Perugia, Minuccio and Francesco di Rinaldo, and that the upper part was designed by the painter, Lippo Memmi, in 1341.[73] The Chapel at the foot of the tower was begun in 1348, “for a certain miracle that Our Lady the Virgin Mary did”—or at least vowed in that year, as a memorial of deliverance from the Black Death, and built in the third quarter of the fourteenth century. The upper part, with its beautiful frieze of griffins, is the work of Antonio Federighi, and dates from 1460. The statues of saints in their niches merely show to what depths Sienese sculpture had sunk by the latter part of the fourteenth century, before the rise of Giacomo della Quercia. The ruined and restored fresco is Bazzi’s last work in Siena. He promised in 1537 that he would have it done by the Feast of Our Lady in August for 60 golden scudi, but went off for a holiday to Piombino after beginning it, and did not return to complete the work till the following year. The door behind the chapel leads into a picturesque and deserted court, with a faded fifteenth century fresco and a number of old armorial bearings on the walls.

The Lupa of gilded bronze on the column to the right of the Palace marks the entrance to the apartments of the Signoria. Over the door, two very lean wolves are adoring the crowned Lion of the People. We ascend the steps to the first floor, into a magnificent series of rooms, glowing with masterpieces of Sienese painting. The first room—variously called the Sala delle Balestre, the Sala del Mappamondo, and the Sala del Gran Consiglio—is now a law-court. Here at one epoch the Consiglio della Campana, or Senate, at others the minor councils of the State met. The whole wall above the place of the president of the court is occupied by a vast fresco by Simone Martini painted in 1315, “right marvellously coloured,” as Ghiberti calls it. Our Lady, enthroned as Queen of Siena, is holding up the Divine Child standing on her knees to bless the deliberations of the Council; Apostles and the Baptist hold the poles of the canopy, Virgin Martyrs and Angels stand in attendance, while two kneeling Angels offer flowers on behalf of Siena’s four sainted patrons—Ansanus, Savinus, Crescentius and Victor. All the faces have the winning sweetness and spiritual loveliness that we find throughout the works of the Sienese school. At the foot of the throne is a poetical inscription: “The angelical flowers, roses and lilies, wherewith the celestial meadow is adorned, do not delight me more than good counsels. But sometimes I see one who, to exalt himself, despises me and deceives my city; and when he speaks worse, he is more praised by each one whom these words condemn.” And along the base of the picture is their Queen’s answer to the prayers of the Saints: “My beloved ones, be assured that I will make your devout chaste prayers content, as you shall wish. But if the potent oppress the weak, harassing them with shames and harms, your prayers are not for these, nor for whoso deceives my city.”

Such being the ideal basis of Siena’s policy, we are now given a series of her victories. On the opposite wall, painted by Simone in 1328, is a mediaeval warrior, Guidoriccio, riding alone, fully armed save for the head, his baton of command in his hand, his steed gorgeously caparisoned. The face is an admirable piece of portraiture. Behind him lie the camp of the Sienese and the captured castle from which the banner of the Commune floats. On either hand are preparations for storming the town in front; but he proudly rides forward alone, to summon it to surrender. Guidoriccio dei Fogliani of Reggio was elected Captain of War in Siena for six months in 1326, and afterwards confirmed so many times in the office that he kept it for seven years. In 1328, when the power of Castruccio degli Interminelli was at its height in Tuscany, he led the Sienese against Montemassi (the town represented in the fresco), repulsed the forces sent by Castruccio to its relief and forced it to surrender. In 1329 he put down a formidable bread-riot in the Campo, and in 1331 he won a great victory over the Pisans under the walls of Massa, after which he had himself dubbed a knight on the field of battle and returned to Siena in triumph. He died in 1352, and the Commune gave him a sumptuous public funeral in San Domenico.

