6/9 Siena

Today’s schedule included a day trip to Seina and Pienza. The Tuscany region was definitely one of the most beautiful natural landscapes that I have ever seen. Apart from all of the buildings we see from day to day, it was a nice change of pace to get out into the country a bit and see the expansive Italian countryside. The Romans were the ones who first settled this area around the 1^st century AD. Its name was derived from Senius and the town was originally called Sena Julia. It became a republic in the 12^th century through the wealth of the banking families who ruled the area. Siena also had quite the rivalry with its neighboring Florence, as both cities vied for control, the height of the conflicts coming in the 13^th century. Each city seems to have its own local saints, and Siena is no different. Catherine, who was a 14^th century saint of the Dominican order, helped the Pope return to Rome from exile. Bernardino, who was of the Franciscan order, helped the victims of the plague simultaneously to Catherine.

Arriving in Siena felt like a smaller version of Florence. All of the buildings had the same medieval feel to them and the streets were just as narrow and winding. This city felt like a pure example of a Renaissance town. However, what was a surprise for me was seeing the comparatively expansive Piazza del Campo and Palazzo Pubblico in the heart of Siena. Snaking through the tight streets made the reveal of the Piazza that much more impressive, as it seems to cover a whole football field. Siena was founded through a process of synoecism, the three loosely knit communities in the area coming together to form a tight political bond. This is reflected in the architecture of the piazza, as the 9 divisions of the square represent 3 for each of the communities. The sloping site toward the Palazzo also communicates an idea that they are coming together, forming this bond, and ruling with an understanding that each should in theory have an equal say in the running of the government.

The façade of the building is also slightly concave, which receives the piazza in a way and reflects it at the same time. Its tower, the Torre del Mangia, which is often emulated in other cities around the world, was built around 1340 and is today used as a placemarker and a wayfinding device for those navigating the city. You compare this singular wayfinding device to that of New York, which has hundreds of them, and my opinion is that I would much rather live in a city that has 1 which I can always count on and orient myself to. It also helps that it’s twice as tall as the buildings around it, making it easy to locate. Often times I will find my way around a city by looking at the sun and telling which direction to go from there. For those in the Renaissance who weren’t learned or literate, it was probably much easier to find your way around by looking at a fixed object and navigating that way.

One could say the other marker in this city would have to be its Duomo, Santa Maria Assunta. Because of the rivalry between Siena and Florence, each attempted to build a church which was taller than the other. I can’t accurately say which is taller today, but the plans for the Siena Duomo at least included a dome which was to be taller than that of Florence; however it was scaled back (in height?) due to the Black Plague which swept across Europe. After the plague had subsided, work resumed on the church with a heavy emphasis on decorating the interior and exterior to its fullest potential. One could say that the church is of a Romanesque design because of the arches on the lower façade, but you could also claim that it has some gothic influences because of the pointed pediments above the arches and the heavy decoration.

The influences from Florence are also quite evident in the façade, as a polychrome marble scheme developed by Giovanni Pisano seems to be sort of a cousin to the Duomo an hour north of this location. What is striking about the upper façade in relation to the lower is that the tri-partite design doesn’t quite match up vertically. Naturally, one would conclude that they were designed by different architects at different times, but it makes you wonder why they chose to go in this direction. Was it simply to be different for difference’s sake? Is it a result of some programmatic element on the inside that forces each of the divisions to not line up? Nonetheless, it’s not as if the design is displeasing to the eye; rather the larger bay in the upper façade seems to give it more weight and importance. The architects must have chosen to want to get away from the pure rationality of some of their Renaissance counterparts. Another interesting item to note was that the main doors are much more recent than I would have expected; they were designed and installed in 1958. Compare this to the doors on the Pantheon, which were removed just once in the last ~2000 years!

I can’t begin to talk about the interior of the church without mentioning the black and white striped pattern that permeates the columns and virtually every surface inside. It does create somewhat of a dizzying effect to the eye and is quite distinctive from every other church we have visited so far. What’s also interesting about the columns is that they’re composite columns in a quatrefoil arrangement: four pilasters attached to a square core. This shape is present in many of the Gothic Revival and Renaissance works of art and architecture. I am unaware of the symbolic nature of the shape, but it does give the columns an extra dimension to them, allowing the pilasters to sometimes rise above the height of the square core, break the cornice and continue on to the story above. Now as the main nave of the church was intended to be the transept of the much larger church mentioned before, you can see how daring and ambitious this building project would have been. The nave alone as it constitutes the church today is as large as some of the other structures that we have visited which only claim to have the nave as its main architectural move.

A quick mention about the climb up the campanile at the Piazza. We had about 30 or so minutes to return to the group as we were getting in line to climb the stairwell. As it can only handle a certain amount of people at once, we were becoming a bit antsy that we A) wouldn’t be able to climb it in time and B) would potentially miss the bus to the next site. Nonetheless our patience paid off as we were allowed access once enough people left the tower. The next 20 minutes after that was quite the whirlwind. From what I can remember we literally RAN up the steps, took as many quick panoramas and photos with us in them as we could, posing for 3-4 seconds at once; time was short! It was definitely worth the rush, though, as the photos from up there overlooking the Tuscan countryside were some of the most beautiful images I have captured so far. The landscape in Tuscany seems so pristine, innocent, and untouched. Its rolling hills and green pastures are some of the most picturesque in probably all of the world.

“Quick! The group is leaving in….5 minutes and we’re still on top of this tower!”

A race to the bottom ensued, and we met up with the rest of the group as they were leaving in just the nick of time. Clearly worth the rush. And so was born the term “speed touristing” that we would use to describe any time we had to rush through a site and take as many pictures as possible. Our motto was “we’ll appreciate it on the computer screen”. We’re so modern.