The Collected Prose, page 9
Besides, both cities had Guelph and Ghibelline followers and these designations often referred to traditional adversaries: like the Montecchi and the Capuleti, who for generations showered each other’s gardens with stones, cut off the ears of their enemy’s confidants, and in dark alleys silenced the hearts of their enemy’s kinsmen with daggers.
The external policy of each Italian state (and an Italian polis was a state) is much more comprehensible and logical than their internal workings, and studied now, it resembles an old clock which stopped centuries ago. The Sienese power structure was complex and changed substantially in the course of time. The rule of the Twenty-four, which lasted up to 1287, was an expression of a precarious balance of social forces which oscillated between timocracy and democracy.
The Council, or the Signoria, was elected for a short period and functioned as a cabinet. Its members were equally divided between the milites and representatives of the people’s party. These divisions did not imply class distinctions. Since the term “people” was invented, there have always been those who claimed to best represent its ambitions.
The Consiglio Generale della Campagna, or parliament, was composed of three hundred of the city’s most prominent residents, who elected the Signoria every two months. They also chose the podestà and guarded him like an elderly miser guards his young wife. The podestà, the highest officer of state (like the king in a constitutional monarchy, an honorary position rather than an office), was usually a foreigner. Elected annually, he was prevented from obtaining absolute power by a multitude of superstitious regulations. The financial administration, called Biccherna, and Gabella, the administration of customs, were entrusted to the monks of San Galgano and Servi de Maria—as the best guardians of gold are those who have taken a vow of poverty.
On September 4, 1260, Siena lived its finest hour—routing the strong Florentine army of thirty thousand men near its walls at Monteaperti, “che fece l’Arbia2 colorata in rosso.” The river flowed with blood, sang the poet. There are many contradictory accounts of the battle; if the truth be told, the chaos of every battle combat is systematized post factum by generals, politicians, and chroniclers, who herein show the fine human longing for rational order and the casual explanation of events of their very essence obscure. All the bells tolled in Siena. Clouds of ravens and vultures swarmed above the battlefield. Processions circled the city, and the proud banner of Florence was dragged through the mud tied to the tail of an ass. That night Siena sweetly dreamed of Florence in ruins.
But fortune soon turned its back on the city of the she-wolf. The death of Manfred, the last Hohenstaufen, who had sent his cruel, blond riders to the city’s aid, marked the downfall of the Ghibellines throughout Italy. The staggering career of the gold florin became Siena’s economic defeat.
A radical change in policy followed in the city so faithful to the imperial idea. The rule of the Twenty-four gave way to the Noveschi, the Nine, who were selected from the prosperous merchants of the Guelph party. Thoroughly businesslike, unadventurous and peace-loving, the government ruled from 1287 for nearly seventy years. A lot of buying was in fact done. During this period the cathedral was built, Duccio3 painted his Great Maestà, and Ambrogio Lorenzetti4 told the story of the sweet life under good leadership in his great fresco.
But the internal feuds continued until the Black Death reconciled the contestants. The terrible plague swept like a flame through Europe, carrying away one-third of its population. It broke out in 1348, casting an ominous shadow on the flourishing civilization. Historians of Sienese art divide it into the periods before and after the epidemic. “There was a gap, a hiatus in history. Everywhere construction work in full swing was halted.” Another scholar adds: “The great epoch of cathedrals and crusades ended in decay and terror.”
“…Some of the sufferers died from want of care, others equally who were receiving the greatest attention…. No constitution was of itself strong enough to resist or weak enough to escape the attacks; the disease carried off all alike and defied every mode of treatment. Most appalling was the despondency which seized upon anyone who felt himself sickening; for he instantly abandoned his mind to despair and, instead of holding out, absolutely threw away his chance of life…. they perished in wild disorder. The dead lay as they had died, one upon another, while others hardly alive wallowed in the streets and crawled about every fountain craving water…. for the violence of the calamity was such that men, not knowing where to turn, grew reckless of all law, human and divine. The customs which hitherto had been observed at funerals were universally violated, and they buried their dead each one as best he could.”