Two later battle-scenes are on the wall opposite the windows. First is the great victory gained by the Sienese over the Company of the Cappello in October 1363, at Torrita, in the Valdichiana. After a vain attempt to come to terms, the Sienese hired four hundred German men-at-arms, and took the field with the forces of the city and the contado under Ceccolo degli Orsini, the Captain-General of the Commune. Before marching out of Siena, the republican army was put under the protection of St Paul the Apostle—apparently because the Christian name of the then Prior of the Twelve was Paolo. Orders had been given not to risk a battle; but, as soon as they came up with the enemy, the Germans set upon them, and the Captain with the Sienese following, a complete victory was gained. On the left of the fresco St Paul, with drawn sword, is seated at the gate of Siena, surrounded by warrior Angels. We see the advancing host of the Sienese, in front of which the splendid mercenary cavalry has already burst upon the ranks of the Company and broken through them, while on the right the rout is complete. The Sienese treated their prisoners magnificently; they deprived Ceccolo of his command, for having disobeyed their orders, but knighted him and heaped honours and presents upon him. The Twelve gave a solemn banquet in the Palace to him and his officers, presented him with a palfrey covered with silk, a sword of honour, a suit of armour and a golden crown, with double pay to his troops and household. A solemn Mass was celebrated in the Duomo, with great offerings to the miraculous Madonna, and the Twelve commissioned Lippo di Vanni to paint the fresco in memory of the glorious event. The second fresco, more than a hundred years later, was painted by Giovanni di Cristofano and Francesco d’Andrea in 1480, a record of the epoch when Duke Alfonso of Calabria was virtually the arbiter of Siena’s destinies. It represents the battle of Poggio Imperiale, near Poggibonsi, in September 1479, the chief action in the war in which Duke Ercole of Ferrara held the baton of command of the Italian league that defended Florence against the allied powers of Rome and Naples, led by the Dukes of Calabria and Urbino. In the temporary absence of Ercole from the seat of war, Alfonso stormed the camp of the league. The painters have represented it as a triumph of Siena over Florence. On the left the Florentines are flying from the field, their condottiere Costanzo Sforza leading the rout, and the standard of the red lily is being lowered from every battlement and tower. Beneath the banners of the Church, Naples and Siena, the allies—led by “El Possa,” a Sienese named Domenico di Michele, who was in the service of the Duke of Calabria—are driving the defeated army before them; in the centre are Alfonso and the Duke of Urbino; reinforcements are advancing on the right, while in the background the light armed foot-soldiers are sacking the Florentine tents.

On the wall under the portrait of Guidoriccio is the famous old picture of the Madonna from San Domenico, by Guido da Siena. The date upon the picture appears originally to have been 1281. The frescoes on either side—St Ansanus baptising the Sienese and St Victor protecting the shield of Liberty—are by Bazzi, painted in 1529. The blessed Bernardo Tolomei, founder of Monte Oliveto, is also Bazzi’s, painted in 1534. These three figures—with their lovely attendant putti—are among the finest of his works. Between the next two arches are San Bernardino by Sano di Pietro and St Catherine by Vecchietta. The last of the series, B. Ambrogio Sansedoni, is more modern.

Out of this hall we pass into the Sala della Pace, originally called the Sala dei Nove, where the Nine met during that most glorious epoch in Sienese history when they held sway. In 1337 they appointed Ambrogio Lorenzetti to decorate their meeting-place with allegorical frescoes. We see the master’s signature, Ambrosius Laurentii de Senis, under the great fresco—the first of the series—on the wall opposite the window. Here on our left is Justice, enthroned as Queen, inspired from above by the crowned genius of Celestial Wisdom. Over her head is the text from the Wisdom of Solomon, which Dante’s spirits of righteous rulers formed in that sixth sphere of Paradise that is swayed by the celestial Dominations: “Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth.” On her right and left respectively, the Angel of Distributive Justice crowns one and beheads another, the Angel of Commutative Justice gives weapons to one and money to another. At her feet sits Concord, a beautiful woman upon whose brow rests the pentecostal tongue of fire; she holds two cords that proceed from the scales of Justice, uniting the twenty-four citizens who pass in procession to the feet of the Commune of Siena. This is represented by a majestic old man, richly clothed in robes that show the black and white of the republican shield, royally crowned. The mystical cord of union is attached to his sceptre, and in his other hand he holds an image of the Blessed Virgin, whom the Sienese had chosen for their Sovereign Lady. He sits above the Wolf and the Twins. Faith, Hope and Charity hover above his head; Prudence and Fortitude, Magnanimity and Temperance are his assessors. Beyond them, on the right of the throne, reclines golden-haired Peace, in her clinging white robe; and on the left, Legal Justice sits, with a crown and a severed head on her lap. Around are steel-clad warriors, horse and foot—the armed forces of the Republic—while to the gate of the city men come offering “censi, tributi e signorie di terre,” as one of the verses of the inscription, which is probably Ambrogio’s own, puts it; prisoners are led in in fetters, and others are rigorously kept excluded—for the mediaeval mind can hardly conceive of good government without fuorusciti.

