SIENA.

SIENA.Cor magis Sena pandit.Therailway from Empoli to the south passes through a rough, hilly country, following its sinuosities, spanning the valleys on gigantic arches, or plunging through the tunnelled mountains. One tunnel is a mile long—through the hill of San Dalmazzo; and when you issue from it, you see before you another hill, on which rises, stage after stage, the strange, mediæval city of Siena, to the height of nearly a thousand feet above the level of the sea. It was rather a disappointment not to enter it, as carriages from Florence do, by the celebrated Porta Camollia, where the traveller is greeted by the cordial inscription,Cor magis Sena pandit—Siena opens her gates even more willingly than her heart—testifying to the hospitable character of the inhabitants. The city is built on three hills, with deep ravines between them. These hills are crossed by three main streets, meeting at the Piazza del Campo, around which the city radiates like a star. There is scarcely a level spot in the whole place. Even the central square descends like the hollow of a cone. Nothing could be more favorable to the picturesque. The old brick walls of the thirteenth century, with their fortifications and thirty-eight gate-ways, go straggling up the heights. Narrow, lane-like streets, inaccessible to carriages, rush headlong down into deep ravines, sometimes through gloomy arches, the very houses clinging to the steep sides with a giddy, top-heavy air. On one of these three hills standsthe cathedral, with its lofty arches and magnificent dome, a marvel of art, full of statues and bronzes, carvings and mosaics. On another is the enormous brick church of San Domenico, for ever associated with the divine raptures ofSt.Catharine of Siena. Palaces, as well as churches, adorn all the heights—palaces grim and time-worn, that bear old, historic names, famed in the great contests between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, in which live, secluded in their own dim halls, the aristocratic owners, keeping up their ancient customs, proud as the imperial Ghibellines or lordly Guelphs from whom they sprang. Amid all the towers, and domes, and palaces, rises, from the central square, light and slender, the tall, arrow-like Torre del Mangia, which shoots up to a prodigious height into the sapphire sky, crowned with battlements, as if to defend the city against the spirits of the air.Yes, Siena is singularly picturesque and striking as no other city in Italy is, but sad and melancholy with its recollections of past grandeur. It cannot forget the time when it sent forth its legions to triumph over the Florentines, and had two hundred thousand inhabitants. Now it has only about a tenth of that number. Once it was great in war. It was a leader in art. Eight popes sprang from its territory, among whom were PiusII., the poet, diplomatist, and lover of art, from the Piccolomini family; the great Hildebrand, so prominent in the history of the church; andAlexanderIII., who deposed Frederick Barbarossa, and gave his name to a city—styled by Voltaire himself the benefactor of the human race. And like so many stars that blaze in the heaven of the Italian Church—nay, the church universal—are the Sienese saints, wondrous in life and glorified by art.The first place into which the traveller inevitably drifts, if he attempts to explore the city alone, is the Piazza del Campo, now called, of course, Vittorio Emmanuele, in spite of Dante. This piazza is singularly imposing from its unchanged, mediæval aspect. It slopes away like an amphitheatre, being intended for public games and spectacles; Murray says, like a shell. Yes, a shell that whispers of past storms—of the tempestuous waves that have swept over the city; for it has witnessed many a popular insurrection, many a struggle between the nobles and people. Among the interesting associations we recall the haughty Ghibelline leader, Provenzano Salvani, whose name, as Dante says:“Far and wideThrough Tuscany resounded once; and nowIs in Siena scarce with whispers named.”It was here, when a friend of his, taken prisoner by Charles of Anjou, lay under penalty of death, unless his ransom of a thousand florins in gold should be paid within a certain time, that Provenzano, the first citizen of the republic, the conqueror of Monte Aperti, unable to pay so large a sum, humbled himself so far as to spread a carpet on this piazza, on which he sat down to solicit contributions from the public.“When at his glory’s topmost height,Respect of dignity all cast aside,Freely he fixed him on Siena’s plain,A suitor to redeem his suffering friend,Who languished in the prison-house of Charles;Nor, for his sake, refused through every vein to tremble.”Dante, who meets him in Purgatory, alludes to the grandeur of this act as atoning for his ambition, which“Reached with grasp presumptuous at the swayOf all Siena.”So stanch a friend would seem to have deserved a less terrible fate. On the disastrous day of Colle he was taken by the Florentines, who cut off his head, and carried it around the battle-field, fastened on a lance.On one side of the piazza is the massive Palazzo Pubblico, bristling with battlements. On its front blazes the holy name of Jesus, held up bySt.Bernardin of Siena for the reverence of the whole world. The busy throng beneath looks up in its toilsome round, and goes on, the better for a fleeting thought. Below is a pillar with the wolf of pagan Rome that bore Siena. From this palace rises the beautiful towerdel Mangia, seen far and wide over the whole country, so called from the automaton which used to come forth at mid-day, like the Moor at Venice, to strike the hours. This figure was to the Sienese what Pasquino was to Rome. To it were confided all the epigrams of the city wits; but, alas for them! one day, when it came forth to do its duty, a spring gave way, and it fell to the ground and was dashed in pieces. This tower commands an admirable view. North, the country looks barren, but the slopes of Chianti are celebrated for their wines, and Monte Maggio is covered with forests. South and west, it is fresher and more smiling, but leads to the fatal marshes of Maremma. Santa Fiora, the most productive mountain, annually yields vast quantities of umber. The happy valleys are full of olives and wheat-fields. Fartheroff, to the south, the volcanic summits of Radicofani, associated with Boccaccio’s tales, blacken the horizon. To the east everything is bleak and dreary, the whole landscape of a pale, sickly green.At the foot of the tower is a beautiful votive chapel of the Virgin, built in the fourteenth century after a pestilence which carried off eighty thousand people from Siena and its environs. It is like an open porch resting on sculptured pillars. Over the altar within are statues and a fresco of the Madonna, before which are flowers and lamps burning in the bright sunlight—all open to the air, as if to catch a passing invocation from the lips of those who might otherwise spare no thought, amid their toils, for heaven.Siena is peculiarly the city of Mary. Before the great battle with the Florentines,“That colored Arbia’s flood with crimson stain,”the Sienese solemnly placed their city under the protection of the Virgin, and vowed, if victorious, to regard her as the Sovereign Lady of the land, from whom they would henceforth hold it as her vassals. After their triumph they came to lay their spoils at her feet, and had her painted as Our Lady of Victory, throned like a queen, with the Infant standing on her knee. When Duccio, some years later, finished his Madonna, he wrote beneath it:Mater sancta Dei, sis causa Senis requiei!—Give peace to Siena!—and the painting was transported, amid public rejoicings, to the cathedral. Business was entirely suspended. All the shops were closed. The archbishop, at the head of the clergy and magistrates, accompanied it with a vast procession of people, with lighted tapers in theirhands, as if around a shrine. The trumpets sounded; the bells rang; nothing could equal the enthusiasm. The picture was placed over the high altar of the church.This was during the height of Siena’s grandeur, when the wisdom of its laws corresponded to the depth of its religious sentiments, so that, while most of the Italian republics were ruined by intestine commotions between the nobles and people, Siena had the wisdom to modify its constitution in such a way as to admit the representatives of both parties to the government, and so preserve the vigor of the nation. It was thus she was enabled to extend her dominion and win the great victory of Monte Aperti, in which ten thousand Florentines were left dead on the field.On one side of the piazza is the palace of the Sansedoni, one of the great Ghibelline families belonging to the feudal aristocracy of Siena—a frowning, battlemented palace, with a mutilated tower built by a special privilege in 1215. In it is a chapel in honor of the Beato Ambrogio Sansedoni, a Dominican friar who belonged to this illustrious family. It was he whom Pope ClementIV., after a vain effort to save the unfortunate Conradin of Souabia from death, sent to administer the sacraments and console the young prince in his last moments. Ambrogio distinguished himself as a professor of theology at Paris, Cologne, and Rome.Close beside the Palazzo Buonsignori, one of the finest in the city, is the house said by tradition to have been inhabited by the unhappy Pia de Tolomei, indebted for her celebrity to Dante, rather than to her misfortunes. He meets her in the milder shades of Purgatory, among those who had by violencedied, but who, repenting and forgiving,“Did issue out of life at peace with God.”Her death was caused by the deadly miasmas of “Maremma’s pestilential fen,” to which her cruel husband had banished her.It was a member of the Tolomei family—the Beato Bernardino—who, in the fourteenth century, founded the Olivetan Order. He was previously a professor at the university of Siena, but, being struck blind while discussing some philosophical subject in his lecture-room, he resolved, though he soon recovered his sight, to embrace the religious life; and when he next appeared in his chair, instead of resuming his philosophical discussions, he astonished his audience by insisting on the vanity of all earthly acquirements, and the importance of the only knowledge that can save the soul. Several of his pupils were so impressed by his words that they followed him when he retired to one of the family estates not far from Siena, which he called Monte Oliveto, whence the name of the order. Bernardino fell a victim to his zeal in attending to the sick in the time of a great plague. The convent he founded became a magnificent establishment, with grounds luxuriantly cultivated, a church adorned by the arts, and apartments so numerous that the Emperor CharlesV., and his train of five thousand, all lodged there at once.The Palazzo Bandanelli, where Pope AlexanderIII.was born, is gloomy and massive as a prison, with iron gratings at the arched windows, brick walls black with age, from which project great iron rings, and on the doors immense knockers of wrought iron, madewhen blacksmiths were genuine artists. But, however dismal his birthplace, AlexanderIII.was enlightened in his views. It was in 1167 he declared, in the name of a council, that all Christians ought to be exempted from servitude.To go back to the Piazza del Campo. Before the Sansedoni palace is the Fonte Gaja—so called from the joyful acclamations of the people, when water was brought into the square in 1343. It is surrounded by an oblong basin of white marble, elegantly sculptured by Giacomo della Quercia, to whom was henceforth given the name of Del Fonte.Siena, being on a height, was, from the first, obliged to provide water for its inhabitants at great expense. Aqueducts were constructed in the time of the Romans. But a still grander work was achieved in the middle ages, when water was brought from the neighboring mountains by an aqueduct about twenty miles long, that passed beneath the city, giving rise, perhaps, to the derisive report in Dante’s time that the hill was tunnelled in search of the river Diana:“The fancied streamThey sought, of Dian called.”These vast subterranean works so excited the admiration of CharlesV.that he said Siena was more wonderful below ground than above. Now there are three hundred and fifty-five wells in the city, and eighteen fountains. The deep well in the cloister of the Carmine is called the Pozzo di Diana.The most noted of the fountains is Fonte Branda, whose waters were so famous in Dante’s time for their sweetness and purity that he makes Adamo of Brescia, the coiner of counterfeit money, exclaim, amidthe flames of the Inferno, that to behold the instigators of his crime undergoing a like torture would be sweeter to him than the cool waters of Fonte Branda:“For Branda’s limpid font I would not changeThe welcome sight.”This fountain has also been celebrated by Alfieri, who often came to Siena to visit his friend, Francesco Gori, with whom he remained months at a time. He liked the character of the people, and said, when he went away, that he left a part of his heart behind. And yet Dante, perhaps because a Florentine, accused the Sienese of being light and vain:“Was ever raceLight as Siena’s? Sure, not France herselfCan show a tribe so frivolous and vain.”Formerly, if not still, giddy people in Tuscany were often asked if they had been drinking water from the Fonte Branda, as if that would account for any excess.The Sienese are proud of the fame and antiquity of this fount, which is known to have existed in 1081. It flows at the very bottom of one of the deep ravines which makes Siena so peculiar, between two precipitous hills, one crowned by the Duomo, and the other by the church ofSt.Dominic, and you look from one to the other in silent wonder. The whole quarter is densely populated. The people are called Fontebrandini—mostly, as five centuries ago, tanners, dyers, and fullers, who are reputed to be proud, and are to Siena what the Trasteverini are to Rome. The streets around diverge from a market-place, on one side of which is the fount under a long, open arcade of stone, of immense thickness, built against the hillside. You go down to a paved court, as to somethingsacred, by a flight of steps as wide as the arcade is long. Here are stone seats around, as if to accommodate the gossips of the neighborhood. Three pointed archways, between which lions look out with prey between their outstretched paws, open into the arcade, where flow the waters, gathered from the surrounding hills, by three apertures, into an enormous stone reservoir. The surplus waters pass off into other tanks beyond the arcade, for the use of the workmen of the quarter. Lemon-trees hang over the fount, and grape-vines trail from tree to tree. The steep hillside is covered with bushes and verdure up to the church of San Domenico, which stands stern and majestic, with its crenelated tower amid the olive-trees.An old Sienese romance is connected with the Fonte Branda. Cino da Pistoja, a poet and celebrated professor of jurisprudence at Siena in the fourteenth century, whose death Petrarch laments in a sonnet, promised his daughter, a young lady of uncommon beauty, to any one of his pupils who should best solve a knotty law-question. It was a young man, misshapen in form, to whom the prize was adjudged, and the poor girl, in her horror, threw herself into the Fonte Branda. Her suitor, sensible of the value of the prize, plunged in after her, and not only saved her life, but fortunately succeeded in winning her affections.Turning to the right, and ascending the Costa dei Tintori, you come in a few moments to the house ofSt.Catharine of Siena, once the shop of her father, a dyer, but now a series of oratories and chapels, sanctified by holy memories and adorned by art. It is built of brick, with two arched galleries, one abovethe other, of a later period.Sposæ XPI. Katharinæ Domvsis on the front, with a small head of the saint graven in marble, and another tablet styling her the Seraphic Catharine. Below hang tanned skins, probably for sale. The memories of the place are truly seraphic, but the odors would by no means be considered so by those who do not believe in the dignity and sacredness of labor; for the whole quarter—at least, when we were there—was redolent of tan. Skins hung on all the houses. Tan-cakes for fuel were displayed on shelves for sale at every door. Everybody seemed industrious. There was none of thefar nientewe like to associate with Italy. It was a positive grievance to find great heaps of tan around the Fonte Branda, so poetical to us, because associated with the Divine Poet. But it was still harder to have the same odors follow us to the very house of the seraphicSt.Catharine, the mystic Bride of Christ. Very little change can have taken place during the last five centuries in the neighborhood where