changes with substantial political and eco-
nomic continuity within the city. A centrist alliance, intended to marginalize
every kind of extremism both from the right and the left, seemed the most via-
ble solution. In this sense, the myth of Gothic Siena seemed to lend itself to the
demands of both progress and traditionalism. In 1874, Stanislao Mocenni was
elected as he was able to bring together moderates and conservatives for more
than 20 years, with the support of the clericalists. The arrival of the railway,
which also brought working class discontent, gave rise to the city’s continued
class struggle.65 This in turn led to a coalition of all the liberal constitution-
al forces, with the support of the nobility and the clericalists, to contain the
socialist danger. Socialism, in fact, seemed capable of undermining the city’s
centuries-old balance, which various challenges to the regime since 1555 had
never really been able to upset, and of which the sharecropping system and the
myth of Gothic Siena were only the most outward emblems.
When the centrist coalition, however, seemed no longer sufficient and ca-
pable of holding back the assault from the left, the myth of Gothic Siena was
revived by the nationalists. A first real sign of such a fear came with the strikes
of the sharecroppers in Val di Chiana and of the railway workers in the city
between 1901–03.66 The socialist movement created a strong campaign against
the myth of Gothic Siena and against the contrade, seen as instruments of the
nobility and bourgeoisie.67 In its criticism of the Middle Ages as a bastion of
tradition, socialism picked up the baton from the most progressive wing of
Risorgimento liberalism.68 Meanwhile, the fascination of foreign visitors for
Siena showed no signs of decline, reconfirming the perception of the city’s
seemingly timeless traditions and appearance. Siena had become not only
a popular destination for travelers, confirming her status as “daughter of the
road”, but also the residence of an Anglophone community who had chosen the
city as its second home, as attested by Robert Langton Douglas. Henry James
also described his passage into the city, recalling that there was no human
presence “that could figure to me the current year; so that the moonshine as-
sisting, I had half-an-hour’s infinite vision of mediaeval Italy”, since “Siena has

65 Maggi, S., Dalla città allo stato nazionale, Milan, 1994, pp. 111–39.
66 Cardini, Al suono della lumaca, pp. 115–37.
67 Catoni, G., “La faziosa armonia”, in A. Falassi and G. Catoni (eds.), Palio, Siena, 1982,
pp. 225–72.
68 Cherubini, D., Stampa periodica e università nel risorgimento. Giornali e giornalisti a Siena,
Milan, 2012.

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at any rate ‘preserved appearances’” of the past.69 Siena, for her part, and in
Arthur Symons’ words, “is content to remain itself”, while other Italian cities
such as Florence, Rome, or Venice were being “spoiled” by the “modern spirit”.
Florence itself, though holding onto tradition, was victim of the shallowness
of the English “who board there, and a new spirit, not destructive, reverent of
past things but superficial with new civilisation, has mingled the Renaissance
with the commonplace of the modern world”. Whereas “the splendour and dig-
nity of its past live nobly in all the walls of Siena. Its history is written there in
stone, and with a lasting beauty, in the walls of all its palaces”, to the point that
her medieval features were no longer only visible in physical places, but in the
traits and in the “character of its people”. Religion, moreover, was “part of tradi-
tion like the Palio”.70
Between the 19th and 20th centuries, the same Sienese ruling class began
to develop a consciously crafted identity centered on the Gothic myth but re-
vived precisely as a response to the challenges of modernity on a more na-
tional level; ironically, it found in its international vocation a backing for its
protection and defense. In fact, a process of integration into the nation-state,
similar to what was emerging at the national level, took place in Siena as well,
with the Risorgimento. This process was inevitably linked to that of a national
identity that needed to coexist with that of the small homeland.71 Although
not without difficulties, the Middle Ages had become strategic for the redefini-
tion of an Italian identity, not as a methodologically rigorous category of study,
but as an emotional bildung; almost an inclination of the mind.72
Thus, there emerged an ideal bridge between the Middle Ages and the
Risorgimento, as a point of connection for the forging of an Italian national
identity. Unlike the climate of the ancient regime, in which classicism had as-
sumed a prominent cultural importance, during the Risorgimento there was a
positive revision of the Middle Ages as the basis of the idea of an Italian nation,
in which, at the time, the various national components seemed to be able to

69 James, H., Italian Hours, Boston, 1909, p. 346.

70 Symons, A., Cities of Italy, London, 1907, p. 210. The author also famously defined the city
as a “little China”, in its attempt to hide from strangers behind its walls. In reality, the city
had no intention to hide from travelers, but rather to defend itself from changes pre-
cisely by making an impression on foreigners and relying upon a certain atavistic reserve
(p. 209).
71 Banti, A.M., La nazione del risorgimento, Turin, 2000; Levra, U., Fare gli italiani, Turin, 1992;
Isnenghi, M., I luoghi della memoria, Rome, 1997; Patriarca, S., Italianità. La costruzione del
carattere nazionale, Rome, 2010.
72 Elze, R. and Schiera, P. (eds.), Italia e Germania. Immagini, modelli, miti fra due popoli
nell’Ottocento: il Medioevo, Bologna, 1988; Castelnuovo, E. and Sergi, G. (eds.), Il Medioevo
al passato e al presente, Turin, 2004.

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282 Battente

recognize themselves while exalting the traits that better represented them. At
the continental level, the idea of the Middle Ages had gone through a change
in fortunes: from a negative conception, inspired by the Enlightenment, and
as a parenthesis between classical antiquity and the beginning of the modern
ages, to now coexisting with a more liberal perspective in which it was seen
as the cradle of modern national states. The Middle Ages, in the wake of the
Romantic movement, became a solid foundation for national origin myths,
and later for nationalists ones.73 Ironically, and from the onset, it was the for-
eigners, experiencing the Grand Tour, who created the myth of a medieval Italy
as the foundation of its unique identity, while the rest of Europe was being
transformed by modernity and in the particular traits of its individual nations.
These foreigners, however, would go on to criticize the same kind of modern-
izing efforts in Italy after its unification.74 Along with a Romantic view of Italy,
inaugurated in particular by Madame de Staël, another myth had developed;
one that was always of foreign inspiration and about the Italian Middle Ages,
and which survived over the centuries as an example of moderation in which
reformism and tradition seemed to be able to coexist harmoniously. It was also
intended to contain both the obscurantism of the ancient regime and revo-
lutionary excesses, and of which Sismondi was one of the more prominent
voices.75 If for Italians the Middle Ages represented a sort of emancipation,
an absence of a unitary history in the modern age, and the basis of a modern-
izing effort inaugurated with the Risorgimento movement, for foreigners the
medieval myth was intended precisely to preserve and enlighten the Italian
uniqueness as an anti-modernist key. The Middle Ages, however, took on
different meanings, even in the cultural tradition of the Risorgimento and
post-unitary Italy. It was reinterpreted in a partisan way by its various ideo-
logical, cultural, and political users, while assuming nevertheless an important
social legitimacy, as attested by the role and function of the theater with its
thematic settings.76
Siena, on the contrary, seemed to carve for herself an opposite path, in
which the Gothic myth, inherited by foreigners at the end of the 19th century,
had become the conscious basis to face the challenges of the new century,
while preserving the city’s centuries-old traditions challenged by the changes

73 Balestracci, D., Medioevo e Risorgimento, Bologna, 2015.

74 Brilli, A., Un paese di romantici briganti. Gli italiani nell’immaginario del Grand Tour,
Bologna, 2003.
75 As attested by Madame de Stael, Corinna o l’Italia, Paris, 1807, and evidenced by
Sismondi’s own corpus, Storia delle repubbliche italiane. See also Pagliai, L. and Sofia, F.
(eds.), Sismondi e la nuova Italia, Florence, 2011.
76 Sorba, C., Il melodramma della nazione, Rome, 2015.

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that seemed to be imposed by moderate currents. In fact, the local ruling class
deliberately took on the task of rewriting the city’s own history, as part of the
larger national narrative, and as an extreme attempt to resist any external
interference.
Painting in Siena, in the wake of the celebratory myth of the heroes of the
Risorgimento, had found inspiration in certain themes of the city’s civic past,
thus connecting the Middle Ages and the Risorgimento through a certain sty-
listic continuity, as attested by Pietro Aldi’s painting The Last Hours of Sienese
Freedom.77 This trend was also visible in the emphasis placed on medieval
art exhibitions organized in the city, in the wake of a continental sensibility
and thus ready to be exported abroad, as exemplified by the 1904 International
Exhibition of Sienese Art and Painting in London.78 The city became the nat-
ural laboratory of a nostalgic sense in which art and Purism brought together
the Middle Ages and the nation-state. Although apparently merely artistic, it
represented the first piece of an identity with a profound political and ideolog-
ical value anchored to the present, which found, precisely in art, its legitimacy
in the past.79 Imitator Federico Icilio Joni and the school of the “Falsi d’Autore”
(Fakes by Master Artists) expressed a similar artistic sensibility.80
In the process of building the Italian nation, the link between the Middle
Ages and the Risorgimento ended up incorporating an idea of primarily artistic
rebirth as a basis for the existence and legitimacy of the Italian nation-state,
thus creating a type of cultural connection. Especially with the rise of national-
ism and Italy’s fascist period, a strong cultural connection was traced back to
the ancient classical tradition of imperial Rome, whose main supporter was
Gioacchino Volpe. However, unlike other cities, the myth of the Middle Ages
remained always strong in Siena. Aesthetically, there was no need to adapt the
city’s architecture to the new rediscovery of the past since it had survived in-
tact for centuries. Nevertheless, between the 19th and the 20th centuries, new
buildings were built in the medieval architectural style to harmonize with the
city and its identity, leaving out all innovative and modern features. One such
example is the palace of the bank Monte dei Paschi, realized by the Sienese
architect Giuseppe Partini.81 Purism and Art Nouveau, in fact, did not alter the

77 See Balestracci, Medioevo e Risorgimento; Ciuffoletti, Z. and Degl’Innocenti, M., La città

nostra. Siena dal Risorgimento all’unità, Siena, 2011, pp. 141–66.
78 Castelnuovo, E. and Sergi, Il Medioevo al passato e al presente.
79 Ibid.
80 Joni, F.I., Le memorie di un pittore di quadri antichi, ed. G. Mazzoni, Siena, 2004. See also
Balestracci, D., Medioevo e Risorgimento, Bologna, 2015, pp. 112–13.
81 Balestracci, Medioevo e Risorgimento, p. 116.