On the right wall are shown the effects of good government, the rule of Justice. “Turn your eyes to gaze upon her who is figured here—O ye that rule!—and who is crowned for her excellence”; so runs the inscription. “Behold what great good things come from her, and how sweet and restful is the life of the city where that virtue is preserved that gloweth back more than any other.” Within the city are dancing and feasting; the shops are full and trade flourishes; cavalcades of dames and cavaliers pass through the streets. Beyond the walls unarmed trains pass out to the chase; the fields are cultivated, the peasants fearlessly bringing their produce into the city. In the distance is the sea—for the righteous republic will have commerce and become a maritime power—and a harbour said to represent Talamone. Over all hovers Security, a winged woman with a little gallows and a scroll: “Without fear may every one travel freely and each man work and sow, whilst the Commune will maintain this Lady in signory, for she has taken all power from the wicked.”

On the opposite wall is Evil Government, the fruits of Injustice. Tyranny, a hideous horned monster, with dagger and poisoned cup, sits enthroned above a goat. Avarice, Pride and Vainglory float over him. Foul and horrible shapes sit round him as ministers: Cruelty (torturing a child), Treason and Fraud, Fury, Division and War. At his feet lies Justice—dishevelled, overthrown, bound. Murder and outrage wanton within and without the walls; the smiling fields are devastated, while at the gate of the ruined, bloodstained city hovers the dark and ragged demon of Fear, with a scroll: “Through selfish ambition in this city has Justice been subjected to Tyranny; wherefore by this way no one passes without dread of death: for without and within the gates they plunder.”[74]

Beyond the Sala delle Balestre is the Chapel of the Palace. The antechapel, the walls and the roof of the chapel itself are covered with frescoes by Taddeo di Bartolo—frescoes that are the first great Sienese achievement in painting in the Quattrocento—executed between 1406 and 1414. On the walls and arches of the antechapel are Roman heroes and philosophers of antiquity; Apollo and Minerva, Jupiter and Mars; a view of the Eternal City; and, over the door that leads into the room adjoining the consistory, a gigantic St Christopher. The Sienese claim, not without reason, that Perugino himself imitated these frescoes nearly a hundred years later, in the Sala del Cambio at Perugia. In the chapel are saints and Angels and the four closing scenes of the Madonna’s life; her farewell to the Apostles, her death, her being carried upon the bier, and lastly her Assumption—the Divine Son sweeping down with Cherubim and Seraphim to draw His Mother from the grave. Among all the Italian pictures of the Assumption, Taddeo’s still can hold its own for its vividness and originality. For the rest, the whole chapel is a perfect gem of the arts and crafts of the early Quattrocento. The holy water stoop is by Giovanni di Turino, the iron railing by Giacomo di Giovanni; the beautiful stalls of the choir, carved and inlaid with illustrations to the Nicene Creed, were executed by Domenico di Niccolò, afterwards called Domenico del Coro, between 1415 and 1428, and may possibly have been designed by Taddeo di Bartolo. Under the Nativity, on the little wooden door between the chapel and the Sala di Balìa is the Wheel of Fortune, on which man is seen transformed to ass as he rises, recovering human shape as he falls. To a later period belong only the organ with Siena’s wolf, which is a work of the early Cinquecento, and the altarpiece. The latter, by Bazzi and one of his later works, was originally in the Duomo; it represents the Madonna and Child with St Joseph and St Calixtus, with a beautiful landscape background in which the ruins of ancient Rome are seen. “This work,” says Vasari, “is likewise held to be very beautiful, inasmuch as one sees that Sodoma in colouring it used much more diligence than he was wont to do in his things.”