bloomed this fair lily of the church, and, in one sense, this is a satisfaction. The house itself is of the most touching interest. There are the stairs Catharine, when a child, used to ascend, with anAveat every step, and over which the legend says she was so often borne by the angels. Everywhere through the passages are the emblematic lily and heart. An oratory has been made of the kitchen which became to Catharine a very sanctuary, instead of a place of low cares, where she served Christ under the form of her father, the Blessed Virgin under that of her mother, and the disciples in the persons of her brothers and sisters. Her father’sBottegahas also beenconverted into an oratory. In the garden where she loved to cultivate the symbolic rose and lily and violet for the altar, is a chapel in which hangs the miraculous crucifix painted by Giunta of Pisa, framed in pillars of black marble, over the altar. Before this crucifix she received the stigmata in the church ofSt.Christina at Pisa. In these various oratories are a profusion of paintings by Sodoma, Vanni, and other eminent artists. Del Pacchia has attained the very perfection of feminine beauty in his painting ofSt.Catharine’s visit to the shrine ofSt.Agnes of Monte Pulciano—a genuine production of Christian inspiration. Salimbeni represents her calm amid the infuriated, ungrateful Florentines after her return from Avignon; and Sebastian Folli, her appearance before GregoryXI.But the most sacred part of the house is her chamber, a little, dark cell about fifteen feet long and eight or nine wide. A bronze door now opens into this sanctuary. Here you are shown the board on which she slept, and other relics of the saint. Here she passed nights in prayer and converse with the angels. Here she scourged her frail body, unconscious that her mother was weeping at the door. Here she wrote the admirable letters so remarkable for their purity and elegance of style. Here took place the divineSposaliziowhich, immortalized by art, we see all over Italy. Here, when calumniated by the repulsive object of her heroic charity, she came to pour out her pure soul, that shrank from the foul accusations, before the heavenly Bridegroom; but when he appeared with two crowns, one of gold set with jewels, and the other of thorns, she unhesitatingly chose the latter, pressing it deep into her head, thusbecoming for all time, in the world of art, the thorn-crowned Catharine. PiusIX., when he visited the house in 1857, prayed long in this cell, where lived five centuries ago the obscure maiden who, for a time, almost guidedSt.Peter’s bark.OnSt.Catharine’s day the house is richly adorned and resplendent with light. The walls are covered with emblems and verses commemorating her life. The altars have on their finest ornaments. The neighboring streets are strewn with flowers and hung with flags. Hangings are at all the windows. A silver statue of the saint is borne into the street by a long procession of clergy and people. The magistrates join thecortège, and they all go winding up to San Domenico with chants, perfumes, and flowers, where a student from the college Tolomei pronounces a eulogy on their illustrious townswoman. When night comes on, the whole hill around Fonte Branda is illuminated, the rosary is said at the foot of the Madonnas, and hymns are sung in honor of the saint.St.Catharine’s life, in which everything transcends the usual laws of nature, has been written by her confessor, the Blessed Raymond of Capua—the life of one saint by another. He was not a credulous man easily led away by fantasies of the imagination, but one of incontestable ability and knowledge, who relates what he witnessed in the soul of whose secrets he was the depositary, who scrutinized every prodigy, but only to give additional splendor to the truth.Raymond was a descendant of Piero della Vigna (the celebrated chancellor of FrederickII.), whose spirit Dante finds imprisoned in “the drear, mystic wood” of the Inferno,and, plucking a limb unwittingly from“The wild thorn of his wretched shade,”to his horror brings forth at once cries and blood. For nineteen years Raymond was general of the Dominican Order. Pope UrbanVI.confided the most delicate and difficult missions to him; called him his eyes, his tongue, his feet, and his hands; held him up to the veneration of princes and people; and would have raised him to the highest dignities but for the opposition of the saint. No one, therefore, could have greater claims to our confidence.Catharine Benincasa was born in 1347. From her earliest years she was a being apart, and favored with divine communications. Uncomprehended at first by those around her, her home became to her a place of trials. Her parents tried to draw her into the world, and she cut off her long, golden hair. They wished her to marry, and she consecrated herself to a higher love. They then subjected her to household labor, but she found peace in its vulgar details. She worked by day. At night she prayed till lost in ecstasy, insensible to everything earthly. She wished to enter the Third Order ofSt.Dominic, but was refused admission because she was too young and beautiful. It was only after an illness that made her unrecognizable that she was received; but she continued, like all the members, an inmate of her father’s house. Her soul was peculiarly alive to the sweet harmonies of nature. She liked to go into the woods, at springtime, to listen to the warbling of the birds and watch the mysterious movements of awakening vegetation. She loved the mountain heights, with their wild melodies of winds andtorrents, as well as the gentle rustling of the air among the leaves, which seemed to her like nature’s whispered prayer. She said, as she looked at the ant, a thought of God had created it. She loved flowers. She had a taste for music, and liked to sing hymns as she sewed. The name of Mary from her lips was said to leave a singular harmony in the ears of her listeners. She sympathized in every kind of misery to aid it; lent a helping hand to every infirmity, and often served in the hospital, choosing those who were abandoned by the rest of the world as the objects of her care. She rose above the wants of the body. From her childhood she never ate meat, the very odor of which became repugnant to her. For years she subsisted from Ash Wednesday till Whitsuntide solely on the Holy Eucharist, which she received every morning. She entered into all the troubles of the times, diffusing everywhere the pure light of divine charity. Though without human instruction, she astonished the doctors of the church by her profound knowledge of theology. “The purest Italian welled from her untutored lips.” She wrote to popes, cardinals, princes, and republics. Some of her letters are to Sir John Hawkwood, or, as the Italians call him, Giovanni Aguto, the ferocious Englishcondottiere, who stained the flag of the church, and then entered the service of her enemies. She takes a foremost rank among the writers of the age—that of Boccaccio, who lacks her touching grace and simplicity.Siena, at the time ofSt.Catharine, was no longer the powerful, united city it had been a century before, but in its turn had become the prey of anarchy and division. The different classes of people were at warwith each other. They proscribed each other; and private hatred took advantage of the disorder to indulge in every kind of revenge. The Macconi were at variance with the Rinaldini; the Salimbeni with the Tolomei; the Malvotti with the Piccolomini.War reigned all over Italy. Milan and all Lombardy were ravaged by the Visconti. Naples was a prey to the excesses caused by Queen Joanna. Florence, that had been devoted to the church, was now governed by the Ghibellines, who went to every extreme against the Guelphs, whose cause, says Dean Milman, “was more (!) than that of the church: it was that of freedom and humanity.” The States of the church were ravaged. Rome itself, widowed and abandoned, “with as many wounds as she had palaces and churches,” as Petrarch says, was in a complete state of anarchy.Amid all these horrorsSt.Catharine moved, an angel of peace. God gave her a wonderful power of appeasing private resentments and calming popular tumults. Inveterate enemies clasped hands under her influence. Veteran warriors, and republics themselves, listened respectfully to her voice. She wrote to Pope GregoryXI.at Avignon, pleading the cause of all Italy, and urging him to return to Rome, where he could overrule the passions that agitated the country, and restore dignity to the Apostolic See. Her heart bled at the sight of so much misery and crime. “Peace! peace!” she wrote to the pope—“peace for the love of a crucified God! Do not regard the ignorance and blindness and pride of your children. You will perhaps say you are bound by conscience to recover what belongs to holy church. Alas! I acknowledge it; but whena choice is to be made, it should be of that which is most valuable. The treasure of the church is the Blood of Christ shed for the redemption of souls. This treasure of blood has not been given for temporal dominion, but for the salvation of the human race. If you are obliged to recover the cities and treasures the church has lost, still more are you bound to win back the souls that are the true riches of the church, which is impoverished by losing them. It is better to let go the gold of temporal than the gold of spiritual wealth. You must choose between two evils—that of losing grandeur, power, and temporal prosperity, and the loss of grace in the souls that owe obedience to your Holiness. You will not restore beauty to the church by the sword, by severity and war, but by peaceful measures. You will combat more successfully with the rod of mercy and kindness than of chastisement. By these means you will recover what belongs to you both spiritually and temporally.”Noble liberty on the part of the dyer’s daughter! And it is to the honor of Pope Gregory that he listened to her with respect. It was time to pour oil on the troubled waters. The proud republic of Florence, after revolting against all spiritual authority, torturing the priests, declaring liberty preferable to salvation, and exciting the papal cities to rebellion, had been laid under an interdict. The people began to feel the disastrous effects on their commerce, and came to solicit Catharine’s intervention with the pope. She went to Avignon, where she made known her mission in a public consistory. “She passed from her father’s shop to the court of princes, from the calmness of solitude to the troubles of factions;and everywhere she was in her place, because she had found in solitude a peace above all the agitations of the world, and a profound charity.”Pope Gregory left her to dictate the terms of peace with the Florentines, though he foresaw their ingratitude. Nay, more: after some hesitation he decided to return to Rome. Nor wasSt.Catharine the only woman that urged him to do so.St.Bridget of Sweden added the influence of her prophetic voice. Ortensia di Gulielmo, one of the best poets of the day, thus begins a sonnet:“Ecco, Signor, la greggia tua d’intornoCinta da lupi a divorla intenti.Ecco tutti gli onor d’Italia spenti,Poiché fa altrove il gran Pastore soggiorno.”[108]Catharine’s return to Siena was celebrated by festive songs:“Thou didst go up to the great temple,Thou didst enter the mighty consistory;The words of thy mouth were full of power;Pope and cardinals were persuaded to depart.Thou didst direct the course of their wings towards the See of Peter. O virgin of Siena! how great is thy praise—soul prompt in movement, energetic in action.”On the tomb of GregoryXI., in the church ofSt.Francesca at Rome,St.Catharine is represented walking before the pope’s mule as he makes his triumphal entrance into the city—a symbol of her guiding influence. From this time she took a prominent part in all the affairs of Italy. But the re-establishment of the papal throne at Rome was her last joy on earth. At the death of Pope Gregory fresh disorders broke out. Catharine’s life slowly wasted away, inwardly consumed, as she declared, for the church. She died in Rome at the age of thirty-three, and lies buriedunder the high altar of the Minerva, surrounded by lamps and flowers. Her countryman, PiusII., canonized her, not only at the request of the magistrates of Siena, but of several of the sovereigns of Europe.Siena boasts of other saints:St.Ansano, the first apostle of the country, beheaded on the banks of the Arbia in the time of Diocletian; Galgano di Lolo, who led an angelic life in the mountains; the founder of Monte Oliveto, whose order sheltered Tasso; Ambrogio Sansedoni, the confessor of Conradin, noted for his eloquence and sanctity;St.Bernardin, on whose breast glows the potent Name; Beata Nera Tolomei, noted for her ascetic charity; the poor Pietro Pettinajo, who devoted himself to the plague-stricken in the hospital della Scala; Aldobrandescha Ponzi, who wished to be crowned with thorns like Christ; the Blessed John Colombini, whose only passion was to be like Jesus; and many more besides. ButSt.Catharine—the heroine of divine love—is the most sublime expression of Sienese piety, and of her is the city especially proud. Her statue was placed by the republic on the front of its glorious cathedral, and she is represented in the gorgeous picture of Pinturicchio in the library, where, as Mrs. Stowe says, “borne in celestial repose and purity amid all the powers and dignitaries of the church, she is canonized as one of those that shall reign and intercede with Christ in heaven.”FromSt.Catharine’s house you go winding up under the mulberry-trees to San Domenico, soon leaving the tops of the houses below you. On the way is the place where Catharine, when a child, coming down the hill one evening withStefano, her favorite brother, turned to look back, and saw the heavens opened above the campanile of the church, and the Great High-Priest seated on a radiant throne, around which stoodSS.Peter, Paul, and John, who seemed with uplifted hands to bless her. Keeping on to the top of the hill, you come to a large green, silent and deserted, before the church. The street that properly leads to it is well named theVia del Paradiso. The church ofSt.Dominic is vast and imposing, though of severe simplicity of style, offering a marked contrast to the richness of the Duomo. It is shaped like the letter T, without aisles or apsis. Rafters support the vault, but at the entrance to the transepts is an enormous arch of singular boldness. There is something broad and expansive about the atmosphere of the church, as often found in the churches of the Dominican Order. Even with a considerable number of worshippers it would seem solitary. In one of its chapels is a Madonna, celebrated in the history of art, long attributed to Guido of Siena, but now proved to be by Guido di Graziano, a contemporary of Cimabue, whose Madonnas it resembles, with its oblique eyes, large head, and a certain angular stiffness. Among other noted paintings is one of Santa Barbara by Matteo da Siena, very beautiful in expression. She sits, crowned by two angels, with a palm in one hand and a tower-like tabernacle in the other, in which the Host is exposed above a chalice.SS.Magdalen and Catharine are at her side.A domed chapel, protected by a balustrade of alabaster, has been built on the east side of the church, in which is enshrined the head ofSt.Catharine—evidently the mostfrequented part of the church, from the numerous seats before it, mostly with coats of arms and carved backs. Framed prayers, as is common in Italy, are chained to aprie-Dieu—one toSt.Catherine with the anthem:Regnum mundi et omnem ornatum sæculi contempsi propter amorem Domini mei Jesu Christi, quem vidi, quem amavi, in quem credidi, quem dilexi. Three lamps were burning before the relics ofSt.Catharine. The walls are covered with exquisite paintings by Sodoma, which were lit up by the morning sun. Nothing could be more lovely thanSt.Catharine swooning at the Saviour’s apparition—a figure full of divine languor, grace, and softness. Two nuns tenderly sustain her. Her stigmata are radiant. An angel bears a lily. The whole painting is delicate, ethereal, and heavenly as a vision. It is on the gospel side of the altar; on the other side she kneels between two nuns with her eyes raised to heaven, where, above the Virgin and Child, appears thePadre Eterno. Angels bear the cross and crown of thorns. Another brings the Host. A death’s head and lily are at her feet. The whole is of wonderful beauty.On the left wall, as you enter the chapel, is painted the execution of a young knight, beheaded at Siena for some slight political offence.St.Catharine went to comfort him in his despair, and induced him to receive the sacraments. She even accompanied him to the block, where his last words were “Jesus” and “Catharine,” leaving her inundated with his blood, but in a state of ecstasy that rendered her