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face of the city, but fit well with the city’s Gothic taste.82 The link between the
Middle Ages and the Risorgimento had its effect on the Palio itself, as the re-
vival of the past became the visual basis of the city’s identity through the use
of historical costumes.83 Thus, a deliberately fake reproduction of the past was
created as a bastion to safeguard the present. Culinary and ethnic-gastronomic
art took a similar direction, as exemplified by the promotion of the myth of
the typical Sienese sweet of medieval origin, the panforte.84 The Palio and the
contrade, which had always been the custodians of tradition, controlled by the
city’s nobility, were the instrument of contact and contamination between
the small and large homeland in the wake of the Risorgimento movement.
The more conservative elements of the aristocracy and the upper-middle class
were the ones who took control almost exclusively of both. Further, by attach-
ing their fate to the Risorgimento and post-unitary aspirations of the House of
Savoy, they saw in the crown a guarantee against the excesses of moderniza-
tion, demanded by the republican and mazzinian fringe, later overtaken by
the surge of socialism. The contrade, in fact, became fully part of Italy’s unitary
history, not so much because they aspired to be part of it, but because they
perceived it as a strategic choice to remain in a kind of limbo, thus preserving
their own traditions.
The Gothic myth, therefore, ended up being a conscious civic creation in-
tended to protect the city’s identity. Far from being, in fact, a mere reactionary
tool, as in the past, the new Sienese ruling class saw in medieval civic tradi-
tions a tool to promote a moderate social modernization of the city without
disfiguring its centuries-old structures. Federigo Tozzi saw the city immersed
in space and time, where “the countryside was so vast that it never ended; and
Siena in that silence, almost reticent, but adorable, seemed all collected in it-
self”, almost as if to preserve its identity.85 Stendhal, instead, talked about the
unblemished character of the Italians, which had remained unchanged over
the centuries and even in the face of modernization.86 Referring specifically
to Siena, William Heywood chose the city as an archetype for the values of
the Italians forged in the Middle Ages and that remained uncontaminated
by the experience of the modern state.87 For foreigners, therefore, Siena and

82 Balestracci, Medioevo e Risorgimento, pp. 116–123.

83 For a good overview of the historical costumes used, see Cecchini, G., “Palio and Contrade:
Historical Evolution”, in A. Falassi and G. Catoni (eds.), Palio, Siena, 1982.
84 Ascheri, M., Storia di Siena, Pordenone, 2013, pp. 218–28.
85 Tozzi, F., Tre croci, Milan, 1920, p. 266.
86 Crouzert, M., Stendhal e il mito dell’Italia, Bologna, 1991.
87 Heywood, W., Nostra donna d’agosto e il palio di Siena, Siena, 1899.

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the Italians had a specific appeal, of which the Gothic myth was the result,
as an example of anti-modernization and of a natural trait capable of surviv-
ing across centuries and the civilizing process, culminating in the nation-state.
Siena continued to be perceived as a Gothic queen “not only in her outward
appearance, but in her spirit, in her ideals, and her art; Gothic in her triple
guise of warrior, saint, and sybarite”.88 The Renaissance revival of classicism
was deliberately kept out of Siena’s ancient walls, as testified by the story about
an ancient Roman statue of Aphrodite soon “buried with thrifty hatred on
Florentine soil”, according to the Blashfields.89 The Sienese thus remained deaf
to every attempt at cultural renewal in defense of their idealized Gothic Middle
Ages. But when, on the eve of the city’s fall in 1555, Siena opened its gates to
Pinturicchio, Sodoma, and Rossellino, it “was too late”: the artistic flair and the
“the creative power of the mighty impulse was exhausted, and among the great
artists of the 16th century we do not find one Sienese”.90 Recalling Dante, who
had characterized the Sienese as “those vain people”, Maurice Hewlett, inter-
preted the Sienese Gothic style as a synthesis of defeat and pride: “What was
said of the Celts by a Celt of old time is true of Siena, and over-true. They went
forth to war, but they always fell. So did the Sienese always.”91
On the other hand, the use and re-elaboration of the Gothic myth by a part
of the Sienese ruling class evolved in the direction of a strong nationalism,
where the defense of the small homeland was bound with that of the nation,
not in defeatist terms, but as an awareness of an endurance far superior to
any political and military event. It was a unique elaboration that emerged first
from Siena and was later amplified on a national scale, albeit considerably
modified. Corradini, in fact, found in the local aristocracy a significant eco-
nomic and financial support for his political and cultural initiatives, which led
to the season of the Florentine journals circulating in the early 20th century,
and which nourished Italian nationalism on its way to becoming a national po-
litical movement.92 Between the two centuries, Fabio Bargagli Petrucci started
a cultural movement, influenced by a precise conservative political, but not
necessarily reactionary, ideology aimed at the valorization and defense of the
city’s cultural heritage. In 1903, he hosted Corradini himself at Torrita di Siena,

88 Blashfield, E.H. and Blashfield, E.W., Italian Cities, New York, p. 48.
89 Ibid., p. 50.
90 Ibid., p. 52.
91 Hewlett, M., The Road in Tuscany, New York, 1905, p. 174.
92 Gaeta, F., Nazionalismo italiano, Naples, 1963, pp. 78–99.

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286 Battente

in order to promote a nationalist proto-program. That same year, Petrucci

launched the Sienese Society of the Friends of the Monuments. It was thanks
to him that Fabio Chigi Saracini, Niccolò Bichi Ruspoli Forteguerri, and Giulio
Grisaldi del Teia decided to support Corradini’s paper Il Regno.
This all attests to the impact that the Risorgimento movement had on the
city. The influence of the House of Savoy had been strong on the landown-
ing nobility, albeit the same cannot be said of Cavour. Already at the time of
Charles Albert of Sardinia, the royal family developed a strong taste for the
medieval Gothic and for the rural world associated with it. This connection
facilitated an alliance between Siena and the Italian reigning family, seen as
a guarantee of continuity for the myth of the small homeland. The paper Il
Regno, whose editor was Giovanni Papini, did not share the reformist spirit
of its beginnings, but rather the intransigence that emerged with the crisis of
the end of the century, and the appeal for administrative decentralization as a
defense against modernity. This occurred when the centralist position, initially
supported, no longer represented a solid defense. The connection with Siena
was immediately noticeable thanks to the numerous covers of Il Regno devot-
ed to the city’s monuments and palaces. Corradini’s intention was to use the
rural province of the country to forge a nation-state, in its image and likeness,
that is deeply rural and conservative, as the basis of a top-down moderniza-
tion that would be eventually led by Alfredo Rocco. The latter, however, never
had Siena as a model, as his views on nationalism were different; it was his
brother Arturo Rocco, a professor at the University of Siena, who maintained a
connection with the city. However, he was never able to integrate the city into
the “decantation” process of separating a “true” nationalist movement from a
“mixed” one, which his brother, the future Minister of Justice of the fascist re-
gime, was able to perform. For Bargagli Petrucci, on the contrary, the goal was
to preserve and defend the Sienese identity from the challenges of progress
and safeguard its artistic treasures. Petrucci was not aiming for a reaction, but
for a guided and specific type of modernization that would find its compass
in the city’s art, and the educated and landowning aristocracy its best inter-
preter. This was visible through efforts made for the creation of an Art Institute
to create a new generation of artists in continuity with the past, but without
transforming the city into a museum. It was a type of conservatism that found
a fertile ground in the scientific sphere as well, specifically in the person of
Achille Sclavo, for whom tradition was viewed as a solid basis to secure prog-
ress and change, not only political but social and economic. Catholic paternal-
ism, infused with patriotism, was therefore a sort of synthesis of the renewed
spirit of the city firmly anchored in tradition. It came as no surprise then that
the same French nationalism, in the person of Maurice Barres, was perceived

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the Myth of Siena 287

in Siena as a profoundly expressive artistic element, particularly in the work of

the painter Sodoma.93
This approach was not only the result of the will of the local aristocracy, but
was clearly supported by an important section of the city’s bourgeoisie and the
“contado” (the surrounding territory), which shifted convincingly to more con-
servative positions as it became attracted to the myth of the “Gothic queen”.
The innovative and progressive drive that began with the 19th century, capable
of introducing into the city those typically bourgeois values of dynamism and
mobility, found in the university a place to flourish, in contrast with tradition,
which, however, remained very present. The demolition of a stretch of the old
wall to allow the arrival of the railroad well synthesized the city’s ongoing in-
ternal turmoil. Some of the travelers passing though Siena and her territory, in
fact, viewed with contempt, and from the train’s windows, this archaic world.
But along with these middle-class spectators, who aspired to transform the
city, there were others, far more numerous and influential, who idealized this
journey back in space and time. Between the 19th and 20th centuries, when
Siena’s isolation was no longer possible, the local ruling class transformed the
Gothic myth into a defense of tradition, but also into a precise and clear proj-
ect of economic, political, and social development, with culture at its core.
Tourism, culture, gastronomy, and agriculture became the pillars on which to
build the myth of Siena: not to toss her back into the past, but to address, start-
ing from the past, her future.
The city’s bank, Monte dei Paschi, was there to safeguard this vision as a
safe and cashbox for the city’s resources. Thus, it was no coincidence that
both the aristocracy and the middle class watched over it carefully. The myth
of Siena saved the city during the age of the great revolutions, using, in this
regard, the Risorgimento. Similarly, it did the same with fascism, to which it
was opposed not for its ideological traits, but for its attempt to depersonal-
ize Siena’s distinctive identity, and which were played out in the battle for the
control of the bank.
Thus, the idea of Siena as Gothic queen, first invented by foreigners, was em-
braced, between the 19th and 20th centuries, by the city’s new leadership and
exploited to join together the small and large homeland. This was in the name of
a moderate, not reactionary, conservatism that could carry Siena into modernity,
and, at the same time, preserve its civic identity while achieving this goal.