This is not a fragment of an Italian chronicle but an excerpt from The Peloponnesian War. However, Thucydides’ words paint equally well the terror of the epidemic in Siena, which claimed three-quarters of its inhabitants.
The fall of the Nine deepened the anarchy in this most insane of Italian towns, threatened continually by powerful condottieri like the terror-sowing Sir John Hawkwood6, alias Acuto.
Violent, frequent changes of government usually give birth to numerous, quarrelsome political parties. Siena was no exception. A victorious faction often expelled supporters of the defeated side. Thousands of political emigrants, the fuoriusciti, wandered like Dante across Italy.
Emigration conserves political ideas; and one can read with astonishment that Pandolfo Petrucci7, the homebred tyrant who granted Siena its last period of stability, continued to support the Noveschi party a hundred years after its expulsion from the city.
Accompanied by a group of emigrants, Pandolfo conquered Siena and consolidated his position as its autocratic leader, Il Magnifico. Historians differ in their judgment of him. Machiavelli liked Petrucci because he loved his fatherland and was shrewd, crafty, and used his dagger and poison as one uses medicine—as needed. He managed to halt temporarily the carousel of factions and could sustain a defeat: he was briefly exiled by his mortal enemy, Cesare Borgia. During the fifteen years of his rule, he constantly maneuvered between the papacy, Florence, and France. Was he a great man? He certainly could not match the Medici. He was a Magnifico on the Sienese scale. The clocks of the city struck mercilessly: you will be provincial.
He also failed to measure up to the Medici because his offspring were unremarkable and his idea of an hereditary tyranny came to nothing because his boys had feeble minds and were lustful hooligans.
Although the sixteenth century started favorably for the city of the she-wolf (Pandolfo Petrucci did not die until 1512), Siena’s death throes were unavoidable. This time its support for the emperors did not prove healthy for the republic. Charles V, the King of Spain, taking advantage of internal disorder and allegedly in order to reconcile the partisans, seized the city. He installed a governor-general and—horror of horrors—built a fortress within the walls for the Spanish garrison. With the aid of the French, the Sienese managed to dislodge the Spanish; but the city fell under siege, thus opening the final chapter of its history as an independent republic.
The Florentine army approached the gates of the city, reinforced by the cruel Spaniards, who spread universal terror. The neighboring villages were burned and trees laden with hanged men. Messer Blaise de Montluc8, a colorful figure, Gascon by birth, Sienese by choice, a rogue and womanizer, barricaded himself into the city.
The siege lasted from the beginning of 1554 until the spring of 1555. Despite general hunger, the defense was heroic and continued even after the defeat of Marshal Strozzi, the commander of the French forces supporting Siena. Women also engaged in the fighting. Although mice and rats were the only available food, the defenders staged a sumptuous carnival. Siena died in style. Finally, on April 2, the act of surrender was signed. Quite an honorable one, as it included a clause allowing those who did not wish to live under the new rule to leave the city. The exodus commenced: a long file of prominent citizens, wagons crammed with possessions, and finally the defenders themselves, marching to the sound of drums under flying banners. An ecstatic Montluc cried: “Vous êtes dignes d’une immortelle louange9.” A fitting funeral oration.
None of this can be seen from the top of the spire. But the Town Hall looks exactly as it did when it housed the Noveschi meetings; the same black and white cathedral, churches, bell-towers, palaces like huge dark rocks in a flood of piled-up houses, a net of narrow streets snaring three hills and contracting around the Campo like wrinkles around an eye. One can also see the gates and walls which do not tightly encircle the town, but hang loosely around it like a belt on a fat man who has suddenly lost weight. In its glory, Siena’s population was three times its present size.
Beyond the wall the Tuscan landscape:
…Smoke from shepherds’ fires stands motionless
Above the flame, ductile and white; no one knows,
Whether angels descended among
Plum-coloured hills to shake down silver olives
Or whether…
Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz10
Before I came to Italy, I thought that the old masters were not realistic and that their landscapes were like operatic scenery. In fact they depicted highly realistic scenes, albeit synthetic ones, similar to many Tuscan views and hence probably even more faithfully rendered. It is a landscape in motion: an emerald mountainside climbing sharply upwards and suddenly severed, surprised by a gentle hill which, jumping from the side like a hare, leads to a slope covered with vine; to the right—an olive grove, the silver trees twisted as if a storm were raging; to the left—the dark, motionless feathers of cypresses.