insensible to everything but his eternal welfare. The odor of his blood seemed to intoxicate her.She could not resolve to wash it off. She only saw his soul ransomed by the blood of the Lamb, and, in describing her state of mind to her confessor, she cries: “Yes, bathe in the Blood of Christ crucified, feast on this Blood, be inebriated with this Blood, weep in Blood, rejoice in Blood, grow strong in this Blood, then, like an intrepid knight, hasten through this Blood to defend the honor of God, the liberty of the church, and the salvation of souls.” Her letters often begin: “I, Catharine, servant and slave of Jesus Christ, write you in his precious Blood,” as if it was there she derived all her strength and inspiration. In the picture before us nothing could be more peaceful than the face of the young knight just beheaded, whose soul two beautiful angels are bearing to heaven.On the pavement is traced in the marble Adam amid the animals in Paradise, among whom is the unicorn, the ancient emblem of chastity.At the extreme end of the church is the Chapel delle Volte, to which you ascend by six steps. Over the door is this inscription:En locus hic toto sacer | et venerabile orbe,Hic Sponsũ Catharina suum | sanctissima sepe,Vidit ovans Christum | dictu mirabile, sed tuQuisquies ades hic funde | preces venerare beatamStigmata gestantem | Divini insignia amoris;—Behold this place, sacred and venerable among all on earth; here holy Catharine rejoicing often beheld, wondrous to say, the Christ, her spouse. But thou, whosoever approachest, here pour forth thy prayers, to venerate the holy one who bore the sacred stigmata, the insignia of divine love.This chapel, the scene of so many ofSt.Catharine’s mystic visions, is long and narrow, with onewindow. The arches are strewn with gilt stars on a blue ground. The floor is paved with tiles, with tablets here and there. On one, before the altar, are the words:Cathâ. cor mutat XPUS—Christ changes the heart of Catharine; for it was here she underwent that miraculous change of heart which transformed her life. Our Saviour himself appeared to her, surrounded by light, and gave her a new heart, which filled her with ecstatic joy, and inspired a love for all mankind.Over the plain altar is an authentic portrait ofSt.Catharine by the poetic Andrea Vanni, a pupil of Sano di Pietro. He was one of her disciples and correspondents, though aCapitano del Popolo. He painted this portrait in 1367, while she was in an ecstatic state in this very chapel. It represents her with delicate features, a thin, worn face, and must have been a charming picture originally, but it is now greatly deteriorated.On one of the pillars of the chapel is the inscription:Catâ. cruce erogat XPO—Catharine bestows the cross on Christ; referring to the silver cross she one day gave a beggar in this church, which was afterwards shown her set with precious stones. And on another pillar is:Catâ. vesti induit XPUM—Catharine clothes Christ with her garment; in memory of the tunic she here gave our Saviour under the form of a beggar, who showed it to her some hours after, radiant with light and embroidered with pearls—acts of charity full of significance. Three lovely little paintings by Beccafumi, at the Belle Arti, represent the three mystic scenes commemorated in this chapel.In the adjoining convent, now a school-house, lived for a timeSt.Thomas of Aquin and the Blessed Ambrogio Sansedoni, whose tomb is in the cloister. Here, in 1462, was held a chapter of fifteen hundred Dominicans, and here PiusII.blessed the standard of the Crusaders.On our way to the Porta Camollia we turned down at the left, by a steep, paved way, to the church of Fonte Giusta, erected in memory of a victory over the Florentines. It is a small brick church with four small windows, four pillars to which are attached four bronze angels holding four bronze candlesticks, and on the walls hang four paintings of note. One is a beautiful coronation of the Virgin with four saints, by Fungai. Then there is a Visitation by Anselmi, in which two majestic women look into each other’s eyes, as if to fathom each the other’s soul. In an arch of the right aisle is the sibyl of Peruzzi—a noble figure—said to have been studied by Raphael when Agostino Chigi, the famous banker of the Farnesina palace (a Sienese by birth), commissioned him to paint the celebrated sibyls of theDella Paceat Rome—sibyls that have all the grandeur of Michael Angelo, and the grace that Raphael alone could give.But what particularly brought us to this church was to see the Madonna of Fonte Giusta, to which Columbus made a pilgrimage after the discovery of America, and presented his sword, shield (a round one), and a whale’s bone, which are still suspended over the entrance. The Madonna turns her fair, sweet face towards you, while the Child has his eyes turned towards his mother, with his hands crossed on his breast. Both have on silver crowns, and pearls around their necks. The picture is in a frameof cherubs’ heads, surrounded by delicate arabesques. Beneath is the inscription:Hic requies tranquilla,Salus hic dulce levamen:Hic est spes miserisꝕsidiũqreis—Here is tranquil repose; here safety and sweet consolation; here is hope for the wretched, and for the guilty an unfailing refuge.Columbus’ devotion to the Blessed Virgin is well known. It was under her auspices he undertook, in a vessel called by her name, the discovery of a new world. He daily said her office on board ship from a valuable MS. given him by AlexanderVI.before his departure and afterwards bequeathed to Genoa, and theSalve Reginawas sung every evening by his followers.Porta Camollia is not remarkable in an architectural point of view, but it has its sacred associations. It was hereSt.Bernardin of Siena used to come every night, when a boy, to pray before the tutelar Madonna of the gate. His aunt, hearing him speak of going to see the fairest of women, followed him at a distance one night and discovered his secret.The chapel of the Confraternity of San Bernardin is a museum of art. The walls are covered with fine frescoes of the life of the Virgin by Beccafumi, Sodoma, and Pacchia. One of the most beautiful is Sodoma’s “Assumption,” in which Mary—pulchra ut luna—in a mantle like a violet cloud, is borne up to her native heaven by angels full of grace. The apostles, with thoughtful, devout, but not astonished faces, stand around the tomb, out of which rise two tall lilies amid the white roses.St.Thomas lifts his hands to receive the sacred girdle.Everywhere about this chapel isthe sacred monogram so dear to San Bernardin. The holy name of Jesus is inscribed on the front, on the holy-water basin, on the walls; placed there in more devout times, when even genius sought to“Embalm his sacred nameWith all a painter’s art and all a minstrel’s flame.”There are more than sixty churches and chapels at Siena, but perhaps not one without some work of art that is noteworthy. Siena was the cradle of art in the thirteenth century, and has its aureola of artists as well as of saints. The school of Florence only dates from the fourteenth century. Guido da Siena, Bonamico, and Diotisalvi were the glorious precursors of Cimabue, and Simone Memmi, a century later, shared with Giotto the friendship and admiration of Petrarch.“Ma certò il mio Simon fû in Paradiso.”The old Sienese artists were profoundly religious. In their statutes of 1355 they say: “We, by the grace of God, make manifest to rude and ignorant men the miraculous events operated by virtue, and in confirmation, of our holy faith.” The efflorescence of the arts is one of the expressions of a profound faith. We have only to visit the galleries of Italy, filled with the sad spoils of numberless churches and convents, to be convinced of this. And there is not a tomb of a saint of the middle ages out of which does not bloom some flower of art, fair as the lilies that spring from the sepulchre of the Virgin. What wreaths of art entwine the tombs ofSt.Francis,St.Dominic, andSt.Antony of Padua!The collection of paintings at the Academy of Siena is very interesting. Here Beccafumi representsSt.Catharine receiving the stigmata. She is in soft, gray robes, with a lovely face, kneeling before a crucifix under an archway, through which you see the landscape. A dead, thorny tree is behind her. By way of contrast to her beauty and grace is the austereSt.Jerome, haggard and worn, with his lion, before one of the pillars of the arch. At the other is a Dominican in black and white garments. Above are the Madonna and Child attended by angels. The whole picture is very soft and charming.Sodoma has also here aSt.Catharine with a delicate, thoughtful face, and a crucifix in her pierced hands.Perhaps the most striking picture in the gallery is Sodoma’s “Christ Bound,” which is wonderful in expression. The face and form are very human and of grand development. From under the crown of thorns flows the long, amber hair. The eyes are sad, inexpressibly sad, and the bleeding form is infinitely pathetic. “It is a thing to stand and weep at,” says Hawthorne.“I suffer binding who have loosed their bands.Was ever grief like mine?”Sodoma’s “Judith,” in a blue dress and orange mantle, stands beside a leafless tree, holding up the bloody knife with one hand, and the head of Holofernes with the other. She has a gleaming jewel on her forehead, though the old rabbis represent her with a wreath of lilies, believed by the ancients to be a protection against witchcraft and peril.The university of Siena existed in the thirteenth century. Among its noted members was Cisto da Siena, a Jew, who became a Catholic and a monk, and finally a Calvinist. Condemned to death for his apostasy, he was indebted for his lifeto the friendship of Pope JuliusIII.and Cardinal Ghislieri, afterwards PiusV.M.Taine speaks of the deplorable ignorance of the present Sienese, and says there is no library, not a book, in the place.[109]As he seems, by his journal, to have been there only two days, he probably, like many travellers, noted down his preconceived opinion. The library of Siena, one of the oldest in Italy, has always been famous. It was founded by Niccolo Oliva, an Augustinian friar, and contains fifty thousand volumes—a respectable number for an inland town. About seven hundred belong to the very first age of printing. There are also five thousand manuscripts, among which are a Greek Gospel of the tenth century that came from the imperial chapel at Constantinople, bound in silver, and many other rareMSS.and documents, such as the original will (in Latin) of Boccaccio, and autograph writings of Metastasio,St.Catharine, andSt.Bernardin.Siena has several charitable institutions. The asylum for deaf mutes, founded by Padre Pendola is spacious and agreeable. The great hospital della Scala, opposite the cathedral, founded by Fra Sorore, is one of the most ancient in Italy. It is vast and sunny, with a fine view over the valley around Siena. Its atmosphere is thoroughly religious, with its walls frescoed by the old masters, its numerous altars and religious emblems.St.Catharine used to come here to attend the sick. It is now served by Sisters of Charity.It is dreadful to say, but the first glimpse we had of the Duomo, with its striped wall of black and whitemarble, reminded us of good old Sarah Battles—“now with God”—and her cribbage-board, which Charles Lamb tells us was made of the finest Sienese marble, and brought by her uncle from Italy. But on coming nearer to it every trivial thought vanishes before its grandeur and expressive richness of detail. The impression it makes on the mind is so profound, M. Taine says, that “what we feel on enteringSt.Peter’s at Rome cannot be compared to it.” He calls it “a most admirable Gothic flower, but of a new species that has blossomed in a more propitious clime, the production of minds of greater cultivation and genius, more serene, more beautiful, more religious, and yet healthy; and which is to the cathedrals of France what the poems of Dante and Petrarch are to thechansonsof the Frenchtrouvères.”On the pavement before the entrance is represented the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican who went up into the Temple to pray—a lesson to ponder over as we enter the house of prayer. The façade is of marvellous workmanship. Amid angels and prophets and symbolic sculpture, delicate as lace-work, areSt.Ansano,St.Catharine, and San Bernardin—the special patrons of Siena. On entering the church you are at first dazzled by its richness. The pavement is unrivalled in the world, with its pictures in niello, by an art now lost, where we find page after page from the Scriptures, some written by the powerful hand of Beccafumi, whose cartoons are to be seen at the Belle Arti; sibyls noble as goddesses; Trismegistus, who received his knowledge from Zoroaster, offering the Pimandra in which is written: “The God whocreated all things, the maker of the earth and starry heavens, so greatly loved his Son that he made him his Holy Word”; and Socrates climbing the mountain of Virtue, who sits on its summit, holding forth a palm to him, while with the other hand she offers the book of wisdom to Crates, who empties a casket of jewels to receive it. The walls are covered with paintings, by Duccio, of twenty-six scenes of the Passion, full of life and power, dramatic and yet strictly Scriptural, forming a book one is never weary of studying as Christian or artist. The stalls by Fra Giovanni, the Olivetan monk, are the very perfection of intarsia work, which here, as Marchese says, “almost rises to the dignity of painting.” The wondrous pulpit, with its nine columns resting on lions, its sides covered with scenes from the life of Christ by Nicholas of Pisa, and the seven sciences on the central octagonal pillar, is a prodigy of richness and elegance.The frieze around the nave is adorned with the heads of the popes down to AlexanderIII.Among these, strange to say, was once Pope Joan, such hold had that popular error on the public mind. It was Florimond de Raymond, a counsellor of the parliament of Bordeaux, and a friend of Montaigne and Justus Lipsius, who, in the sixteenth century, protested against such an insult to the Papacy, and by his efforts had it effaced. He wrote to the Sovereign Pontiff himself: “Avenge the injury done to your predecessors. Order this monster to be removed from the place where Satan, the father of lies, has had it set up. Do not suffer an image to remain of that which never existed. If there was no body, let there be no shadow”; and he calls upon the pope to destroythis idol, raised to the disgrace of the church. Besides this, he wrote a book, now rare, completely exploding the fable, showing by incontestable documents there was not the least place for Joan in the succession of popes. This work, together with his appeal, produced such an effect as to procure the removal of her portrait from the cathedral of Siena. The illustrious Cardinal Baronius wrote to him in 1600 that it had just been removed by order of the Grand Duke of Tuscany according to his wishes, and he congratulated him in magnificent terms on such a triumph.On an altar in the left nave is the crucifix borne by the Sienese at the battle of Monte Aperti, and beneath the arches are still suspended, after so many centuries, the long flag-poles captured from the Florentines Sept. 4, 1260, the most glorious day in the history of Siena.At the right is the chapel of the Madonna del Voto, built by AlexanderVII., a Sienese pope (Fabio Chigi), with its Byzantine-looking Virgin amid paintings, bronzes, mosaics, and precious stones.The family of Piccolomini is glorified in this church. To it belongedthe great Æneas Silvius, as well as PiusIII., also a lover of the arts, and Ascanio Piccolomini, Archbishop of Siena, a friend of Galileo, to whom he gave hospitality when he came forth from what people are pleased to call the dungeons of the Inquisition at Rome—that is, from pleasant apartments in the delightful palace of the Tuscan ambassador on the Trinità de’ Monti, now the French Academy. The Piccolomini chapel has five statues sculptured by Michael Angelo, and the beautiful hall, known as the Library, is world-famous for its frescoes of the life of PiusII.by Pinturicchio.The whole church is a temple of art, with its sculptured altar, its bronze tabernacle, its rare paintings, its beautiful pillars of differently-colored marbles, and its rich windows of stained glass. Nothing could be more serene and calm than the atmosphere of this glorious church. Amid the sacred silence, the struggling light, with the grandest symbols of religion on every side, you feel lifted for a moment out of your own mean imprisonments into a very heaven of art and piety.[108]Behold, O Lord! thy flock surrounded by wolves eager to devour it. Behold all the honor of Italy spent, because its Chief Pastor sojourns in a foreign land.[109]“Point de bibliothèque: aucun livre,” are his words.