Translated from the Italian into English by Demetrio S. Yocum

93 Brilli, Siena una regina gotica, pp. 49–55.

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Illustrations

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Illustrations 291

Frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Sala dei Nove of the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
Figure 3.1

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 292 Illustrations

Figure 3.2 Piazza del Campo with Palazzo Sansedoni and Fonte Gaia, showing market stalls in place
in a photo by Paolo Lombardi, c.1860
Source: Kunsthistorisches Institute, Florence

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Illustrations 293

Figure 4.1 Parchment cover, Catherine of Siena above the Palazzo Pubblico, 1526.
Archivio di Stato di Siena, ASSi, Conventi n. 1150, c. 77. With permission of the
Archivio di Stato di Siena. Image may not be reproduced for any reason.

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 294 Illustrations

Figure 6.1 Pietro Lorenzetti, The Birth of the Virgin, 1342, Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo
Credit to: Alinari/Art Resource, NY

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Illustrations 295

Figure 6.2 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Presentation in the

Temple, 1342, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi
Credit to: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

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296 Illustrations

Figure 6.3 Pietro Lorenzetti, The Carmelite Altarpiece, 1329, Siena,

Pinacoteca Nazionale
Credit to: Scala/Art Resource, NY

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 Illustrations 297

Figure 6.4 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Madonna and Child with Mary Magdalene and St. Dorothy
(or St. Martha), c.1335–45, Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale
Credit to: Scala/Art Resource, NY

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298 Illustrations

Figure 6.5 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Maestà, c.1340–45, Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale
Credit to: Sheri F. Shaneyfelt, with permission of the Ministero
per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Polo Museale della Toscana
and the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena

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Illustrations 299

Figure 6.6 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Annunciation to the Virgin, 1344, Siena, Pinacoteca
Nazionale
Credit to: Sheri F. Shaneyfelt, with permission of the Ministero
per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Polo Museale della Toscana
and the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena

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300 Illustrations

Figure 8.1 Square in front of the Church of Santa Maria di Collemaggio, L’Aquila showing
the pulpit from where Bernardino preached
Photo taken by Santa Casciani

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Illustrations 301

Figure 8.2 Original IHS insignia, tabulella, designed by Bernardino of Siena, kept in the
Convent of San Giuliano, L’Aquila
Photo taken by Santa Casciani

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302 Illustrations

Figure 8.3 Fresco of John of Capistrano defending Bernardino to Pope Martin V

while holding the IHS insignia, part of a series depicting the life of
Saint John of Capistrano at the chiosco of the Convent of San Giuliano,
L’Aquila
Photo taken by Santa Casciani

Figure 8.4 Fresco of Bernardino of Siena and John of Capistrano preaching while
holding the IHS insignia, part of a series depicting the life of Saint John
of Capistrano at the chiosco of the Convent of San Giuliano, L’Aquila
Photo taken by Santa Casciani

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Illustrations 303

Figure 8.5 Tomb of Saint Bernardino of Siena, Church of San Bernardino, L’Aquila
Photo taken by Santa Casciani

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 304 Illustrations

EMILIA ROMAGNA
Carrara
Massa Pistoia S. GIMIGNANO Poggibonsi Radda in Ch. FLORENTINE
Lucca Prato
FIRENZE CHIANTI REPUBLIC
Pisa TUSCANY FLORENTINE
Livorno Arezzo
Monteriggioni
CHIANTI
Siena M Castelnuovo
O
N SIENA Berardenga
Casole d’Elsa Lucignano
Grosseto UMBRIA Rapolano Terme

TA
Sovicille V. Chiana
V

VA L
Radicondoli

G
TYRRHENIAN

ne
A

NO
Asciano L

bro
SEA Rosia Monteroni

D’
LA

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d’Arbia Sinalunga

F. O
AR

D
REPUBLIC Trequanda

BIA
Bishops

I
Chiusdino S. Giovanni Torrita di
Monticiano Murlo d’ Asso Siena

C
Lordship

H
Buonconvento
E
ER

I
MASSA V A PIENZA
LIF

L Montepulciano

A
MARITTIMA Petriolo
L

S. Quirico D ’
TA

N
ME

MONTALCINO d’Orcia O Chianciano

A
Roccastrada R CHIUSI
E
IN

Castiglione C Sarteano
LL

Montemassi I
d’Orcia A
CO

Gavorrano Paganico Seggiano Cetona

Castel Abbadia S. Radicofani S. Casciano
Follonica del Piano
Scarlino Campagnatico Salvatore dei Bagni
Cinigiano Arcidosso
A T A Piancastagnaio
Lordship I
Appiano M A M S. Fiora
Lordship
Roccalbegna Sforza
A
e

Castiglione della GROSSETO

on

Rocchette Lordship
br

Pescaia (Piccolomini)
Om Scansano
R

di Fazio Ottieri
me (Sforza)
Fiu SOVANA
E

Lordship
Saturnia Orsini
M

Pitigliano Bolsena
Magliano in Lake
M

Toscana Manciano Lordship

a Farnese Farnese
gn
Al be
A

me
Fiu
Capalbio PONTIFICAL
Porto S. Stefano
Orbetello S TAT E
Porto
Ercole
Giglio Castello
(Piccolomini)

Map 1.1 Siena and the surrounding area outside of the control of the Florentine Republic and the
Pontifical State

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 Illustrations 305

Map 3.1 Maestri sopra all’ornato interventions (1431–80); each block represents a building affect by
Ornato interventions documented in ASS, Concistoro 2125
Credit to: Fabrizio Nevola and Yanel de Angel

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 306 Illustrations

Map 3.2 Map showing the she -wolf sculptures

Credit to: Fabrizio Nevola and Yanel de Angel

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 Illustrations 307

Map 3.3 The arrangement of the Piazza Postierla and Via del Capitano area, c.1480–1520
Credit to: Fabrizio Nevola and Yanel de Angel

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 308 Illustrations

Map 9.1 Siena in the thirteenth century

Map by Ruben Cascado Montes, Adapted from: Redon, O., L’espace d’une cité:
Sienne et le pays siennois, Rome, 1994, p. 303

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academies Ambrogio 125–27, 128n52, 298

Medici, C., on music 256 Annunciation to the Virgin (Martini) 116,
for opera 257 119, 119n21
sociability at 255–56 The Annunciation to the Virgin (Lorenzetti, A.)
Academy of Fine Arts 254 1, 53, 129–30, 129n58, 132, 291, 299
Academy of Physiocritics 274 Ansanus (Saint)
Accademia degli Intronati (Intronati) 7, 111 Florence and 16
Academy of Fine Arts at 254 gate of 74
fine arts and music at 254–56 as martyr 73, 245, 250
gioco di spirito and 257, 259 Siena patron saint as 3, 13–14, 35n16, 73,
membership in 134n7, 150n78, 256 79, 115, 118–19, 130, 245, 249
on Palazzo Pubblico theater 256 Spedale and 73
on Reformation 132, 134–35, 138 Apolloni, Giovanni Filippo 258–59
spirituali and 136 architecture. See also urban planning
veglie of 134–35 Commune creating 6, 11, 40, 51, 55
women and 219, 224, 228, 240 as Gothic 267
Accademia dei Filomeni 256 medieval harmonizing 283–84
Accademia dei Rozzi 224, 240, 259, 265. See Ornato on 62–63
also Congrega dei Rozzi in paintings 120–22
Teatro Rozzi and 264 politics on 65
Accademia delle Assicurate 240, 256–59 private buildings and 57–59
Accademia Musicale Chigiana 12 as relic 266, 283
Acciaioli, Filippo 258–59 senesità in 246
Acciaioli, Niccolò 93n31, 108n98 art
Agazzari, Agostino 249 architecture in 120–22
as sacred music composer 215–16, 245 civic past in 283
Santa Maria in Provenzano with 246 at Congrega dei Rozzi 256
as Siena musician 243–44, 256 Intronati and 254–56
Aldi, Pietro 283 for politics 211–12
Alexander III 73 Siena guarding 265, 270
in Chigi family 243, 258 Siena through 266, 268–70
as pope 5, 11–12, 14 Sienese School of 5, 113–15
Alexander VII Art Institute 263, 286
as Chigi family 243, 252, 256, 258 artisans
music and 252 Nine and 41, 45–47, 47n65
as pope 12, 243, 256, 258 on Reformation 143, 145, 147, 153
Allegory of Good and Bad Government Strada Romana for 62
(Lorenzetti, A., and Lorenzetti, P.) 1, 11, Augustinian order
26, 53 The Maestà fresco and 116n11, 125–27,
Bernardino of Siena on 58, 63 125n40, 126n42, 127n48
on judicial courts 21 monasticism and 90
The Nine with 18 Reformation and 148n70
on urban space 63 Augustus 3, 3n5
war vs. peace in 55–56, 55n12, 58
Aloisio 148 balconies 60–61

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Balearic Crusade 13–14 on Virgin Mary 159–60