Mezzogiorno—noon. The sun parches the earth and bemuses the mind. Blinds clatter shut. White flames of heat soar above the stones.
I make a quick calculation that I could afford only a cup of coffee and a piece of bread with ham. Besides, one is not hungry at noon. But in the evening I will be able to indulge in a gastronomic feast.
A low-vaulted, somber hallway leads into a little café. Instead of doors, strings of wooden beads rattle pleasantly under my touch. The padrone greets me as if we were old schoolmates. Wonderful, aromatic coffee called cappuccino pours clarity into one’s head and draws fatigue from one’s limbs. The padrone recounts a complicated story thickly strewn with numbers. I understand little but listen with delight, though the tale may concern his financial ruin. However, it is difficult to sense a drama behind these childish sounds: diciotto, cinque cinquanta, settanta.
Time to return to the Palazzo Pubblico, this time to investigate its interior. On the first floor there are two vast rooms, the Sala del Mappamondo and the Sala della Pace, or dei Nove. Their walls are covered with the most beautiful frescoes in Siena. Those in the Sala del Mappamondo were painted by Simone Martini11. To the left of the entrance hangs the Maestà, the first known work of Martini, who must have had a meteoric career in his native town, if he was entrusted with such a responsible task when he was barely thirty. The work is dated June 1315. Seven years later, Martini and his disciples repainted the Maestà.
Despite much damage, the fresco is hugely impressive. Though painted only five years after Duccio’s Great Maestà, its style is utterly different. The beginning of the Trecento is a promontory of epochs and styles. Martini’s masterpiece is striking in its free subject-treatment, the lyrical softness of its gestures. Mary is seated on a Gothic throne. Its openwork architecture contrasts with the thrones of Duccio and early Giotto (if only the ones in the Uffizi) powerful as steel and iron. Near the Virgin stand two female saints, hands folded on their breasts. The figures of the angels are not like painted statues; a gentle line sways them as the wind sways trees. Those who kneel at the Virgin’s feet offer her flowers, not cold symbols, and she accepts them like a castellan’s daughter accepting the homage of troubadours. A canopy, light as a skein of silk, unwinds above their heads. Damp has worn the gold and blue, but the tonality of the concerto is pure, like the sound of a harpsichord heard from afar.
On the opposite wall—a magnificent equestrian portrait of the condottiere Guido Riccio da Fogliano. It so differs from the Maestà that this difference was even noticed by art historians. Painted fourteen years later, it is the negation of the lyrical, celestial Maestà.
A man in the vigor of life—stocky, with a common face and energetically clenched fists—rides across barren, flax-colored ground. Over his armor he wears a dark beige coat with brown triangles. A similar caparison covers his powerful steed. Both rider and beast constitute a single body emanating tremendous energy and strength, though they ride at walking pace. Had the chronicles been silent about the cruelties of the condottieri, this portrait would furnish sufficient indictment.
The landscape is dry as a threshing floor. No trees, no blade of grass—only an abatis of dry sticks and the feeble flowers of military emblems. On both sides of the fresco, the meager architecture of two castles crowns twin hills. The one on the left is Monte Massi whose castellan rebelled against Siena. There is no doubt that Guido Riccio will smash these towers, shatter these walls.
In the Sala della Pace resides the allegory of Good and Bad Government, the largest medieval fresco devoted to secular matters, painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti between 1336 and 1339. Ambrogio (he had a brother, Piero, also an excellent painter—both died in the Black Death) was, after Duccio and Martini, the third great Trecento Sienese painter. I know one is supposed to admire this painting, but the lighting is bad and the colors have faded. Bad Government in particular is barely legible. Looking through Enzo Carli’s book on Sienese primitive painting, I was shocked: after my direct but pale aesthetic experience I was overwhelmed by the photographs. A humbling affair.