Cor magis Sena pandit.

Therailway from Empoli to the south passes through a rough, hilly country, following its sinuosities, spanning the valleys on gigantic arches, or plunging through the tunnelled mountains. One tunnel is a mile long—through the hill of San Dalmazzo; and when you issue from it, you see before you another hill, on which rises, stage after stage, the strange, mediæval city of Siena, to the height of nearly a thousand feet above the level of the sea. It was rather a disappointment not to enter it, as carriages from Florence do, by the celebrated Porta Camollia, where the traveller is greeted by the cordial inscription,Cor magis Sena pandit—Siena opens her gates even more willingly than her heart—testifying to the hospitable character of the inhabitants. The city is built on three hills, with deep ravines between them. These hills are crossed by three main streets, meeting at the Piazza del Campo, around which the city radiates like a star. There is scarcely a level spot in the whole place. Even the central square descends like the hollow of a cone. Nothing could be more favorable to the picturesque. The old brick walls of the thirteenth century, with their fortifications and thirty-eight gate-ways, go straggling up the heights. Narrow, lane-like streets, inaccessible to carriages, rush headlong down into deep ravines, sometimes through gloomy arches, the very houses clinging to the steep sides with a giddy, top-heavy air. On one of these three hills standsthe cathedral, with its lofty arches and magnificent dome, a marvel of art, full of statues and bronzes, carvings and mosaics. On another is the enormous brick church of San Domenico, for ever associated with the divine raptures ofSt.Catharine of Siena. Palaces, as well as churches, adorn all the heights—palaces grim and time-worn, that bear old, historic names, famed in the great contests between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, in which live, secluded in their own dim halls, the aristocratic owners, keeping up their ancient customs, proud as the imperial Ghibellines or lordly Guelphs from whom they sprang. Amid all the towers, and domes, and palaces, rises, from the central square, light and slender, the tall, arrow-like Torre del Mangia, which shoots up to a prodigious height into the sapphire sky, crowned with battlements, as if to defend the city against the spirits of the air.