Bandini, Piccolomini 30 Bernard of Clairvaux 159n27
banks Berti, Battista 221, 221n6
Bonsignori family and 12, 18, 88 Biccherna. See chancellery of finance
Chigi, A., and 12, 29, 64, 243, 249, 258–59 Biringucci, Margarita 221–23
MPS as 1, 5, 5n11, 12, 26, 272, 276, 283, 287 The Birth of the Virgin (Lorenzetti, P.) 116–
The Nine on 21 20, 120n24, 294
Piccolomini family and 38 Black Plague 99n53
Renaissance and 12 hospitals before 175–76, 178
Siena as center of 4, 41 population after 4, 4n10, 12, 40–41,
water scarcity and 15 40n39
Bargagli, Girolamo 219–20, 240 Santa Maria hospital on 7
Bargagli, Porzia Martinozzi 209–10 St Catherine and 6, 70, 73–74
Bargagli, Scipione 81n46, 225 Boccaccio, Giovanni
Bargagli Petrucci, Fabio 285–86 Carthusian monasticism and 108n98,
Baviera, Violante di 259–60 111
Benedictine order 75n16, 81n43, 90 Petroni, P., and poetry of 91–92, 96–98,
Benucci, Lattanzio 236, 236n45 96n43, 97n45, 97n47, 107, 107n92,
Bernardi, Francesco 251–52, 259 108n98
Bernardino of Fossa 156, 160n32 Bona, Speranza Vittoria di 236, 236n44
Bernardino of Siena follower as 160–61, Bonsignori family 12, 18, 88
172 Borghese, Maria Virginia 258–59
as Observant 161 Borgia, Cesare 29
De Passione Domini by 161–66, 161n34, bottini. See underground aqueducts
162n39, 165n49, 172 Buonsignori family 38, 255
Bernardino of Siena (Saint) Burlgarini, Bartolomeo 34, 35n16
on Allegory of Good and Bad Government
58, 63 The Carmelite Altarpiece (Lorenzetti, P.)
Bernardino of Fossa following 160–61, 117–18, 118n16, 296
172 Carmelite order 114, 247
canonization of 158 The Carmelite Altarpiece for 117–18, 296
crucifixion and Mary’s tears in 172 Carthusian order
death of 157–60, 303 Boccaccio and 108n98, 111
in Franciscan order 5, 7, 81, 102, 154, 171 Colombini and manuscript copying of
Inferno and sermon of 166–72, 167n57 100, 100n59
John of Capistrano and IHS insignia of Commune for 101
156, 302 Falcone on 94
in L’Aquila 5, 154–72, 155n6, 155n8, family wealth supporting 100–101
300–303 influence of 85, 85n1
Marca on 157, 157n16 on literary and religious culture 7
“Mercy and the Trial of Adam” sermon Maconi and 73, 95, 104, 104nn81–82
by 167–72, 171n74 as monasticism 85, 90–91, 91n21
Observants and 154–55, 160, 167 Petroni, P., and 85, 91–92, 101–3
on pagan texts 110–11, 111n106 Petroni, R., and 93–94, 93n28, 93n31,
on Petroni, P. 102–3 94n32, 107n92
preaching by 154, 158 property and 86n2
as saint 5, 7, 11–12, 79, 249 Siena chapterhouses of 85, 87, 87n6
sermons with Dante 166–72 St Catherine and 103–4, 104n81

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urban reclusion and 85, 87, 87n6, 89–91, Catholic Church

91n22, 98, 100–101, 103–4 Alexander III and 5, 11–12, 14, 73, 243, 258
visionary-prophetic activity of 107n92 Alexander VII and 12, 243, 252, 256, 258
Casa della Misericordia 179–81, 181n24, 308 belief diversity in 132
care statutes by 185, 187 Bernardino of Siena canonization and
on dead body care 184 158
donations and papal indulgences for Carthusian order in 7
182, 182n32 Commune with bishopric of 3
marginalized group outreach by 186 Enlightenment aversion by 271
on meat 187 hospital proximity to 181–82
on poor pregnant women 189 music and processions of 48, 250
Castelvecchio 2, 12 music for 243–44
castratos 251–52, 259 native leaders for 43, 47–48
Caterina Benincasa. See St Catherine of Siena Nine support from 40
cathedral. See Duomo di Siena outside appointees for 42, 47–48
Catherine of Siena (Caterina Benincasa) painting patrons as 114
(Saint) 11–12 Pius II 5, 11–12, 28, 43, 60, 70, 79, 212–13
birth of 5 Pius III 5, 11–12
Black Plague and 6, 70, 73–74 on Protestantism 243
Carthusian order and 103–4, 104n81 purgatory of 135, 151, 229
Colombini on 75, 85, 103 sacred orders and 100n58, 107
as “daughter of the road” 71, 82 Siena and 1
Dominican convent for 76–77, 76n25 on soul illness and care 181
Duomo di Siena and 79 spirituali and 137–38
famiglia of 70–71, 73–74, 76, 78–80 St Catherine canonization and 43, 70, 79
from Fontebranda 71, 76, 249 on tears 160n30
hagiography on 74 Tolomei family and land for 182
letters of 72, 75, 77–80, 79n36, 81n43, Cesti, Antonio 258
81n46, 105–7, 106n88, 221 chancellery of finance (Biccherna) 20, 45,
Libro della divina Provvidenza of 78 59n28, 191, 212
literacy and 221–22 Charles V 30, 49, 52, 62, 139n30, 198, 227–28
Maconi and 73, 95, 104, 104nn81–82 Chiesa Evangelica Valdese di Siena 133, 133n4
mantellate and 71–73, 72n11 Chigi, Agostino 12, 29, 64, 243, 249, 258–59
as mother 80–81 Chigi, Cassandra 208–9
mummified head of 1 Chigi, Flavio
Palazzo Pubblico and 69, 79, 114, 293 as cardinal 243, 247
on papacy and Rome 73–75, 107 confraternity of 249
Piazza del Campo and 70, 79 music and 251, 253, 259
on pilgrims 70, 70n3, 81 Chigi, Guido 12
Pius II canonizing 43, 70, 79 Chigi, Sigismondo 208–9, 243, 249, 256,
politics and 25, 71, 74–75, 81–82 258–59
protection invoked from 69, 69n1 Chigi family
to Rome 77, 77n29 Alexander III in 243, 258
Salimbeni family and 75–81 Alexander VII as 243, 252, 256, 258
San Domenico Basilica and 1, 71, 73–74, Forsyth on 273–74
78, 81 gioco di spirito for 257, 259
Securitas and 79–80 on music 243, 250–51
Spedale and 73–74 for opera 258–59

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child guardianship 200–201 on public health 178–79

paternal vs. maternal care in 203–4 Studio generale for 22
protests in 202–3 vita civile for Siena 5
Church of Santa Maria di Collemaggio 156, Compagnia della Vergine Maria 73, 76
300 confraternities 132, 153
Cicerchia, Niccolò 161–62, 161n35, 164 Chigi, F., and 249
civic pride Cicerchia and 161n35
in art 283 of Compagnia della Vergine Maria 73,
Constituto showing 177 76
for Gothic myth 263, 265, 267–85, 287 di Giovanni Battista and 144n52, 145
ornato in 60–61, 60n31, 63, 65–66 Guerrieri and 147, 150
on private buildings 57–59 music and 240, 249–50
public health and 7 Petroni, P., and hospital 96, 98
of Siena 5, 263–64 for women 145
streets and public spaces for 57 Congrega dei Rozzi 219, 256. See also
urban planning for 6 Accademia dei Rozzi
civilization 5, 53, 266–67 Congrega Liberale Senese 277
collection office (Gabella) 20 Constituto
Colle di Val d’Elsa 32, 38, 114 civic service in 177
Collegio Tolomei 254 as code of laws 17
Colombini, Giovanni of Commune 177, 179
body of 250 on dead body care 182–84, 184n39
conversion and death of 99, 99n53, on hospital support 189
99nn55–56 on leprosy 190–93
exile for 75n16, 99 on marginalized groups 186
hagiography and 105 The Nine on 179
letter writing and 105–7, 106n88 on Santa Maria hospital 179n17
manuscript copying and 100, 100n59 contrade. See neighborhood districts
Petroni, P., and 94–95, 98–100, 100n60, conversazioni 255
102–3, 105 Corpo Santo leprosaria 179
on sacred orders 107 privileges and 192, 192n82
St Catherine and 75, 85, 103 Corradini, Enrico 263–65, 274, 285–86
commercial vitality 276–77 Costituto
urban planning and 54–56 of 1262 1310, and 1545, 11, 53
commoners (popolo) 17, 209 urban form and civil society in 53
Commune Council of the People (riseduti) 20, 24–25,
architecture by 6, 11, 40, 51, 55 30
for Carthusians 101
commoners in government and 16, 24, Dante 166n52
26, 183 Bernardino of Siena sermons with 166–
Constituto of 177, 179 72, 167n57
court of 20–21 Divine Comedy by 1, 31, 109n100, 166–68,
on dead body care 182–84, 184n39 218–19
knighthood conferred by 20 Inferno by 16n10, 99n55, 167n57, 168–71
Middle Ages and 1–2 Paradiso by 166–67, 218–19, 232–33
The Nine heading Siena 20, 175 Purgatorio by 3, 8, 89n10, 232
politics of 6 on Siena 285
power of Siena 2 vernacular language by 170–71

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on water search 2–3, 3n4, 41n45 Martini succeeding 116