We pass next into a small passage or anteroom, out of which the Sala di Concistoro opens on the left, the Sala di Balìa on the right. In the former, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Signoria met, the nominal governors of the State; in the latter, the Collegio di Balìa, the select committee that in reality held the Republic in its hands. There are bits of old fresco in this waiting room—Madonnas and Saints, a kneeling magistrate watched over by his celestial patron—and several panels of the Quattrocento; especially a Madonna and Child with four Angels in an old frame, dated 1484, by Matteo di Giovanni, and San Bernardino preaching in the Campo and liberating a possessed woman after his death, ascribed by Mr Berenson to Vecchietta.

The Sala di Concistoro, with a marble doorway ascribed to Giacomo della Quercia, has a ceiling covered with frescoes by Domenico Beccafumi, painted between 1529 and 1535—precisely at the time when his rival, Bazzi, was working on his saints in the other hall. They represent scenes from Roman and Greek history, with allegorical figures of Concord and Justice, and are extravagantly praised by Vasari, who declares that the Justice in particular is painted “so powerfully that it is a marvel.” The foreshortening, the effects of light and shade are certainly exceedingly clever; but it is a little too much to say, as Lanzi does, that “Beccafumi should be called the Correggio of lower Italy.”

The pictorial decorations of the Sala di Balìa were commissioned by the Signoria in 1407, and begun in the following year. The Virtues on the ceiling are by Martino di Bartolommeo Sensi, a Sienese painter who belonged to the order of the Riformatori and whose chief works are in the neighbourhood of Pisa. The scenes on the walls are by Spinello Aretino, the Aretine who ranks as the last of the Giotteschi and who was then nearly eighty years old, and his son Parri. They represent the life of the great Sienese Pope, Alexander III., but are not arranged in chronological order and the subjects are frequently doubtful. Among them we may notice the Pope giving a blessed sword to the Doge of Venice, Sebastiano Ziani, on the wall opposite the first window; on the entrance wall, the capture of an Italian town by the imperialists and the naval victory of the Venetians on Ascension Day, 1176, in which the Caesar’s son Otto was taken prisoner. The latter scene is a splendid rendering of mediaeval naval warfare—note especially, on the right, the episode of the capture of the prince and the frenzied efforts of the imperialists to rescue him. The second fresco on the arch probably represents the recognition of the Pope, when disguised as a monk at Venice, by a French pilgrim. On the wall opposite the second window is the building of Alessandria with its elevation into a Bishopric, and, apparently, the humiliation of the Emperor Barbarossa. There is a curious representation of the burning of a heretic on the arch. Opposite the entrance is the presentation of the captured prince to the Pope, and the latter’s triumphal procession with the Emperor and the Doge leading his horse. Beyond is the Sala Monumentale, painted in honour of Vittorio Emanuele II. by modern Sienese artists with certain great scenes in the story of the unification of Italy—the armistice after Novara, the battles of San Martino and Palestro, the meeting of Vittorio Emanuele and Garibaldi, the Roman Plebiscite and the funeral of the King. With the impartiality that, in some respects, is characteristic of modern Italy, Alexander III. is represented in one of the medallions among the precursors of the political regeneration of his country.