Yes, Siena is singularly picturesque and striking as no other city in Italy is, but sad and melancholy with its recollections of past grandeur. It cannot forget the time when it sent forth its legions to triumph over the Florentines, and had two hundred thousand inhabitants. Now it has only about a tenth of that number. Once it was great in war. It was a leader in art. Eight popes sprang from its territory, among whom were PiusII., the poet, diplomatist, and lover of art, from the Piccolomini family; the great Hildebrand, so prominent in the history of the church; andAlexanderIII., who deposed Frederick Barbarossa, and gave his name to a city—styled by Voltaire himself the benefactor of the human race. And like so many stars that blaze in the heaven of the Italian Church—nay, the church universal—are the Sienese saints, wondrous in life and glorified by art.

The first place into which the traveller inevitably drifts, if he attempts to explore the city alone, is the Piazza del Campo, now called, of course, Vittorio Emmanuele, in spite of Dante. This piazza is singularly imposing from its unchanged, mediæval aspect. It slopes away like an amphitheatre, being intended for public games and spectacles; Murray says, like a shell. Yes, a shell that whispers of past storms—of the tempestuous waves that have swept over the city; for it has witnessed many a popular insurrection, many a struggle between the nobles and people. Among the interesting associations we recall the haughty Ghibelline leader, Provenzano Salvani, whose name, as Dante says:

“Far and wideThrough Tuscany resounded once; and nowIs in Siena scarce with whispers named.”

“Far and wideThrough Tuscany resounded once; and nowIs in Siena scarce with whispers named.”

“Far and wide

Through Tuscany resounded once; and now

Is in Siena scarce with whispers named.”

It was here, when a friend of his, taken prisoner by Charles of Anjou, lay under penalty of death, unless his ransom of a thousand florins in gold should be paid within a certain time, that Provenzano, the first citizen of the republic, the conqueror of Monte Aperti, unable to pay so large a sum, humbled himself so far as to spread a carpet on this piazza, on which he sat down to solicit contributions from the public.

“When at his glory’s topmost height,Respect of dignity all cast aside,Freely he fixed him on Siena’s plain,A suitor to redeem his suffering friend,Who languished in the prison-house of Charles;Nor, for his sake, refused through every vein to tremble.”

“When at his glory’s topmost height,Respect of dignity all cast aside,Freely he fixed him on Siena’s plain,A suitor to redeem his suffering friend,Who languished in the prison-house of Charles;Nor, for his sake, refused through every vein to tremble.”

“When at his glory’s topmost height,

Respect of dignity all cast aside,

Freely he fixed him on Siena’s plain,

A suitor to redeem his suffering friend,

Who languished in the prison-house of Charles;

Nor, for his sake, refused through every vein to tremble.”

Dante, who meets him in Purgatory, alludes to the grandeur of this act as atoning for his ambition, which

“Reached with grasp presumptuous at the swayOf all Siena.”

“Reached with grasp presumptuous at the swayOf all Siena.”

“Reached with grasp presumptuous at the sway

Of all Siena.”

So stanch a friend would seem to have deserved a less terrible fate. On the disastrous day of Colle he was taken by the Florentines, who cut off his head, and carried it around the battle-field, fastened on a lance.

On one side of the piazza is the massive Palazzo Pubblico, bristling with battlements. On its front blazes the holy name of Jesus, held up bySt.Bernardin of Siena for the reverence of the whole world. The busy throng beneath looks up in its toilsome round, and goes on, the better for a fleeting thought. Below is a pillar with the wolf of pagan Rome that bore Siena. From this palace rises the beautiful towerdel Mangia, seen far and wide over the whole country, so called from the automaton which used to come forth at mid-day, like the Moor at Venice, to strike the hours. This figure was to the Sienese what Pasquino was to Rome. To it were confided all the epigrams of the city wits; but, alas for them! one day, when it came forth to do its duty, a spring gave way, and it fell to the ground and was dashed in pieces. This tower commands an admirable view. North, the country looks barren, but the slopes of Chianti are celebrated for their wines, and Monte Maggio is covered with forests. South and west, it is fresher and more smiling, but leads to the fatal marshes of Maremma. Santa Fiora, the most productive mountain, annually yields vast quantities of umber. The happy valleys are full of olives and wheat-fields. Fartheroff, to the south, the volcanic summits of Radicofani, associated with Boccaccio’s tales, blacken the horizon. To the east everything is bleak and dreary, the whole landscape of a pale, sickly green.

At the foot of the tower is a beautiful votive chapel of the Virgin, built in the fourteenth century after a pestilence which carried off eighty thousand people from Siena and its environs. It is like an open porch resting on sculptured pillars. Over the altar within are statues and a fresco of the Madonna, before which are flowers and lamps burning in the bright sunlight—all open to the air, as if to catch a passing invocation from the lips of those who might otherwise spare no thought, amid their toils, for heaven.

Siena is peculiarly the city of Mary. Before the great battle with the Florentines,

“That colored Arbia’s flood with crimson stain,”

“That colored Arbia’s flood with crimson stain,”

“That colored Arbia’s flood with crimson stain,”

the Sienese solemnly placed their city under the protection of the Virgin, and vowed, if victorious, to regard her as the Sovereign Lady of the land, from whom they would henceforth hold it as her vassals. After their triumph they came to lay their spoils at her feet, and had her painted as Our Lady of Victory, throned like a queen, with the Infant standing on her knee. When Duccio, some years later, finished his Madonna, he wrote beneath it:Mater sancta Dei, sis causa Senis requiei!—Give peace to Siena!—and the painting was transported, amid public rejoicings, to the cathedral. Business was entirely suspended. All the shops were closed. The archbishop, at the head of the clergy and magistrates, accompanied it with a vast procession of people, with lighted tapers in theirhands, as if around a shrine. The trumpets sounded; the bells rang; nothing could equal the enthusiasm. The picture was placed over the high altar of the church.

This was during the height of Siena’s grandeur, when the wisdom of its laws corresponded to the depth of its religious sentiments, so that, while most of the Italian republics were ruined by intestine commotions between the nobles and people, Siena had the wisdom to modify its constitution in such a way as to admit the representatives of both parties to the government, and so preserve the vigor of the nation. It was thus she was enabled to extend her dominion and win the great victory of Monte Aperti, in which ten thousand Florentines were left dead on the field.

On one side of the piazza is the palace of the Sansedoni, one of the great Ghibelline families belonging to the feudal aristocracy of Siena—a frowning, battlemented palace, with a mutilated tower built by a special privilege in 1215. In it is a chapel in honor of the Beato Ambrogio Sansedoni, a Dominican friar who belonged to this illustrious family. It was he whom Pope ClementIV., after a vain effort to save the unfortunate Conradin of Souabia from death, sent to administer the sacraments and console the young prince in his last moments. Ambrogio distinguished himself as a professor of theology at Paris, Cologne, and Rome.

Close beside the Palazzo Buonsignori, one of the finest in the city, is the house said by tradition to have been inhabited by the unhappy Pia de Tolomei, indebted for her celebrity to Dante, rather than to her misfortunes. He meets her in the milder shades of Purgatory, among those who had by violencedied, but who, repenting and forgiving,

“Did issue out of life at peace with God.”

“Did issue out of life at peace with God.”

“Did issue out of life at peace with God.”

Her death was caused by the deadly miasmas of “Maremma’s pestilential fen,” to which her cruel husband had banished her.

It was a member of the Tolomei family—the Beato Bernardino—who, in the fourteenth century, founded the Olivetan Order. He was previously a professor at the university of Siena, but, being struck blind while discussing some philosophical subject in his lecture-room, he resolved, though he soon recovered his sight, to embrace the religious life; and when he next appeared in his chair, instead of resuming his philosophical discussions, he astonished his audience by insisting on the vanity of all earthly acquirements, and the importance of the only knowledge that can save the soul. Several of his pupils were so impressed by his words that they followed him when he retired to one of the family estates not far from Siena, which he called Monte Oliveto, whence the name of the order. Bernardino fell a victim to his zeal in attending to the sick in the time of a great plague. The convent he founded became a magnificent establishment, with grounds luxuriantly cultivated, a church adorned by the arts, and apartments so numerous that the Emperor CharlesV., and his train of five thousand, all lodged there at once.

The Palazzo Bandanelli, where Pope AlexanderIII.was born, is gloomy and massive as a prison, with iron gratings at the arched windows, brick walls black with age, from which project great iron rings, and on the doors immense knockers of wrought iron, madewhen blacksmiths were genuine artists. But, however dismal his birthplace, AlexanderIII.was enlightened in his views. It was in 1167 he declared, in the name of a council, that all Christians ought to be exempted from servitude.

To go back to the Piazza del Campo. Before the Sansedoni palace is the Fonte Gaja—so called from the joyful acclamations of the people, when water was brought into the square in 1343. It is surrounded by an oblong basin of white marble, elegantly sculptured by Giacomo della Quercia, to whom was henceforth given the name of Del Fonte.

Siena, being on a height, was, from the first, obliged to provide water for its inhabitants at great expense. Aqueducts were constructed in the time of the Romans. But a still grander work was achieved in the middle ages, when water was brought from the neighboring mountains by an aqueduct about twenty miles long, that passed beneath the city, giving rise, perhaps, to the derisive report in Dante’s time that the hill was tunnelled in search of the river Diana:

“The fancied streamThey sought, of Dian called.”

“The fancied streamThey sought, of Dian called.”

“The fancied stream

They sought, of Dian called.”

These vast subterranean works so excited the admiration of CharlesV.that he said Siena was more wonderful below ground than above. Now there are three hundred and fifty-five wells in the city, and eighteen fountains. The deep well in the cloister of the Carmine is called the Pozzo di Diana.

The most noted of the fountains is Fonte Branda, whose waters were so famous in Dante’s time for their sweetness and purity that he makes Adamo of Brescia, the coiner of counterfeit money, exclaim, amidthe flames of the Inferno, that to behold the instigators of his crime undergoing a like torture would be sweeter to him than the cool waters of Fonte Branda:

“For Branda’s limpid font I would not changeThe welcome sight.”

“For Branda’s limpid font I would not changeThe welcome sight.”

“For Branda’s limpid font I would not change

The welcome sight.”

This fountain has also been celebrated by Alfieri, who often came to Siena to visit his friend, Francesco Gori, with whom he remained months at a time. He liked the character of the people, and said, when he went away, that he left a part of his heart behind. And yet Dante, perhaps because a Florentine, accused the Sienese of being light and vain:

“Was ever raceLight as Siena’s? Sure, not France herselfCan show a tribe so frivolous and vain.”

“Was ever raceLight as Siena’s? Sure, not France herselfCan show a tribe so frivolous and vain.”

“Was ever race

Light as Siena’s? Sure, not France herself

Can show a tribe so frivolous and vain.”

Formerly, if not still, giddy people in Tuscany were often asked if they had been drinking water from the Fonte Branda, as if that would account for any excess.