“daughter of the road” from Sienese School 5
Siena as 263, 265, 280 on St Ansanus 3
St Catherine of Siena as 71, 82 Vergine by 88
death Duomo di Siena
of Bernardino of Siena 156–60, 157–60, Annunciation to the Virgin in 116, 119,
303 119n21
of Colombini 99, 99n53, 99nn55–56 The Birth of the Virgin in 116–20, 120n24,
Commune on 182–84, 184n39 294
Santa Maria hospital on 184–85 Capitoline wolf on 3, 306
Della Ciaia, Alessandro 248–49, 254 as cathedral 1, 4, 48, 66
della Gazzaia, Maddalena 214–16, 216n69 Duccio Maestà in 3, 16, 34, 88, 113, 114n4,
De Passione Domini (Bernardino of Fossa) 115–19, 131–32, 153
161–66, 161n34, 162n39, 165n49, 172 for local and Roman composers 245–46
Diario sanese (Gigli, G.) 81n46, 247, 251, 254, Madonna del Voto in 34, 34n12
256, 259 music and 245–46, 249, 252–53
Diocletian 3 The Nine with 18
Divine Comedy (Dante) 1, 31, 109n100, 166, Peruzzi as architect and 66
168 polyphony singers in 244
court intrigue and 167n57 The Presentation in the Temple in 116,
Forteguerri, L., interest in 218–19 119–22, 121n26, 122n30, 295
as Franciscan journey 167 relics from 48
Dodici 41, 71, 87–88, 99 Siena with 1
Domenichi, Lodovico St Catherine and 79
on Petrucci, Aurelia 230–31 streets around 61–62
on Salvi, Virginia M. 226–28, 226n15 Virgin Mary and 35n17, 36, 88, 119
on Tancredi Pecci 220n5, 224, 237–39
on women and poetry 220, 227, 231, ecclesiastical reform. See Reformation
233n34, 235, 236n45, 237–38 Enlightenment 266, 271–73, 282
Dominican order 76–77, 76n25 eremitism 85n1, 86, 89–91, 100–101, 127
donatio. See dowry exile
donatio propter nuptias (reverse dowry) Bandini P., in 30
200 BargagliP., and 209–10
dowry (donatio) Chigi, C., and 208–9
Bargagli, P., on 209–10 Colombini and 75n16, 99
daughter requirements in 199 de Valdés and 239
debts and payment on 208 of Ghibellines 15
of della Gazzaia 214–15 letter writing and 206
exchange of 196 The Nine and 29–30, 65
Piccolomini, V., providing 204 Ochino and 30, 138–40, 143, 147, 147n63
punishment and 206–7 property after 207–8, 208n45
refunds of 200, 202 Salvi, Virginia M., and 227–28, 227n21,
return of 210 232
from and for women 199–200 women and 195, 205–10, 216–17, 227–28,
Duccio di Boninsegna 230
Guido successor as 115
Maestà by 3, 16, 34, 88, 113, 114n4, 115–19, Fabbrini, Giuseppe 245–46, 252, 254
131–32, 153 Falcone, Bindo di 94

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Falsi d’Autore 283 paintings and 114, 123

famiglia 70–71, 73–74, 76, 78–80 Pettinaio in 18
feudalization preaching by 154
of Siena 263, 266, 273, 275–76 split of 157n18
of Tuscany 13 St Francis of Assisi and 157n18, 161n37,
to Virgin Mary 6, 31–32 167
Florence (Firenze). See also Medici, truth and piety in 171
Cosimo de’ Francis of Assisi (Saint) 76, 99, 107, 114
affinity with 272 body of 157–58
battle with 16, 16n10 cross and 159n26, 161, 161n37, 166, 171
cloth dominance by 41–42 Franciscans and 157n18, 161n37, 167
Colle di Val d’Elsa and 32, 38, 114 on Mary 159–60, 159n28
defeat of 4, 6 Paradiso and 166–67
Ghibellines and 15, 31 Frederick emperors 14–16, 62, 211, 221
literature of 211 Friends of the Monuments 285–86
to Medici and Spanish 198
Montaperti defeat and 31, 38–39 Gabella. See collection office
Monteriggioni castle against 14–15 Galeazzo, Gian Visconti 42–43
Renaissance and 110, 125 Gallerani, Andrea 18
rivalry with 1, 12, 15, 23, 259–60 Gazzaia, Maddalena della 214–16, 216n69
senesità defying 258–60 Ghibellines
Spain and 198 accomplishments of 17
St Ansanus and 16 defeat of 16, 20
women and 195–96, 199, 201 exile of 15
Florentine Grand Duchy 5, 239–43, 304 Florence and 15, 31
Fontebranda government exclusion of 20
St Catherine from 71, 76, 249 Manfred and 15–17, 31–32, 36
water source as 71 political party of 32, 36, 39
Forsyth, Joseph 273–74 Sansedoni as 18
Forteguerri, Laudomia 229, 233n34 Gigli, Girolamo 81n46, 247, 251, 254, 256,
on astronomy 218–19, 232–33, 233n33 259
on Divine Comedy 218–19 gioco di spirito 257, 259
on Margaret of Austria 232–35 Giovanni Battista, Pietro Antonio di 144n52
politics and 232 Inquisition and 144–47, 150, 152
on Reformation 136, 138, 142 Sozzini, L., and 150, 152
as woman 135, 232–33 Giovanni Biringucci, Girolama di 230
fortifications 66–67 gittateli. See foundlings
foundlings (gittateli) 187–89, 192 Gonzaga, Curzio 235–36, 235n41, 236n42
France 198, 271 Gothic style
Franciscan order. See also Francis of Assisi architecture as 267
from Abruzzi 155 Grand Tour for 263, 265, 267–84, 287
Bernardino of Siena in 5, 7, 81, 102, 154, Lorenzetti, A., and 120
171 in Lorenzetti, P., triptych 120
crucifixion and Mary’s tears in 172 nobles and myth of 282–83
Divine Comedy and 167 Renaissance and 263, 271, 281, 285
in L’Aquila City 155, 155n7 Siena and myth of 263, 265, 267–85, 287
Observants branch of 154–55, 161, 171–72 as tradition defense 287

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government hagiography
Allegory of Good and Bad Government on devotional practices in 101, 105
55–56, 55n12, 58 on Petroni, P. 94, 100n58, 103
chancellery of finance as 20, 45, 59n28, on St Catherine of Siena 74
191, 212 heresy
code of laws for 17 Chiesa Evangelica Valdese di Siena and
collection office as 20 133, 133n4
by commoners 16, 26–28 Marchetti on 133n5, 143–44, 146–48,
Council of the People and 20, 24–25, 150–52, 153n88
30 Marzi and 229
Dodici as 41, 71, 87–88, 99 Ochino and 7, 12, 133, 142
on Ghibellines 20 Sozzini plaques on 12, 133, 149–50, 152–53
Guelf family and 19–20 Hewlett, Maurice 285
Monti family groups as 24 Hoby, Thomas 268
by The Nine 11, 19–22, 26–28, 89, 175–76, hospitals. See also Santa Maria della Scala
179 Hospital
by nobility 16 Casa della Misericordia as 179–82,
nobles in 24–25, 41 181n24, 182n32, 184–87, 308
Ornato office as 61–67, 62n36, 65n44, church proximity to 181–82
305 Constituto on 189
Petrucci, P., on 204, 220n5, 224, dead body care by 182–84, 184n39
230–32 donations and 180n21, 181n28, 182,
popolari and 17, 20, 24, 27, 29, 198 182n32, 192–93
Riformatori and 24, 26–28, 71 leper houses and 175
The Twelve as 23–24, 26–28 Ospedale di Monna Agnese as 179–81,
The Twenty-Four for 46–47 182, 182n32, 188–89, 189n64, 308
urban planning and 51–53, 55–57, 55n12, before plague 175–76, 178
63, 67–68 Santa Maria as gold standard 176–77,
Viarii office and 56–57, 67 180, 308
Grand Tour 266 humanism
for Siena Gothic style 263, 265, 267–84, on poetry 92, 109
287 of Renaissance 108, 111
Gregori, Alberto 249 scholars and 111, 139n30, 166, 239
Gregori, Annibale 245–46, 249 scholasticism against 108–9
Guelf family 16
government and 19–20 Icilio Joni, Federico 283
magnate families and 17 Il Regno 286
Montaperti defeat and 31, 38–39 Inferno (Dante) 16n10, 99n55
Nine and 20 Bernardino of Siena sermon with 166–
papacy relations and 18 72, 167n57
Guerrieri, Basilio 144, 146, 146n60, 147n63, inheritance 197, 199–200
151–52 Inquisition 139
clandestine meetings by 147–48 Guerrieri and 148, 148n70
confraternities and 147, 150 Pietro Antonio and 144–47, 150, 152
Inquisition and 148, 148n70 Sienese Opposition and 143–45, 144n52
Protestantism and 147 Sozzini, F., and 151–52
Guido da Siena 113–15, 114n2, 114n4 Sozzini, L., and 150–52

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Intronati. See Accademia degli Intronati Libro della divina Provvidenza (St Catherine)
78
James, Henry 280–81 literacy
Jesuit order 254 parlor games and 7, 134, 219, 240–42
John of Capistrano 156, 302 politics and women with 225–26
judicial courts 20–21 St Catherine of Siena and 221–22
women in 218–19, 223–24
key of Siena 31–33, 33n6, 34n12, 36–38, literature. See also letter writing; poetry
44–45, 48–49 book trade and 141n37, 143–44, 153
knighthood (militia) 20 as pagan texts 110–11, 111n106
Piccolomini, G., on 211
Landi, Ottavio 237 Siena and Florence on 211
L’Aquila City women and 218, 240
in Abruzzo 154–55, 155n4 Loggia della Mercanzia 11
Bernardino of Siena and IHS insignia in Lombard elite 13
156, 301 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio 7
Bernardino of Siena death and tomb in Allegory of Good and Bad Government by
156–60, 303 1, 11, 26, 53
Bernardino of Siena in 5, 154–72, 155n6, The Annunciation to the Virgin by 1, 53,
155n8, 300–303 129–30, 129n58, 132, 291, 299
Church of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in innovation by 120–23, 121n25
156, 300 The Madonna and Child with Mary
democracy in 156 Magdalene and St. Dorothy by 123–
Franciscans in 155, 155n7 25, 297
Observants branch in 167 The Maestà by 127–29, 128nn51–52,
lauda 250 129n56, 298
learned societies 132 The Maestà fresco by 116n11, 125–27,
Lenzi, Mariano 232 125n40, 126n42, 127n48
Leopold II 271–74, 278–79 Marian altarpieces by 113
leprosy 178n15 Palazzo Pubblico fresco by 291
Constituto on 190–93 plague and 117
diagnosis of 191, 191n74 political frescoes of 19
fear of 190–91, 190–92, 191n78 The Presentation in the Temple by 116,
hospitals and 175 119–22, 121n26, 122n30, 295
pious care for 192 Santa Maria hospital frescoes by 119n19
San Lazaro and Corpo Santo on 179 Santa Petronilla Altarpiece by 123–25,
studies on 190n69 123n31, 123n33, 125n37, 125n39, 297
letter writing Lorenzetti, Pietro 7
on boundaries 105 Allegory of Good and Bad Government by
Colombini and 105–7, 106n88 1, 11, 26, 53
exiles and 206 The Birth of the Virgin by 116–20, 120n24,
Ochino and 138, 140–43, 141n37, 146 294
Petrarch and 95n38, 96n43, 97, 97n45, The Carmelite Altarpiece by 117–18,
97n47, 107n92, 108–10 118n16, 296
Petroni, P., and 105n84, 106–8, 107n92 innovation by 120, 123
by St Catherine of Siena 72, 75, 77–80, Marian altarpieces by 113
79n36, 81n43, 81n46, 105–7, 106n88, plague and 117
221 political frescoes of 19