Later I read with some satisfaction that the value of Good and Bad Government is disputed. Berenson12, the ardent supporter of Florence—a Guelph—turns up his nose and says that the theme proved larger than the author, that Lorenzetti could not find an adequate artistic expression for his idea and had to use inscriptions, an auxiliary means unbecoming to an artist. Enzo Carli—Siena’s chief restorer and thus a Ghibelline—defends the work, stressing its historical and compositional value. The hero of the fresco is not a man, not even a city, but an entire civilization: both a painter’s summa, and an epic. No wonder the work fell prey to scholarly ants. In the deluge of historical, philosophical, iconological contributions, aesthetic value was lost.
The fresco is full of wonderful details: a little slanting roof of slate, an open window bisected by shadow; in the window, a cage with a gold-finch, and the head of an inquisitive maid. Clear, well-defined colors ranging from sandy ochre through hot carmine to bronzes and the warm red of deep interiors. The massive city landscape, almost phantasmagoric in its brightness, changes into a country landscape, painted for the first time with such breadth and tender care for details. Lorenzetti also builds his space in an utterly new way. It is not the golden, abstract air of Duccio, nor the rational perspective of Giotto. Lorenzetti, as an aesthete once rightly remarked, introduces a cartographic perspective. The observer does not stand in one place; he views more remote planes with equal clarity and precision. His eagle’s eye embraces the warm, undulating matter of the earth.
When I take the stairs I automatically end up in the hall called Sala Monumentale. The name is appropriate: the walls are littered with monumental pieces of kitsch representing Victor Emmanuel in various poses. Official nineteenth-century painting is equally terrible everywhere. Let’s get out of here as soon as possible.
The sun casts long shadows. The sunset adds fire to the brick houses. The passeggiata, a daily ritual, is taking place in the main street, Via di Città.
To say that it is a walk is to say nothing. Every Italian town has a street which fills in the evening with a crowd of strollers, pacing back and forth for an hour or two in a limited area. It resembles an extras’ run-through of a gigantic opera. The elders demonstrate their vigor and rehearse their titles: “Buona sera, dottore,” “Buona sera, avvocato.” Girls and boys walk separately, communicating only with their eyes. That is why their eyes become large, black, and expressive; they recite love sonnets, dart flames, complain, curse.
I came to Siena from Naples—and from Naples I brought with me a liking for pizza. It is a meal that makes an excellent accompaniment to wine. Essentially, pizza is a kind of pancake covered with sliced tomatoes, onions, anchovies, black olives. There are many kinds of pizza—from the fancy capricciosa to the popular kind that is baked on a huge iron sheet and sold by the portion.
I eat two portions and order a third. The owner of the trattoria is clearly touched. She says that I am gentile. Later she asks my nationality, and learning that I am Polacco, she exclaims Bravo! with sincere enthusiasm. She summons her sleepy husband and fat daughter to witness our historic meeting. The whole family declares that the Poles are “molto gentili e intelligenti.” Perhaps I shall be asked to demonstrate a Polish national dance and to sing an aria by Moniuszko13. Unexpectedly, the owner inquires if there are divorces in Poland. I lie that there aren’t, and bring down a torrent of praise on my head.
Above the Piazza del Campo—luna plena. Shapes harden. A chord is strung between heaven and earth. Such a moment gives an intense feeling of crystallized eternity. The voices will die. The air will turn into glass. We shall remain here, petrified: I, raising a glass of wine to my lips; the girl in the window arranging her hair; the old man selling postcards under a streetlamp; the square with the Town Hall and Siena. The earth will turn with me, an unimportant exhibit in a cosmic wax museum, visited by no one.
2
ONLY TODAY HAVE I learned who Duccio really was, the mysterious painter whose date of birth is uncertain and of whom little is known other than that he died famous and in debt. His magnum opus, the Maestà, is just being renovated. I stand as if before golden stained glass in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, facing a panel of thirty-six small paintings that constitute the Maestà in verso. The room is small and dark, yet it contains a source of light. The radiance of the work is so extraordinary that even in a cellar it would shine like a star.