The Sienese are proud of the fame and antiquity of this fount, which is known to have existed in 1081. It flows at the very bottom of one of the deep ravines which makes Siena so peculiar, between two precipitous hills, one crowned by the Duomo, and the other by the church ofSt.Dominic, and you look from one to the other in silent wonder. The whole quarter is densely populated. The people are called Fontebrandini—mostly, as five centuries ago, tanners, dyers, and fullers, who are reputed to be proud, and are to Siena what the Trasteverini are to Rome. The streets around diverge from a market-place, on one side of which is the fount under a long, open arcade of stone, of immense thickness, built against the hillside. You go down to a paved court, as to somethingsacred, by a flight of steps as wide as the arcade is long. Here are stone seats around, as if to accommodate the gossips of the neighborhood. Three pointed archways, between which lions look out with prey between their outstretched paws, open into the arcade, where flow the waters, gathered from the surrounding hills, by three apertures, into an enormous stone reservoir. The surplus waters pass off into other tanks beyond the arcade, for the use of the workmen of the quarter. Lemon-trees hang over the fount, and grape-vines trail from tree to tree. The steep hillside is covered with bushes and verdure up to the church of San Domenico, which stands stern and majestic, with its crenelated tower amid the olive-trees.

An old Sienese romance is connected with the Fonte Branda. Cino da Pistoja, a poet and celebrated professor of jurisprudence at Siena in the fourteenth century, whose death Petrarch laments in a sonnet, promised his daughter, a young lady of uncommon beauty, to any one of his pupils who should best solve a knotty law-question. It was a young man, misshapen in form, to whom the prize was adjudged, and the poor girl, in her horror, threw herself into the Fonte Branda. Her suitor, sensible of the value of the prize, plunged in after her, and not only saved her life, but fortunately succeeded in winning her affections.

Turning to the right, and ascending the Costa dei Tintori, you come in a few moments to the house ofSt.Catharine of Siena, once the shop of her father, a dyer, but now a series of oratories and chapels, sanctified by holy memories and adorned by art. It is built of brick, with two arched galleries, one abovethe other, of a later period.Sposæ XPI. Katharinæ Domvsis on the front, with a small head of the saint graven in marble, and another tablet styling her the Seraphic Catharine. Below hang tanned skins, probably for sale. The memories of the place are truly seraphic, but the odors would by no means be considered so by those who do not believe in the dignity and sacredness of labor; for the whole quarter—at least, when we were there—was redolent of tan. Skins hung on all the houses. Tan-cakes for fuel were displayed on shelves for sale at every door. Everybody seemed industrious. There was none of thefar nientewe like to associate with Italy. It was a positive grievance to find great heaps of tan around the Fonte Branda, so poetical to us, because associated with the Divine Poet. But it was still harder to have the same odors follow us to the very house of the seraphicSt.Catharine, the mystic Bride of Christ. Very little change can have taken place during the last five centuries in the neighborhood where bloomed this fair lily of the church, and, in one sense, this is a satisfaction. The house itself is of the most touching interest. There are the stairs Catharine, when a child, used to ascend, with anAveat every step, and over which the legend says she was so often borne by the angels. Everywhere through the passages are the emblematic lily and heart. An oratory has been made of the kitchen which became to Catharine a very sanctuary, instead of a place of low cares, where she served Christ under the form of her father, the Blessed Virgin under that of her mother, and the disciples in the persons of her brothers and sisters. Her father’sBottegahas also beenconverted into an oratory. In the garden where she loved to cultivate the symbolic rose and lily and violet for the altar, is a chapel in which hangs the miraculous crucifix painted by Giunta of Pisa, framed in pillars of black marble, over the altar. Before this crucifix she received the stigmata in the church ofSt.Christina at Pisa. In these various oratories are a profusion of paintings by Sodoma, Vanni, and other eminent artists. Del Pacchia has attained the very perfection of feminine beauty in his painting ofSt.Catharine’s visit to the shrine ofSt.Agnes of Monte Pulciano—a genuine production of Christian inspiration. Salimbeni represents her calm amid the infuriated, ungrateful Florentines after her return from Avignon; and Sebastian Folli, her appearance before GregoryXI.

But the most sacred part of the house is her chamber, a little, dark cell about fifteen feet long and eight or nine wide. A bronze door now opens into this sanctuary. Here you are shown the board on which she slept, and other relics of the saint. Here she passed nights in prayer and converse with the angels. Here she scourged her frail body, unconscious that her mother was weeping at the door. Here she wrote the admirable letters so remarkable for their purity and elegance of style. Here took place the divineSposaliziowhich, immortalized by art, we see all over Italy. Here, when calumniated by the repulsive object of her heroic charity, she came to pour out her pure soul, that shrank from the foul accusations, before the heavenly Bridegroom; but when he appeared with two crowns, one of gold set with jewels, and the other of thorns, she unhesitatingly chose the latter, pressing it deep into her head, thusbecoming for all time, in the world of art, the thorn-crowned Catharine. PiusIX., when he visited the house in 1857, prayed long in this cell, where lived five centuries ago the obscure maiden who, for a time, almost guidedSt.Peter’s bark.

OnSt.Catharine’s day the house is richly adorned and resplendent with light. The walls are covered with emblems and verses commemorating her life. The altars have on their finest ornaments. The neighboring streets are strewn with flowers and hung with flags. Hangings are at all the windows. A silver statue of the saint is borne into the street by a long procession of clergy and people. The magistrates join thecortège, and they all go winding up to San Domenico with chants, perfumes, and flowers, where a student from the college Tolomei pronounces a eulogy on their illustrious townswoman. When night comes on, the whole hill around Fonte Branda is illuminated, the rosary is said at the foot of the Madonnas, and hymns are sung in honor of the saint.

St.Catharine’s life, in which everything transcends the usual laws of nature, has been written by her confessor, the Blessed Raymond of Capua—the life of one saint by another. He was not a credulous man easily led away by fantasies of the imagination, but one of incontestable ability and knowledge, who relates what he witnessed in the soul of whose secrets he was the depositary, who scrutinized every prodigy, but only to give additional splendor to the truth.

Raymond was a descendant of Piero della Vigna (the celebrated chancellor of FrederickII.), whose spirit Dante finds imprisoned in “the drear, mystic wood” of the Inferno,and, plucking a limb unwittingly from

“The wild thorn of his wretched shade,”

“The wild thorn of his wretched shade,”

“The wild thorn of his wretched shade,”

to his horror brings forth at once cries and blood. For nineteen years Raymond was general of the Dominican Order. Pope UrbanVI.confided the most delicate and difficult missions to him; called him his eyes, his tongue, his feet, and his hands; held him up to the veneration of princes and people; and would have raised him to the highest dignities but for the opposition of the saint. No one, therefore, could have greater claims to our confidence.

Catharine Benincasa was born in 1347. From her earliest years she was a being apart, and favored with divine communications. Uncomprehended at first by those around her, her home became to her a place of trials. Her parents tried to draw her into the world, and she cut off her long, golden hair. They wished her to marry, and she consecrated herself to a higher love. They then subjected her to household labor, but she found peace in its vulgar details. She worked by day. At night she prayed till lost in ecstasy, insensible to everything earthly. She wished to enter the Third Order ofSt.Dominic, but was refused admission because she was too young and beautiful. It was only after an illness that made her unrecognizable that she was received; but she continued, like all the members, an inmate of her father’s house. Her soul was peculiarly alive to the sweet harmonies of nature. She liked to go into the woods, at springtime, to listen to the warbling of the birds and watch the mysterious movements of awakening vegetation. She loved the mountain heights, with their wild melodies of winds andtorrents, as well as the gentle rustling of the air among the leaves, which seemed to her like nature’s whispered prayer. She said, as she looked at the ant, a thought of God had created it. She loved flowers. She had a taste for music, and liked to sing hymns as she sewed. The name of Mary from her lips was said to leave a singular harmony in the ears of her listeners. She sympathized in every kind of misery to aid it; lent a helping hand to every infirmity, and often served in the hospital, choosing those who were abandoned by the rest of the world as the objects of her care. She rose above the wants of the body. From her childhood she never ate meat, the very odor of which became repugnant to her. For years she subsisted from Ash Wednesday till Whitsuntide solely on the Holy Eucharist, which she received every morning. She entered into all the troubles of the times, diffusing everywhere the pure light of divine charity. Though without human instruction, she astonished the doctors of the church by her profound knowledge of theology. “The purest Italian welled from her untutored lips.” She wrote to popes, cardinals, princes, and republics. Some of her letters are to Sir John Hawkwood, or, as the Italians call him, Giovanni Aguto, the ferocious Englishcondottiere, who stained the flag of the church, and then entered the service of her enemies. She takes a foremost rank among the writers of the age—that of Boccaccio, who lacks her touching grace and simplicity.

Siena, at the time ofSt.Catharine, was no longer the powerful, united city it had been a century before, but in its turn had become the prey of anarchy and division. The different classes of people were at warwith each other. They proscribed each other; and private hatred took advantage of the disorder to indulge in every kind of revenge. The Macconi were at variance with the Rinaldini; the Salimbeni with the Tolomei; the Malvotti with the Piccolomini.

War reigned all over Italy. Milan and all Lombardy were ravaged by the Visconti. Naples was a prey to the excesses caused by Queen Joanna. Florence, that had been devoted to the church, was now governed by the Ghibellines, who went to every extreme against the Guelphs, whose cause, says Dean Milman, “was more (!) than that of the church: it was that of freedom and humanity.” The States of the church were ravaged. Rome itself, widowed and abandoned, “with as many wounds as she had palaces and churches,” as Petrarch says, was in a complete state of anarchy.

Amid all these horrorsSt.Catharine moved, an angel of peace. God gave her a wonderful power of appeasing private resentments and calming popular tumults. Inveterate enemies clasped hands under her influence. Veteran warriors, and republics themselves, listened respectfully to her voice. She wrote to Pope GregoryXI.at Avignon, pleading the cause of all Italy, and urging him to return to Rome, where he could overrule the passions that agitated the country, and restore dignity to the Apostolic See. Her heart bled at the sight of so much misery and crime. “Peace! peace!” she wrote to the pope—“peace for the love of a crucified God! Do not regard the ignorance and blindness and pride of your children. You will perhaps say you are bound by conscience to recover what belongs to holy church. Alas! I acknowledge it; but whena choice is to be made, it should be of that which is most valuable. The treasure of the church is the Blood of Christ shed for the redemption of souls. This treasure of blood has not been given for temporal dominion, but for the salvation of the human race. If you are obliged to recover the cities and treasures the church has lost, still more are you bound to win back the souls that are the true riches of the church, which is impoverished by losing them. It is better to let go the gold of temporal than the gold of spiritual wealth. You must choose between two evils—that of losing grandeur, power, and temporal prosperity, and the loss of grace in the souls that owe obedience to your Holiness. You will not restore beauty to the church by the sword, by severity and war, but by peaceful measures. You will combat more successfully with the rod of mercy and kindness than of chastisement. By these means you will recover what belongs to you both spiritually and temporally.”

Noble liberty on the part of the dyer’s daughter! And it is to the honor of Pope Gregory that he listened to her with respect. It was time to pour oil on the troubled waters. The proud republic of Florence, after revolting against all spiritual authority, torturing the priests, declaring liberty preferable to salvation, and exciting the papal cities to rebellion, had been laid under an interdict. The people began to feel the disastrous effects on their commerce, and came to solicit Catharine’s intervention with the pope. She went to Avignon, where she made known her mission in a public consistory. “She passed from her father’s shop to the court of princes, from the calmness of solitude to the troubles of factions;and everywhere she was in her place, because she had found in solitude a peace above all the agitations of the world, and a profound charity.”