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Santa Maria hospital frescoes by 119n19 Mascarpini, Anna 253

Lucari, Buonaguida 32, 37, 47, 47n66 Medici, Cosimo de’
Florence to 198
Machiavelli, Niccolò 29 Florentine Grand Duchy and 5, 239–43,
Maconi, Stefano di Corrado 73, 95, 104, 304
104nn81–82 Malavolti family and 212
The Madonna and Child with Mary Magdalene on music academies 256
and St. Dorothy (Lorenzetti, A.) 123–25, Nine friendship with 29
297 Siena and 198–99
Madonna del Voto 34, 34n12 Siena friendliness with 28
Maestà Siena peace by 30
by Ambrogio 125–27, 128n52, 298 Siena sold to 49, 52
by Duccio 3, 16, 34, 88, 113, 114n4, 115–19, via del Capitano residence for 66
131–32, 153 Medici, Lorenzo de’ 28
by Lorenzetti, A. 127–29, 128nn51–52, Medici, Mattias de’ 257–58
129n56, 298 Mercanzia 17
by Martini 16–17, 21, 88, 116, 116nn10–11, mercenary companies 4, 23, 42
118, 130, 132 merchants
Maestà fresco (Lorenzetti, A.) 116n11, mercantile oligarchy as 20, 20n20
125–27, 125n40, 126n42, 127n48 Nine as 39, 45–47, 46n65, 87
magnate families (magnatizi) 17 Strada Romana for 62
magnatizi. See magnate families “Mercy and the Trial of Adam” 167–72,
Malavolti family 18 171n74
Medici, C., and 212 Middle Ages
Manfred (king) 15–17, 31–32, 36 myth of 272
Manfredonia and 236, 236n44 as nation-state cradle 282
mantellate 71–73, 72n11 nation-state with 282–83
Marca, Giacomo della 154n1 on The Palio 284
on Bernardino of Siena 157, 157n16 present choices and Siena in 263
Marchetti, Valerio 133n5, 143–44, 146–48, public health and 179–80, 180n21,
150–52, 153n88 193–94
Margaret of Austria 232–35 Siena communal government of 1–2
Marian altarpiece social hygiene in 177–78
by Lorenzetti, A., and Lorenzetti. P. 113 middle class
by Martini 34–35, 35n16 as merchants and artisans 39, 45–47,
Martini, Simone 46n65, 87
Annunciation to the Virgin by 116, 119, neighborhood districts and upper 278
119n21 militia. See knighthood
Duccio succeeded by 116 mining 14
Maestà by 16–17, 21, 88, 116, 116nn10–11, modernity
118, 130, 132 challenges of 263, 273, 277, 281, 286
Marian altarpiece by 34–35, 35n16 launch into 271, 275–76, 287
Santa Maria hospital frescoes by 119n19 prosperity and 13–14
from Sienese School 5 unravaged by 1, 264, 270, 282
Virgin in Majesty by 34 monasticism
Marzi, Eufrasia Augustinian or Benedictine rules for 90
on language and culture 211 as Carthusian 85, 90–91, 91n21
poetry by 229 eremitic vs. coenobitic 90–91

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monasticism (cont.) motet in 245, 248–50, 254

eremitism and 85n1, 86, 89–91, 100–101, oratorios in 247, 249, 252, 254
127 parlor games and 7, 134, 219, 240–42
founding families of 18 Pecci, D., and 253–54
nunneries in 204–5, 204n29 performances of 7
Piccolomini family and 18 plainchant in 247, 250, 252
San Domenico Basilica and male 247 poetry to 226, 237
urban reclusion and 85, 87, 87n6, 89–91, as polyphonic 244, 247, 252
91n22, 98, 100–101, 103–4 rites and ritual within 241
Montaperti, Battle of 6, 11 Santa Maria in Provenzano and 246–47,
15th century accounts of 44–46 249–50, 252–53
Florence and Guelf at 31, 38–39 by Sienese 244–45
Lucari and 32, 37, 47, 47n66 sociability and 255
Manfred and papacy after 16–17 women and 241, 248–49, 252–54
Virgin Mary and Siena consecration for
16, 32–39, 33n6, 36n23, 37n24, 44–45, nation-state 278–79, 281
47–48, 50, 132 Middle Ages and 282–83
women role in 48–49 neighborhood districts (contrade)
Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) heraldic banners of 263
nobility on 272, 276, 283, 287 as nobles instruments 280, 284
The Palio and 5n11 popolari replaced by 29
for Siena resources 287 popolino of 273, 276, 278
world’s oldest bank as 1, 5, 5n11, 12, 26 preservation for 273
Monte Oliveto monastery 18 upper-middle class on 278
Monteriggioni castle 14–15 The Nine (Nove)
Monti. See nobles accomplishments of 19–22
motet 245, 248–50, 254 Allegory of Good and Bad Government
MPS. See Monte dei Paschi di Siena and 18
music artisans and 41, 45–47, 47n65
Accademia dei Filomeni and 256 on banking and land 21
Accademia Musicale Chigiana and 12 as bourgeois and mercantile classes 39,
Agazzari and 215–16, 243–45, 256 45–47, 46n65, 87
Alexander VII and 252 Catholic Church supporting 40
castratos and 251–52 as communal 20, 175
Catholic Church and 48, 250 composition of 18
Chigi, F., and 251, 253, 259 on Constituto 179
Chigi family and 243, 250–51 Duomo di Siena and 18
for church 243–44 exile of 29–30, 65
Collegio Tolomei for 254 as government 11, 19–22, 26–28, 89,
confraternities and 240, 249–50 175–76, 179
at Congrega dei Rozzi 256 Guelf family and 20
Duomo di Siena and 245–46, 249, Medici, C., and 29
252–53 as middle class merchants and artisans
education in 241 39, 45–47, 46n65, 87
instruction in 251–55, 253n29 ousting of 99
Intronati and 254–56 Piazza del Campo and 19, 88
lauda and 250 public works during 22, 39
monastic women and 241, 248–49 religion supporting 40

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as repressive 39–40, 39n33 in civic pride 60–61, 60n31, 63, 65–66

return of 64–65 Ornato office 305
selection of 21 on architecture 62–63
suppression of 22–23 in palace building 65–66
Torre del Mangia by 39 on Strada Romana 61–62
women and 206–7 as urban beautification office 60–64,
nobles 62n36, 65n44, 67
commoners and 17, 209 Ospedale di Monna Agnese 179–81, 308
contrade and heraldic banners of 263 donations and papal indulgences for
Gothic myth by 282–83 182, 182n32
as governing family groups 24–25, 41 for pregnant women 188–89, 189n64
on MPS 272, 276, 283, 287 Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala. See Santa
for neighborhood districts 280, 284 Maria della Scala Hospital
power concentration by 276
problem of 11 Paganico castle 15
tourists on 270, 274 painting. See also Lorenzetti Ambrogio;
Nove. See The Nine Lorenzetti, Pietro
architecture in 120–22
Observance 154, 155, 159, 160, 167 Burlgarini and 34, 35n16
Observants order Catholic Church and 114
Bernardino of Siena and 154–55, 160, 167 Franciscan order and 114, 123
of Franciscan order 154–55, 161, 171–72 Guido da Siena and 113–15, 114n2,
in L’Aquila City 167 114n4
Ochino, Bernardino palaces
on Christian actions 142–43, 142n42 building of 64–65
exile and 30, 138–40, 143, 147, 147n63 taxes on 65, 65n44
fame of 139–40, 139n30 Palazzo del Magnifico 65–66
heresy and 7, 12, 133, 142 Palazzo Pubblico
preaching and 138–39, 138n25, 138n27 aesthetics and 54, 63
prediche of 138, 140–43, 141n37, 146 The Annunciation to the Virgin in 1, 53,
printed word and 138, 140–43, 141n37, 146 129–30, 129n58, 132, 291, 299
Reformation and 30, 138–39, 138n25, Capitoline wolf on 3, 306
138n27, 142, 229, 239 Intronati on theater and 256
Savonarola and 139, 139n29 Lorenzetti, A., fresco in 291
Office of Wards (Ufficio dei Pupilli) 202–3 Martini Maestà in 16–17, 21, 88, 116,
opera 116nn10–11, 118, 130, 132
academies for 257 by The Nine 39
Bernardi, F., as castrato and 251–52, 259 political center and 66, 88, 175
Chigi family for 258–59 Sala dei Nove of 53, 88, 291
Medici, M., for 257–58 St Catherine and 69, 79, 114, 293
oratorios and 247, 249, 252, 254 theater and 256–57, 291
in Siena 241 Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da 226, 237
Opera del Duomo 25, 34, 118, 294 The Palio
oratorios 247, 249, 252, 254 as heritage 263, 270, 274, 281, 284
Order of Friars Minor (OFM) 157 as horse race 1, 1n1, 11, 27–28, 132–33,
Ordo Officiorum Ecclesiae Senensis 35n17 133n2, 242, 246, 259, 278
ornato Middle Ages and Risorgimento on 284
as beauty 60–61, 68 MPS on 5n11

