Siena/San Gimingano

Friday we headed to Siena for my Black Death class and for an all school field trip, which meant it was a big group of me and my friends, so we had a lot of fun exploring this crazy Medieval city. Siena is located atop several hills and does not have a heavy Roman tradition like Florence does; it was off the trade routes and hard to defend. But, the city refuses to deny itself Classical basis, and so the legend has it that Remus's son Siene founded Siena, and so the she-wolf and suckling twins are found in bronze and marble all over the city! We started in Piazza Pubblico, they're version of Piazza Signoria. The difference between Florence and Siena are unbelievable; you'd almost think you weren't in the same country! Siena is very much a city with foundations in the Middle Ages, the streets twist and turn and go up and down over the many hills in the topography, where as Florence sticks to its Roman grid (for the most part) and isn't hilly unless you leave the little valley it's nestled in (ie Boboli Gardens, Piazzale Michelangelo). We made our way from their Piazza (which is shell-shaped, rather than square like Florence's) and went to the Siena Cathedral, or Duomo. Siena and Florence is in competition to this day, and has been since, well, forever. So when Florence was building their big Duomo with the biggest dome ever, the Sienese said, no our church will be bigger. They planed to take the nave of their cathedral, turn it into the transept, and build a huge nave. Well, the Black Death comes along, wipes out 3/4 of Siena's population, and the big bad nave becomes just a wall and the Duomo Museum, and the kept the original nave as the current nave. However, we went inside, and the Siena Duomo was way cooler than our Duomo from the inside. They had something called horror vaccue, fear of empty spaces, so every single inch of the interior is absolutely COVERED in fresco, sculpture, relief, marble patterning, etc. I loved it. Our Duomo in Florence is extremely boring in comparison. We have a tomb here or there. Nothing like this!

We made our way back down the hill to the Piazza Pubblico and went into the Palazzo Pubblico, the equivalent to our Palazzo Vecchio (aka my museum). We had a guest lecture by an American professor teaching in Siena about this mystery of a fresco that was uncovered. It took me about 3/4 into the lecture to figure out what the controversy/mystery was about this fresco, but now I understand. There are two frescoes that are allegedly by Simone Martini that both depict Guidariccio and the victory of a battle. But which is the true Martini and which is the "dirty" Martini (ha ha ha...art historian humor...). But there's no "absolute" Martini in the room (ha ha ha). The most prevalent image depicts Guidariccio, a soldier on horseback, in a barren landscape, Martini "on the rocks" (ha ha ha). So the whole controversy is just a Martini "with a twist" (oh goodness I'm killing myself!). But really, I think it's quite obvious which is the original and which is the fake, but apparently there's still controversy. Go figure. The room next to the Martini room is the Sala di Governo, the room depicting the republican take on the Last Judgment scene. On one side you have what happens with good government, great prosperity, people dancing in the street, construction, etc. On the other side you have turmoil and rape and decrepit buildings, the result of bad government. In the middle you have the allegorical figures of good traits for those governing. Very famous frescoes, I remember learning about them with Dr. Menard, so I was enjoying the tour!


We left Siena and headed to San Gimignano later that afternoon and were given the choice to go on a tour or to go see post-Black Death fresco cycles at a the Collegiata, a small church in the middle of the city. San Gimignano is also known as the city of a 100 towers, and it's a small town but house a hundred tower houses in a tight space. Currently there are only 17 remaining, which is still a LOT in that small space. It's also home to the worlds #2 best gelateria in the world. I tried raspberry and rosemary with wine and cookies with tiramisu. Wow. That was an experience! In Collegiata, a professor rather than a TA lead the discussion (which meant I learned a LOT more and thought the information was presented very clearly and succinctly) and we compared the gruesome violent nature of these frescoes so the ones we'd seen in Siena. Wow. They got morbid after the Black Death. Kinda creepy! The Last Judgment scene in the back was particularly gruesome. The damned side was waaaaaay to graphic to be in a church. I felt a little violated. It was...something else.


All in all a very successful day trip!