Pope Gregory left her to dictate the terms of peace with the Florentines, though he foresaw their ingratitude. Nay, more: after some hesitation he decided to return to Rome. Nor wasSt.Catharine the only woman that urged him to do so.St.Bridget of Sweden added the influence of her prophetic voice. Ortensia di Gulielmo, one of the best poets of the day, thus begins a sonnet:

“Ecco, Signor, la greggia tua d’intornoCinta da lupi a divorla intenti.Ecco tutti gli onor d’Italia spenti,Poiché fa altrove il gran Pastore soggiorno.”[108]

“Ecco, Signor, la greggia tua d’intornoCinta da lupi a divorla intenti.Ecco tutti gli onor d’Italia spenti,Poiché fa altrove il gran Pastore soggiorno.”[108]

“Ecco, Signor, la greggia tua d’intorno

Cinta da lupi a divorla intenti.

Ecco tutti gli onor d’Italia spenti,

Poiché fa altrove il gran Pastore soggiorno.”[108]

Catharine’s return to Siena was celebrated by festive songs:

“Thou didst go up to the great temple,Thou didst enter the mighty consistory;The words of thy mouth were full of power;Pope and cardinals were persuaded to depart.Thou didst direct the course of their wings towards the See of Peter. O virgin of Siena! how great is thy praise—soul prompt in movement, energetic in action.”

“Thou didst go up to the great temple,Thou didst enter the mighty consistory;The words of thy mouth were full of power;Pope and cardinals were persuaded to depart.Thou didst direct the course of their wings towards the See of Peter. O virgin of Siena! how great is thy praise—soul prompt in movement, energetic in action.”

“Thou didst go up to the great temple,

Thou didst enter the mighty consistory;

The words of thy mouth were full of power;

Pope and cardinals were persuaded to depart.

Thou didst direct the course of their wings towards the See of Peter. O virgin of Siena! how great is thy praise—soul prompt in movement, energetic in action.”

On the tomb of GregoryXI., in the church ofSt.Francesca at Rome,St.Catharine is represented walking before the pope’s mule as he makes his triumphal entrance into the city—a symbol of her guiding influence. From this time she took a prominent part in all the affairs of Italy. But the re-establishment of the papal throne at Rome was her last joy on earth. At the death of Pope Gregory fresh disorders broke out. Catharine’s life slowly wasted away, inwardly consumed, as she declared, for the church. She died in Rome at the age of thirty-three, and lies buriedunder the high altar of the Minerva, surrounded by lamps and flowers. Her countryman, PiusII., canonized her, not only at the request of the magistrates of Siena, but of several of the sovereigns of Europe.

Siena boasts of other saints:St.Ansano, the first apostle of the country, beheaded on the banks of the Arbia in the time of Diocletian; Galgano di Lolo, who led an angelic life in the mountains; the founder of Monte Oliveto, whose order sheltered Tasso; Ambrogio Sansedoni, the confessor of Conradin, noted for his eloquence and sanctity;St.Bernardin, on whose breast glows the potent Name; Beata Nera Tolomei, noted for her ascetic charity; the poor Pietro Pettinajo, who devoted himself to the plague-stricken in the hospital della Scala; Aldobrandescha Ponzi, who wished to be crowned with thorns like Christ; the Blessed John Colombini, whose only passion was to be like Jesus; and many more besides. ButSt.Catharine—the heroine of divine love—is the most sublime expression of Sienese piety, and of her is the city especially proud. Her statue was placed by the republic on the front of its glorious cathedral, and she is represented in the gorgeous picture of Pinturicchio in the library, where, as Mrs. Stowe says, “borne in celestial repose and purity amid all the powers and dignitaries of the church, she is canonized as one of those that shall reign and intercede with Christ in heaven.”

FromSt.Catharine’s house you go winding up under the mulberry-trees to San Domenico, soon leaving the tops of the houses below you. On the way is the place where Catharine, when a child, coming down the hill one evening withStefano, her favorite brother, turned to look back, and saw the heavens opened above the campanile of the church, and the Great High-Priest seated on a radiant throne, around which stoodSS.Peter, Paul, and John, who seemed with uplifted hands to bless her. Keeping on to the top of the hill, you come to a large green, silent and deserted, before the church. The street that properly leads to it is well named theVia del Paradiso. The church ofSt.Dominic is vast and imposing, though of severe simplicity of style, offering a marked contrast to the richness of the Duomo. It is shaped like the letter T, without aisles or apsis. Rafters support the vault, but at the entrance to the transepts is an enormous arch of singular boldness. There is something broad and expansive about the atmosphere of the church, as often found in the churches of the Dominican Order. Even with a considerable number of worshippers it would seem solitary. In one of its chapels is a Madonna, celebrated in the history of art, long attributed to Guido of Siena, but now proved to be by Guido di Graziano, a contemporary of Cimabue, whose Madonnas it resembles, with its oblique eyes, large head, and a certain angular stiffness. Among other noted paintings is one of Santa Barbara by Matteo da Siena, very beautiful in expression. She sits, crowned by two angels, with a palm in one hand and a tower-like tabernacle in the other, in which the Host is exposed above a chalice.SS.Magdalen and Catharine are at her side.

A domed chapel, protected by a balustrade of alabaster, has been built on the east side of the church, in which is enshrined the head ofSt.Catharine—evidently the mostfrequented part of the church, from the numerous seats before it, mostly with coats of arms and carved backs. Framed prayers, as is common in Italy, are chained to aprie-Dieu—one toSt.Catherine with the anthem:Regnum mundi et omnem ornatum sæculi contempsi propter amorem Domini mei Jesu Christi, quem vidi, quem amavi, in quem credidi, quem dilexi. Three lamps were burning before the relics ofSt.Catharine. The walls are covered with exquisite paintings by Sodoma, which were lit up by the morning sun. Nothing could be more lovely thanSt.Catharine swooning at the Saviour’s apparition—a figure full of divine languor, grace, and softness. Two nuns tenderly sustain her. Her stigmata are radiant. An angel bears a lily. The whole painting is delicate, ethereal, and heavenly as a vision. It is on the gospel side of the altar; on the other side she kneels between two nuns with her eyes raised to heaven, where, above the Virgin and Child, appears thePadre Eterno. Angels bear the cross and crown of thorns. Another brings the Host. A death’s head and lily are at her feet. The whole is of wonderful beauty.

On the left wall, as you enter the chapel, is painted the execution of a young knight, beheaded at Siena for some slight political offence.St.Catharine went to comfort him in his despair, and induced him to receive the sacraments. She even accompanied him to the block, where his last words were “Jesus” and “Catharine,” leaving her inundated with his blood, but in a state of ecstasy that rendered her insensible to everything but his eternal welfare. The odor of his blood seemed to intoxicate her.She could not resolve to wash it off. She only saw his soul ransomed by the blood of the Lamb, and, in describing her state of mind to her confessor, she cries: “Yes, bathe in the Blood of Christ crucified, feast on this Blood, be inebriated with this Blood, weep in Blood, rejoice in Blood, grow strong in this Blood, then, like an intrepid knight, hasten through this Blood to defend the honor of God, the liberty of the church, and the salvation of souls.” Her letters often begin: “I, Catharine, servant and slave of Jesus Christ, write you in his precious Blood,” as if it was there she derived all her strength and inspiration. In the picture before us nothing could be more peaceful than the face of the young knight just beheaded, whose soul two beautiful angels are bearing to heaven.

On the pavement is traced in the marble Adam amid the animals in Paradise, among whom is the unicorn, the ancient emblem of chastity.

At the extreme end of the church is the Chapel delle Volte, to which you ascend by six steps. Over the door is this inscription:

En locus hic toto sacer | et venerabile orbe,Hic Sponsũ Catharina suum | sanctissima sepe,Vidit ovans Christum | dictu mirabile, sed tuQuisquies ades hic funde | preces venerare beatamStigmata gestantem | Divini insignia amoris;—

En locus hic toto sacer | et venerabile orbe,Hic Sponsũ Catharina suum | sanctissima sepe,Vidit ovans Christum | dictu mirabile, sed tuQuisquies ades hic funde | preces venerare beatamStigmata gestantem | Divini insignia amoris;—

En locus hic toto sacer | et venerabile orbe,

Hic Sponsũ Catharina suum | sanctissima sepe,

Vidit ovans Christum | dictu mirabile, sed tu

Quisquies ades hic funde | preces venerare beatam

Stigmata gestantem | Divini insignia amoris;—

Behold this place, sacred and venerable among all on earth; here holy Catharine rejoicing often beheld, wondrous to say, the Christ, her spouse. But thou, whosoever approachest, here pour forth thy prayers, to venerate the holy one who bore the sacred stigmata, the insignia of divine love.

This chapel, the scene of so many ofSt.Catharine’s mystic visions, is long and narrow, with onewindow. The arches are strewn with gilt stars on a blue ground. The floor is paved with tiles, with tablets here and there. On one, before the altar, are the words:Cathâ. cor mutat XPUS—Christ changes the heart of Catharine; for it was here she underwent that miraculous change of heart which transformed her life. Our Saviour himself appeared to her, surrounded by light, and gave her a new heart, which filled her with ecstatic joy, and inspired a love for all mankind.

Over the plain altar is an authentic portrait ofSt.Catharine by the poetic Andrea Vanni, a pupil of Sano di Pietro. He was one of her disciples and correspondents, though aCapitano del Popolo. He painted this portrait in 1367, while she was in an ecstatic state in this very chapel. It represents her with delicate features, a thin, worn face, and must have been a charming picture originally, but it is now greatly deteriorated.

On one of the pillars of the chapel is the inscription:Catâ. cruce erogat XPO—Catharine bestows the cross on Christ; referring to the silver cross she one day gave a beggar in this church, which was afterwards shown her set with precious stones. And on another pillar is:Catâ. vesti induit XPUM—Catharine clothes Christ with her garment; in memory of the tunic she here gave our Saviour under the form of a beggar, who showed it to her some hours after, radiant with light and embroidered with pearls—acts of charity full of significance. Three lovely little paintings by Beccafumi, at the Belle Arti, represent the three mystic scenes commemorated in this chapel.

In the adjoining convent, now a school-house, lived for a timeSt.Thomas of Aquin and the Blessed Ambrogio Sansedoni, whose tomb is in the cloister. Here, in 1462, was held a chapter of fifteen hundred Dominicans, and here PiusII.blessed the standard of the Crusaders.

On our way to the Porta Camollia we turned down at the left, by a steep, paved way, to the church of Fonte Giusta, erected in memory of a victory over the Florentines. It is a small brick church with four small windows, four pillars to which are attached four bronze angels holding four bronze candlesticks, and on the walls hang four paintings of note. One is a beautiful coronation of the Virgin with four saints, by Fungai. Then there is a Visitation by Anselmi, in which two majestic women look into each other’s eyes, as if to fathom each the other’s soul. In an arch of the right aisle is the sibyl of Peruzzi—a noble figure—said to have been studied by Raphael when Agostino Chigi, the famous banker of the Farnesina palace (a Sienese by birth), commissioned him to paint the celebrated sibyls of theDella Paceat Rome—sibyls that have all the grandeur of Michael Angelo, and the grace that Raphael alone could give.