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The Palio (cont.) letter writing and 105n84, 106–8, 107n92

in Piazza del Campo 1, 132–33 life of 94–96, 95n39
Risorgimento on 284 Petrarch and 91–92, 97–98, 97n45,
Santa Maria in Provenzano and 132–33, 107n92, 108
133n2, 246 pious women around 100n60
pancali 11 poetry defense and 91–92, 96–98,
panforte 284 96n43, 97n45, 97n47, 108, 108n98
papacy 304 prophets and 106–8, 107n92, 108n98
Alexander III and 5, 11–12, 14, 73, 243, Renaissance and 111
258 sacred orders refusal by 100n58, 107
Alexander VII and 12, 243, 252, 256, 258 saint indications on 102–3, 103n75
appointments by 42 at Santa Maria hospital 96, 98
Casa della Misericordia and 182, 182n32 Siena life of 92n25
Guelf family and 18 Petroni, Riccardo 93–94, 93n28, 93n31,
indulgences on donations 182, 182n32 94n32
after Montaperti 16–17 Petroni office
official bankers to 15 property enforcement by 58–59
Siena hosting 27 renewal through 63
on Siena seizure 29 Petrucci, Aurelia 204, 220n5, 224, 230–32
St Catherine of Siena on 73–75, 107 Petrucci, Pandolfo 197–98, 204, 208–9, 230,
Paradiso (Dante) 166–67, 218–19, 232–33 269
parlor games 135, 220, 257 Palazzo del Magnifico of 65–66
literacy and 7, 134, 219, 240–42 Siena controlled by 28–29, 63–64
poetry in 223 Pettinaio, Pier 18
Pecci, Desiderio 253–54 Piazza del Campo
Pelagianism 146, 146n62 aesthetics of 51, 53–54, 56, 61–62, 65,
Perna, Pietro 141n37, 143–44 66, 292
Peruzzi, Baldassarre 66 fighting in 40, 175–76
Petrarca, Francesco (Petrarch) The Nine and 19, 88
letters of 95n38, 96n43, 97, 97n45, The Palio in 1, 132–33
97n47, 107n92, 108–10 preaching on 58, 63, 167, 221
Petroni, P., with 91–92, 97–98, 97n45, purchase for 15
107n92, 108 St Catherine and 70, 79
poetry and 96n43, 97, 109–10, 218, as urban space benchmark 51, 53–54,
223–24, 226, 228–30, 234 54n7, 56, 61–62, 64–66, 292
prophets and 107n92 Piazza Tolomei 47, 54n7
Petroni, Pietro Piccolomini, Alessandro 29, 134n7
Bernardino of Siena on 102–3 on Forteguerri, L. 218–19, 232–33, 233n33
Boccaccio and 91–92, 96–98, 96n43, on Piccolomini de’ Petroni 229–30
97n45, 97n47, 107, 107n92, 108n98 on Salvi, Virginia L. 224, 226n15, 228–29
Carthusian conflict in 101–3 Tombaide poetry and 225–26, 229
as Carthusian monk 85, 91–92 on women and poetry 223–26
Colombini and 94–95, 98–100, 100n60, Piccolomini, Caterina 212–13
102–3, 105 Piccolomini, Elena Sforza 213–14, 214n64
on descendant writing 111 Piccolomini, Girolama Carli 211
family of 92–93 Piccolomini, Marc’Antonio 135n10, 229,
hagiography on 94, 100n58, 103 229n25
hospital confraternities and 96, 98 Forteguerri, L., and 135–36, 232

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Piccolomini, Vittoria 204 Petroni, P., and 91–92, 96–98, 96n43,

Piccolomini de’ Petroni, Camilla 229–30 97n45, 97n47, 108, 108n98
Piccolomini family 276 Petroni, P., descendant and 111
artistic female patronage by 212–13 politics
as bankers 38 on architecture 65
monasticism and 18 art for 211–12
Pius II of 43, 60, 70, 212–13 of Commune and Republic of Siena 6
Pietro Antonio. See di Giovanni Battista, Congrega Liberale Senese and 277
Pietro Antonio Forteguerri and 232
pilgrims Ghibellines and 32, 36, 39
Siena and 3, 13–14, 23, 38, 59, 73, 89, 92, of Gothic Siena 279–80
190, 263, 265 literate women and 225–26
St Catherine on 70, 70n3, 81 Lorenzetti, P., and frescoes of 19
Pisano, Nicola 17 of nation-state 278–79, 281
Pius II (pope) 5, 11–12, 28 of 19th and 20th centuries 8
Piccolomini, C., as sister and 212–13 Palazzo Pubblico and 66, 88, 175
of Piccolomini family 43, 60, 70, 212–13 Petrucci, Aurelia, on 204, 220n5, 224,
St Catherine canonized by 43, 70, 79 230–32
Pius III (pope) 5, 11–12 of Republic of Siena 6
plague. See Black Plague Risorgimento and 263, 276, 278–84,
plainchant 247, 250, 252 286–87
Pliny the Elder 3, 3n5 Salvi, Virginia M., in 227–28, 227n21
podestà 21 Siena adapting to 269
poetry socialism in 280, 284
Boccaccio and 91–92, 96–98, 96n43, St Catherine and 25, 71, 74–75, 81–82
97n45, 97n47, 107, 107n92, unrest in 277–78
108n98 upheaval in 40–41
Domenichi on women and 220, 227, 231, women and 211
233n34, 235, 236n45, 237–38 polyphonic music 244, 247, 252
games of 223 popolari
by Giovanni Biringucci 230 government and 17, 20, 24, 27, 29, 198
humanism on 92, 109 by neighborhood districts 29
Marzi and 229 popolino 273, 276, 278
to music 226, 237 popolo. See commoners
Petrarch and 96n43, 97, 109–10, 218, preaching 132
223–24, 226, 228–30, 234 by Aloisio 148
by Petrucci, Aurelia 204, 220n5, 224, by Bernardino of Siena 154, 158
230–32 Bernardino of Siena and Dante in 166–
Piccolomini, A., on women and 223–26 72, 167n57
by Piccolomini de’ Petroni 229–30 of Bernard of Clairvaux 159n27
Renaissance and 223 by Franciscans 154
of Salvi, Virginia L. 224, 226n15, 228–29 “Mercy and the Trial of Adam” as 167–
of Salvi, Virginia M. 226–28, 226n15, 72, 171n74
227n19, 235–36, 235n41, 236n43 Ochino and 138–39, 138n25, 138n27
by Tancredi Pecci 220n5, 224, 237–39 on Piazza del Campo 58, 63, 167, 221
women and 218–20, 220n5, 223–24 prediche 138, 140–43, 141n37, 146
poetry defense 108n99, 109, 109nn100–101, The Presentation in the Temple (Lorenzetti, A.)
111n107 116, 119–22, 121n26, 122n30, 295

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property spirituali in 133–38, 142, 239

after exile 207–8, 208n45 Tancredi Pecci and 237–39
Carthusians and 86n2 Valdés and 136–37, 137n19
forced sales of 64–65 veglie on 135, 136n16, 153
owner requirements on 58, 60 religion. See Catholic Church; papacy;
Petroni office on 58–59 Reformation
taxes and 181n28 Remus 3
women and 196–97, 200, 208–9, 212–13 Renaissance
prophets bankers and 12
Carthusian order and 107n92 Florence and 110, 125
Petrarch and 107n92 Gothic style and 263, 271, 281, 285
Petroni, P., and 106–8, 107n92, 108n98 humanism of 108, 111
prosperity 13–14 Petroni, P., and 111
Protestantism. See also Reformation poetry and 223
Catholic Church on 243 Siena and 1–2, 6, 11, 31–32, 43
Guerrieri and 147 urban space and 51–68
Siena heresy and 133, 153 women and 195–97
public health Republic of Siena 4–5
civic pride and 7 as anachronistic 265
Commune on 178–79 artistic landscape of 241–42
Middle Ages and 179–80, 180n21, 193–94 Charles V and salvation for 30
pious acts for 179–80, 180n21 Galeazzo on 42–43
Purgatorio (Dante) 8, 89n10, 232 politics of 6
water search and 2–3, 3n4, 41n45 women voices and 239–40
purgatory 135, 151, 229 reverse dowry (donatio propter nuptias)
200
Reformation Riformatori 24, 26–28, 71
Aloisio in 148 riseduti. See Council of the People
artisans on 143, 145, 147, 153 Risorgimento 263, 276, 278–84, 286–87
Augustinian order and 148n70 Rocco, Arturo 286
book trade and 141n37, 143–44, 153 Romagnosi, Gian Domenico 275–76
ecclesiastical reform as 106, 147 Rome
Florentine Grand Duchy and papacy and 73–75, 107
counter- 243 St Catherine to 77, 77n29
Forteguerri, L., and 136, 138, 142 Via Francigena to 3, 13–14, 23, 38, 59, 73,
Forteguerri on 136, 138, 142 89, 92, 190, 263, 265
Guerrieri on 144, 146–48, 146n60,
147n63, 150–52 Saena 2–3, 12
Inquisition into 139, 144–48, 151–52 Sala dei Nove 53, 88, 291
Intronati on 132, 134–35, 138 Salimbeni, Salimbene 46
Ochino and 30, 138–39, 138n25, 138n27, Salimbeni family 21, 23, 25–26, 38, 41, 45–46
142, 229, 239 St Catherine and 75–81
Pelagianism and 146, 146n62 salons (veglie) 132
Piccolomini, M., on 135–36, 135n10 Bargagli, G., on 219–20, 240
Protestantism and 133, 147, 153, 243 Enlightenment in 271–72
religion span in 133–34 Forteguerri, L., and 135–36, 138, 142,
Sienese Opposition on 143, 153 218–19, 229, 232–35, 233nn33–34
Sozzini family and 149 gioco di spirito as 257, 259