In this Sala di Balìa—then called the Sala del Papa—there was a notable tragedy enacted in 1455, in the very year that the “Magistracy of the Fifteen of the Balìa” was first instituted—originally of fifteen citizens to superintend the prosecution of the war against Piccinino. The commander of the Sienese forces, Count Giberto da Correggio, was in secret treaty with the enemy, sent him supplies while Siena starved, and attempted to occupy Grosseto on his own account. The government was warned by the officers of the Duke of Milan that their general was going to betray them, but the Balìa had already ample proofs in its hands; not daring to arrest him in the midst of his troops, they waited their time. “What human cunning could devise no means to do,” writes Malavolti, somewhat sanctimoniously, “was easily ordained by the Divine Justice, that seldom suffers such enormous crimes to remain unpunished.” They heard that, on September 6th, the Count would come to the city, to demand payment of a large sum of money which he claimed from the government. The morning that he was expected, the Fifteen met, reviewed the evidence against him, and decided upon their measures. The Count confidently entered the city with thirty horsemen, rode to the Palazzo de’ Marescotti (the present Palazzo Saracini), where he had apartments, and demanded an audience of the Balìa. In the evening four nobles of the city, with a number of citizens and the trumpeters of the Signoria, came to bring him in state to the Palace for the audience that he had demanded. The Count and his chancellor went up into the chapel, while the doors of the Palace were closed and his other attendants detained in the Sala delle Balestre. When all was ready, the Count was called before the Fifteen in the Sala di Balìa—the Priors being meanwhile assembled in the Sala di Concistoro. Perhaps he passed through that little door upon which even then was the design of Fortune’s wheel. With all marks of honour and respect, he was invited to seat himself with the Fifteen, by the side of the Prior of the Balìa, and questioned about what had gone on in the field. He answered insolently and proudly—upon which he was accused to his face of treason, and the intercepted letters shown him that he had interchanged with Piccinino. He sprang to his feet: “What! do you imagine that I am a prisoner in your hands?” “Quite otherwise,” answered Lodovico Petroni, one of the Fifteen, seizing hold of his cloak. At the signal armed men rushed in—they had been lying in wait in the room beyond—and stabbed him to death. The still quivering body was dragged to the window and hurled out on to the pavement below. Later on, it was carried to the Duomo and buried

near the Campanile, without any honour or name to mark the spot. That same night the Balìa notified to the Pope and their other allies what had been done. To his Holiness they declared that “this astute seminator of evil, this your insidious foe, this traitor to our Republic” had been done to death by the people in a tumult; to the Duke of Milan they sent a piece of his cloak, drenched in blood; to Venice and to Florence they told the truth, pleading the sacred duty of saving the State, citing as precedents the deaths of Carmagnola and Baldaccio d’Anghiari. Pope Calixtus insisted that they should justify themselves by publishing the evidence, and when this was done, on September 18th, he absolved the Fifteen, each severally by name. But to the appeal of the Sienese envoys for a general absolution for all the people of the city, he replied that he could not grant it, “because you Sienese would be too strong in Paradise.”[75]

Two antique coffers in this room—one of them with the Lupa carved by Antonio Barili—are also worthy of notice. In the Loggia on the second floor of the Palace is a frescoed Madonna and Child by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.

The second door to the left of the wolf in the Piazza leads, through a picturesque little court covered with old frescoes, to a series of rooms on the ground floor, at present used by the municipality. In the Sala dei Signori di Biccherna, the room in which the Camarlingo and Quattro Provveditori met, is the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, a fresco painted in 1445 by Sano di Pietro. Two of the Angels are holding a scroll with a poem, thus blending painting and poetry together in the characteristic early Sienese way: “This blessed glorious Virgin pure, Daughter of her Son and Spouse and Mother—because the Eternal Father found her more humble than any other person, He giveth her here the crown of the Universe. Virgin Mother of the Eternal God, by whose holy hands thou art crowned, to thee be recommended the devout and faithful city of Siena, as it hopeth in thee; hail, full of grace.” The San Bernardino on the right is also by Sano. In the same room there is a small fresco by Bazzi—the Madonna and Child with the little St John, St Michael Archangel and St Galganus. Like all his work in the Palace it is late, about 1537, but, unlike the rest, it is badly drawn and carelessly executed.

In the Stanza del Sindaco there is a much finer fresco of Bazzi’s—the Resurrection of Christ, with the three Maries approaching through the early spring landscape. It was originally painted, probably in 1535, in the place where the salt was sold, and was sawn out in the last century. Vasari specially praises the beauty of the Angels’ heads. In another room is a frescoed Madonna by Vecchietta. On the ground floor is also the entrance to what during the fifteenth century was the Sala del Gran Consiglio, but which in the latter part of the sixteenth century, after the final fall of the Republic, was converted into a theatre.

At the back of the Palace is the picturesque market-place, the Piazza del Mercato. Out of the market, the Via de’ Malcontenti and the Via di Porta Giustizia still indicate the ways by which condemned prisoners were conveyed in carts to the place of execution beyond the walls. We know that the feet of St Catherine frequently trode this mediaeval via crucis; but it is questionable whether the execution of Niccolò di Toldo took place in the ordinary spot, as there is frequent record of political prisoners being done to death in front of the Palace and elsewhere. In his fresco in San Domenico, Bazzi seems to identify the place with the little valley before us, between the hills of Montone and Santa Agata, crowned by the churches of the Servites and Augustinians.