But what particularly brought us to this church was to see the Madonna of Fonte Giusta, to which Columbus made a pilgrimage after the discovery of America, and presented his sword, shield (a round one), and a whale’s bone, which are still suspended over the entrance. The Madonna turns her fair, sweet face towards you, while the Child has his eyes turned towards his mother, with his hands crossed on his breast. Both have on silver crowns, and pearls around their necks. The picture is in a frameof cherubs’ heads, surrounded by delicate arabesques. Beneath is the inscription:

Hic requies tranquilla,Salus hic dulce levamen:Hic est spes miserisꝕsidiũqreis—

Hic requies tranquilla,Salus hic dulce levamen:Hic est spes miserisꝕsidiũqreis—

Hic requies tranquilla,

Salus hic dulce levamen:

Hic est spes miserisꝕsidiũqreis—

Here is tranquil repose; here safety and sweet consolation; here is hope for the wretched, and for the guilty an unfailing refuge.

Columbus’ devotion to the Blessed Virgin is well known. It was under her auspices he undertook, in a vessel called by her name, the discovery of a new world. He daily said her office on board ship from a valuable MS. given him by AlexanderVI.before his departure and afterwards bequeathed to Genoa, and theSalve Reginawas sung every evening by his followers.

Porta Camollia is not remarkable in an architectural point of view, but it has its sacred associations. It was hereSt.Bernardin of Siena used to come every night, when a boy, to pray before the tutelar Madonna of the gate. His aunt, hearing him speak of going to see the fairest of women, followed him at a distance one night and discovered his secret.

The chapel of the Confraternity of San Bernardin is a museum of art. The walls are covered with fine frescoes of the life of the Virgin by Beccafumi, Sodoma, and Pacchia. One of the most beautiful is Sodoma’s “Assumption,” in which Mary—pulchra ut luna—in a mantle like a violet cloud, is borne up to her native heaven by angels full of grace. The apostles, with thoughtful, devout, but not astonished faces, stand around the tomb, out of which rise two tall lilies amid the white roses.St.Thomas lifts his hands to receive the sacred girdle.

Everywhere about this chapel isthe sacred monogram so dear to San Bernardin. The holy name of Jesus is inscribed on the front, on the holy-water basin, on the walls; placed there in more devout times, when even genius sought to

“Embalm his sacred nameWith all a painter’s art and all a minstrel’s flame.”

“Embalm his sacred nameWith all a painter’s art and all a minstrel’s flame.”

“Embalm his sacred name

With all a painter’s art and all a minstrel’s flame.”

There are more than sixty churches and chapels at Siena, but perhaps not one without some work of art that is noteworthy. Siena was the cradle of art in the thirteenth century, and has its aureola of artists as well as of saints. The school of Florence only dates from the fourteenth century. Guido da Siena, Bonamico, and Diotisalvi were the glorious precursors of Cimabue, and Simone Memmi, a century later, shared with Giotto the friendship and admiration of Petrarch.

“Ma certò il mio Simon fû in Paradiso.”

“Ma certò il mio Simon fû in Paradiso.”

“Ma certò il mio Simon fû in Paradiso.”

The old Sienese artists were profoundly religious. In their statutes of 1355 they say: “We, by the grace of God, make manifest to rude and ignorant men the miraculous events operated by virtue, and in confirmation, of our holy faith.” The efflorescence of the arts is one of the expressions of a profound faith. We have only to visit the galleries of Italy, filled with the sad spoils of numberless churches and convents, to be convinced of this. And there is not a tomb of a saint of the middle ages out of which does not bloom some flower of art, fair as the lilies that spring from the sepulchre of the Virgin. What wreaths of art entwine the tombs ofSt.Francis,St.Dominic, andSt.Antony of Padua!

The collection of paintings at the Academy of Siena is very interesting. Here Beccafumi representsSt.Catharine receiving the stigmata. She is in soft, gray robes, with a lovely face, kneeling before a crucifix under an archway, through which you see the landscape. A dead, thorny tree is behind her. By way of contrast to her beauty and grace is the austereSt.Jerome, haggard and worn, with his lion, before one of the pillars of the arch. At the other is a Dominican in black and white garments. Above are the Madonna and Child attended by angels. The whole picture is very soft and charming.

Sodoma has also here aSt.Catharine with a delicate, thoughtful face, and a crucifix in her pierced hands.

Perhaps the most striking picture in the gallery is Sodoma’s “Christ Bound,” which is wonderful in expression. The face and form are very human and of grand development. From under the crown of thorns flows the long, amber hair. The eyes are sad, inexpressibly sad, and the bleeding form is infinitely pathetic. “It is a thing to stand and weep at,” says Hawthorne.

“I suffer binding who have loosed their bands.Was ever grief like mine?”

“I suffer binding who have loosed their bands.Was ever grief like mine?”

“I suffer binding who have loosed their bands.

Was ever grief like mine?”

Sodoma’s “Judith,” in a blue dress and orange mantle, stands beside a leafless tree, holding up the bloody knife with one hand, and the head of Holofernes with the other. She has a gleaming jewel on her forehead, though the old rabbis represent her with a wreath of lilies, believed by the ancients to be a protection against witchcraft and peril.

The university of Siena existed in the thirteenth century. Among its noted members was Cisto da Siena, a Jew, who became a Catholic and a monk, and finally a Calvinist. Condemned to death for his apostasy, he was indebted for his lifeto the friendship of Pope JuliusIII.and Cardinal Ghislieri, afterwards PiusV.

M.Taine speaks of the deplorable ignorance of the present Sienese, and says there is no library, not a book, in the place.[109]As he seems, by his journal, to have been there only two days, he probably, like many travellers, noted down his preconceived opinion. The library of Siena, one of the oldest in Italy, has always been famous. It was founded by Niccolo Oliva, an Augustinian friar, and contains fifty thousand volumes—a respectable number for an inland town. About seven hundred belong to the very first age of printing. There are also five thousand manuscripts, among which are a Greek Gospel of the tenth century that came from the imperial chapel at Constantinople, bound in silver, and many other rareMSS.and documents, such as the original will (in Latin) of Boccaccio, and autograph writings of Metastasio,St.Catharine, andSt.Bernardin.

Siena has several charitable institutions. The asylum for deaf mutes, founded by Padre Pendola is spacious and agreeable. The great hospital della Scala, opposite the cathedral, founded by Fra Sorore, is one of the most ancient in Italy. It is vast and sunny, with a fine view over the valley around Siena. Its atmosphere is thoroughly religious, with its walls frescoed by the old masters, its numerous altars and religious emblems.St.Catharine used to come here to attend the sick. It is now served by Sisters of Charity.

It is dreadful to say, but the first glimpse we had of the Duomo, with its striped wall of black and whitemarble, reminded us of good old Sarah Battles—“now with God”—and her cribbage-board, which Charles Lamb tells us was made of the finest Sienese marble, and brought by her uncle from Italy. But on coming nearer to it every trivial thought vanishes before its grandeur and expressive richness of detail. The impression it makes on the mind is so profound, M. Taine says, that “what we feel on enteringSt.Peter’s at Rome cannot be compared to it.” He calls it “a most admirable Gothic flower, but of a new species that has blossomed in a more propitious clime, the production of minds of greater cultivation and genius, more serene, more beautiful, more religious, and yet healthy; and which is to the cathedrals of France what the poems of Dante and Petrarch are to thechansonsof the Frenchtrouvères.”

On the pavement before the entrance is represented the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican who went up into the Temple to pray—a lesson to ponder over as we enter the house of prayer. The façade is of marvellous workmanship. Amid angels and prophets and symbolic sculpture, delicate as lace-work, areSt.Ansano,St.Catharine, and San Bernardin—the special patrons of Siena. On entering the church you are at first dazzled by its richness. The pavement is unrivalled in the world, with its pictures in niello, by an art now lost, where we find page after page from the Scriptures, some written by the powerful hand of Beccafumi, whose cartoons are to be seen at the Belle Arti; sibyls noble as goddesses; Trismegistus, who received his knowledge from Zoroaster, offering the Pimandra in which is written: “The God whocreated all things, the maker of the earth and starry heavens, so greatly loved his Son that he made him his Holy Word”; and Socrates climbing the mountain of Virtue, who sits on its summit, holding forth a palm to him, while with the other hand she offers the book of wisdom to Crates, who empties a casket of jewels to receive it. The walls are covered with paintings, by Duccio, of twenty-six scenes of the Passion, full of life and power, dramatic and yet strictly Scriptural, forming a book one is never weary of studying as Christian or artist. The stalls by Fra Giovanni, the Olivetan monk, are the very perfection of intarsia work, which here, as Marchese says, “almost rises to the dignity of painting.” The wondrous pulpit, with its nine columns resting on lions, its sides covered with scenes from the life of Christ by Nicholas of Pisa, and the seven sciences on the central octagonal pillar, is a prodigy of richness and elegance.

The frieze around the nave is adorned with the heads of the popes down to AlexanderIII.Among these, strange to say, was once Pope Joan, such hold had that popular error on the public mind. It was Florimond de Raymond, a counsellor of the parliament of Bordeaux, and a friend of Montaigne and Justus Lipsius, who, in the sixteenth century, protested against such an insult to the Papacy, and by his efforts had it effaced. He wrote to the Sovereign Pontiff himself: “Avenge the injury done to your predecessors. Order this monster to be removed from the place where Satan, the father of lies, has had it set up. Do not suffer an image to remain of that which never existed. If there was no body, let there be no shadow”; and he calls upon the pope to destroythis idol, raised to the disgrace of the church. Besides this, he wrote a book, now rare, completely exploding the fable, showing by incontestable documents there was not the least place for Joan in the succession of popes. This work, together with his appeal, produced such an effect as to procure the removal of her portrait from the cathedral of Siena. The illustrious Cardinal Baronius wrote to him in 1600 that it had just been removed by order of the Grand Duke of Tuscany according to his wishes, and he congratulated him in magnificent terms on such a triumph.

On an altar in the left nave is the crucifix borne by the Sienese at the battle of Monte Aperti, and beneath the arches are still suspended, after so many centuries, the long flag-poles captured from the Florentines Sept. 4, 1260, the most glorious day in the history of Siena.

At the right is the chapel of the Madonna del Voto, built by AlexanderVII., a Sienese pope (Fabio Chigi), with its Byzantine-looking Virgin amid paintings, bronzes, mosaics, and precious stones.

The family of Piccolomini is glorified in this church. To it belongedthe great Æneas Silvius, as well as PiusIII., also a lover of the arts, and Ascanio Piccolomini, Archbishop of Siena, a friend of Galileo, to whom he gave hospitality when he came forth from what people are pleased to call the dungeons of the Inquisition at Rome—that is, from pleasant apartments in the delightful palace of the Tuscan ambassador on the Trinità de’ Monti, now the French Academy. The Piccolomini chapel has five statues sculptured by Michael Angelo, and the beautiful hall, known as the Library, is world-famous for its frescoes of the life of PiusII.by Pinturicchio.

The whole church is a temple of art, with its sculptured altar, its bronze tabernacle, its rare paintings, its beautiful pillars of differently-colored marbles, and its rich windows of stained glass. Nothing could be more serene and calm than the atmosphere of this glorious church. Amid the sacred silence, the struggling light, with the grandest symbols of religion on every side, you feel lifted for a moment out of your own mean imprisonments into a very heaven of art and piety.

[108]Behold, O Lord! thy flock surrounded by wolves eager to devour it. Behold all the honor of Italy spent, because its Chief Pastor sojourns in a foreign land.

[109]“Point de bibliothèque: aucun livre,” are his words.

Back to IndexNext