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of Intronati 134–35 scholars 111, 139n30, 166, 239

on religious reform 135, 136n16, 153 scholasticism 108–9
women with 223–24, 240 Scotti, Francesca 211, 222
Salvani, Provenzan 16 Securitas 21, 55, 79–80
Salvi, Virginia Luti 224, 226n15, 228–29 senesità 8, 241–43, 246, 258–60
Salvi, Virginia Martini Casolani sermons. See preaching
exile of 227–28, 227n21, 232 Sforza, Francesco 28
on Gonzaga 235–36, 235n41, 236n42 sharecropping 21, 274–75, 280
poetry of 226–28, 226n15, 227n19, she-wolf 268
235–36, 235n41, 236n43 on Duomo di Siena and Palazzo
poetry to music and 226, 237 Pubblico 3
in politics 227–28, 227n21 sculptures of 62–63, 306
San Domenico Basilica Siena. See also specific subjects
altarpiece in 114 map and population of 11, 11n1
as male monastic church 247 maps of 304–8
St Catherine and 1, 71, 73–74, 78, 81 myth of 264–65
structure of 72, 205, 278–79 senesità as citizen of 8, 241–43, 246,
San Lazaro de Terzole leprosaria 179, 190 258–60
privileges and 192, 192n82 Siena Cathedral. See Duomo di Siena
Sansedoni, Ambrogio 18 Sienese Opposition 143, 144n52, 145, 153
Santa Maria della Scala Hospital (Ospedale Guerrieri and 144, 146–48, 146n60,
Santa Maria della Scala) 23, 73 147n63, 150–52
care statutes by 185 Sienese School 5, 113–15
Constituto on 179n17 Sismondi, Simonde de 263, 274–75, 282
on dead body care 184–85 sociability
on donations and fraud 181, 181n28 at academies 255–56
on foundlings 187–88 Carthusian order and 86nn2–3, 92
as gold standard hospital 176–77, 180, conversazioni and music 255
308 learned societies and 132
grain riot and 175–76, 176n3, 193 Middle Ages and 177–78
inhouse care by 186 urban and civil 53
Lorenzetti and Martini frescoes socialism 280, 284
in 119n19 Socini. See Sozzini, Fausto; Sozzini, Lelio
The Maestà in 127–29, 128nn51–52, Socinianism 133, 149
129n56, 298 Sozzini, Fausto
as model hospital 7, 88, 175–90 departure by 153
Petroni, P., at 96, 98 as heretic 12
on plague 7 Inquisition and 151–52
Sorore the Cobbler founding 187–88, plaque of 133, 149–50, 152–53
187n58 Socinianism of 133, 149
Santa Maria in Provenzano Sozzini, Lelio 12, 30, 150n78, 152n86
music and 246–47, 249–50, 252–53 departure by 153
The Palio and 132–33, 133n2, 246 Inquisition and 150–52
Santa Petronilla Altarpiece (Lorenzetti, A.) Pietro Antonio and 150, 152
123–25, 123n31, 123n33, 125n37, 125n39, plaque of 133, 149–50, 152–53
297 Spain
Sassoferrato, Bartolo da 21–22 Florence and 198
Savonarola 139, 139n29 Siena and 198–99

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354 Index

Spain (cont.) Ufficio dei Pupilli. See Office of Wards

women and war with 204–5 Ugurgieri Azzolini, Isidoro 221–23, 228, 242,
Spedale 248, 255
St Ansanus and 73 underground aqueducts (bottini) 56
St Catherine of Siena and 73–74 University of Siena (Studium Senese) 4, 4n9
spirituali 133–35, 138, 142, 239 urban planning. See also palaces; streets;
Intronati and 136 tunnels; underground aqueducts; walls
Valdés and 136–37, 137n19 Allegory of Good and Bad Government
Strada Romana 61–62 and 63
streets on balconies 60–61
as brick-paved 51–53 civic pride and 6
civic pride and 57 commercial vitality and 54–56
around Duomo di Siena 61–62 Costituto and 53
off Strada Romana or cathedral 61–62 cost sharing in 51–53, 57, 67–68
Piazza del Campo paving and 53–54 government and 51–53, 55–56, 55–57,
renewal of Casato and Capitano 64–65 55n12, 63, 67–68
responsibility for paving 56–57 Ornato office and 60–64, 62n36, 65n44,
Studio generale 22 67
Studium Senese. See University of Siena Piazza del Campo and 51, 53–54, 54n7,
Symons, Arthur 281, 281n70 56, 61–62, 64–66, 292
Renaissance and 51–68
Tacitus 3, 3n6 of streets Casato and Capitano 64–65
Tancredi Pecci, Onorata 220n5, 224, 237–39 taxes and 59n28
taxes on underground aqueducts 56
collection office on 20 on walls 56
on palace building 65, 65n44 water and 2–3, 3n4, 15, 41n45, 56, 71
property and 181n28 welfare framework for 178
urban planning and 59n28 urban reclusion 89–91, 91n22, 98, 100–101,
tears 160–66, 160n30, 170–72 103–4
theater Carthusian Siena chapterhouses and 85,
Palazzo Pubblico and 256–57, 291 87, 87n6
Teatro Rozzi and 264
Tolomei family 16–18, 90 de Valdés, Juan 136–37, 137n19
banking and 38, 40–41, 45, 88, 276 exile and 239
church land from 182 veglie. See salons
Collegio Tolomei and 254 Vergine (Duccio) 88
Piazza Tolomei and 47, 54n7 Vetusta Civitas Virginis. See Virgin Mary
Tombaide 225–26, 229 via del Capitano 66
Torre del Mangia 39 Via Francigena
tunnels 5, 15 beautification of 59
Tura, Agnolo di 4, 115, 175–76 control of 23
Turino, Giovanni di 20 “daughter of the road” on 263, 265, 280
Turino, Lorenzo di 20 history and 91
Turnhout, Jean de 226, 237 as Rome pilgrimage and trade route 3,
The Twelve 13–14, 23, 38, 59, 73, 89, 92, 190, 263, 265
Dodici government as 41, 71, 87–88, 99 Viarii office 56–57, 67
government by 23–24, 26–28 Virgin in Majesty 34
The Twenty-Four 46–47 Virgin Mary (Vetusta Civitas Virginis)

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Bernardino of Siena on 159–60 as “cruel mothers” 201, 217

Bernard of Clairvaux on 159n27 Della Ciaia for music and 248–49, 254
Burlgarini altarpiece on 34, 35n16 Domenichi on poets and 220, 227, 231,
cathedral and church for 35n17 233n34, 235, 236n45, 237–38
city key for 31–33, 33n6, 34n12, 36–38, dowry from and for 199–200
44–45, 48–49 with enemy army husband 213–14,
De Passione Domini on 161–66, 161n34, 214n64
162n39, 165n49, 172 exile and 195, 206–10, 216–17, 227–28,
Duomo di Siena and 35n17, 36, 88, 119 230
feudalization to 6, 31–32 of Florence 195–96
Lorenzetti brothers and 113 Forteguerri on 135, 232–33
Lucari and control by 32, 37, 47, 47n66 foundlings and 187–89, 192
Marian altarpieces for 34–35, 35n16, 113 Gazzaia as 214–16, 216n69
as mediation 170 Giovanni Biringucci as 230
Montaperti and Siena consecration to independent marriage by 214–16,
16, 32–39, 33n6, 36n23, 37n24, 44–45, 216n69
47–48, 50, 132 inheritance rights of 197, 199–200
orders and devotion to 114 Intronati and 219, 224, 228, 240
in Siena 132–33 with literacy 218–19, 223–24
St Francis of Assisi on 159–60, 159n28 literature and 218, 240
tears of 160–66, 160n30, 170–72 Marzi as 211, 229
Mascarpini teaching 253
walls monastic nunneries and 204–5, 204n29
as preserved 11 Montaperti and valiant 48–49
urban planning on 56 music and monastic 241, 248–49
war music instruction for 252–53
Allegory of Good and Bad Government The Nine and 206–7
and 55–56, 55n12, 58 Ospedale di Monna Agnese for 188–89,
Medici, L., and 28 189n64
women affected by 204–5, 216–17 parlor games and 7, 134–35, 219–20, 223,
women taking advantage of 213 240–42, 257
water Pecci, O., as 220n5, 224, 237–39
banking and 15 Piccolomini, A., on poetry and 223–26
Dante on search and 2–3, 3n4, 41n45 Piccolomini, E., as 213–14, 214n64
Fontebranda source of 71 Piccolomini, G., as 211
urban planning on 56 Piccolomini de’ Petroni as 229–30
women poetry by 218–20, 220n5, 223–24
Accademia delle Assicurate for 240, politics and 211
256–59 property and 196–97, 200, 208–9, 212–13
archives on 196–97 rape of 216
around Petroni, P. 100n60 Reformation and Piccolomini, M., as
as art connoisseurs 211–12 135–36, 135n10
art patronage and Piccolomini 212–13 Renaissance and 195–97
Berti as literate 221, 221n6 Republic of Siena and 239–40
Biringucci as 221–23 Scotti as literate 211, 222
Casa della Misericordia for 189 of Siena 7, 195–96
child guardianship and 200–204 Spanish and Florentine invasion on 199,
confraternities for 145 201

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356 Index

women (cont.) war affecting 204–5, 216–17

Tancredi Pecci as 220n5, 224, 237–39 written word
Ugurgieri Azzolini on 221–23, 228, 242, book trade and 141n37, 143–44, 153
248, 255 manuscript copying and 100, 100n59
veglie and 223–24, 240 Ochino and 138, 140–43, 141n37,
of Venice 196 146

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