CHAPTER VI

The Duomo and the Baptistery

Some such building had existed from the end of the tenth century; but the present “tiger-striped cathedral,” the most truly Gothic of all ecclesiastical buildings in Tuscany, belongs for the most part to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The hexagonal cupola was finished in 1264, four years after Montaperti and the year before Dante’s birth. The Campanile, with its curious turrets at the angles, was built in the following century. But the original building did not satisfy the Nine and the turbulent, prosperous citizens that they ruled. While prolonging the Duomo Vecchio, as it was called, to the east up to the present Baptistery (in those very years, between 1317 and 1321, in which Dante was at Ravenna, finishing his Paradiso), defects were discovered in the architecture; and in February 1322 (1321 in the old Sienese style) Lorenzo Maitani, with four other masters, proposed to the General Council of the Campana that a new cathedral should be erected: “we advise that, to the honour of God and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, His Most Holy Mother—who ever was, is, and will be in time to come, the Head of this city of Siena—there be begun and made a beauteous, great and magnificent church, which shall be well-proportioned in length, height, and breadth, and in all measures which pertain to a beauteous church, and with all splendid ornaments which pertain to and befit so great, so honourable and beauteous a church; to the end that our Lord Jesus Christ and His most holy Mother, and His most high celestial court, in that church may be blessed and glorified in hymns, and the said Commune of Siena be ever protected by them from adversity and be honoured perpetually.”[76] It was decided that the old Duomo should be preserved; but merely as the transept of this new ecclesia pulchra, magna et magnifica; and in December 1339 the new nave was begun, the architect Pietro di Lando, who was then working for King Robert of Naples, being summoned back to Siena to superintend, as “a man of great subtlety and invention.” He was succeeded by Giovanni di Agostino; but the pestilence of 1348, followed by the fall of the Nine in 1355, caused the work to be abandoned. The Sienese turned back to their Duomo Vecchio with renewed vigour, and, in the early years of the fifteenth century, the great work was practically completed—before Brunelleschi had crowned the rival Cathedral of Florence with his mighty dome.

Going up the Via di Monna Agnese, or climbing the steps from the Baptistery, we pass under a richly-worked doorway, in the tympanum of which the Redeemer is enthroned with Angels. This would have been a door at the end of the right aisle. As it is, it leads us into a spacious piazza, with the Duomo, as at

present constructed, on our right. On the left is the huge unfinished façade of the abandoned Duomo of Pietro di Lando and Giovanni di Agostino, with what would have been the principal entrance from the Via di Città. The tricuspidate façade of the present cathedral, in black, white and red marble, covered with statuary, was mainly constructed in the last two decades of the thirteenth century under the superintendence of Giovanni di Niccolò Pisano; but all the chief sculptors of the Sienese school have worked upon it, down to the latter part of the fifteenth century. The majority of the statues that we now see are modern copies of the originals, and almost the whole has been completely restored. The mosaics in the cuspidi are modern Venetian work, from the designs of Mussini and Franchi. Upon the platform is represented in graffito the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee; similarly, at the three doors, are three scenes from the administration of Holy Orders. These were originally executed in the sixteenth century, but have been restored and altered. Before entering the sacred building, the tablet should be noticed, set into the wall of the Vescovado, the Archbishop’s palace on the left: “Hoc est sepulcrum magistri Ioannis quondam magistri Nicolai et de eius eredibus.” It is the tombstone of Giovanni Pisano himself, who was buried in the cloister of the Canons, between the Duomo and the Vescovado.

The peculiar beauty of the interior of the Duomo is due to the fact that we have Gothic architecture, combined with decoration that is almost entirely in the style and taste of the fifteenth century. Gothic austerity is tempered here with the grace and fascination of the early Renaissance. The terra-cotta busts of the Popes in the cornice along the nave and choir belong to the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries. They make a strangely impressive series, these crowned Vicars of Christ, who Himself is seen in the midst of them, immediately under the eastern window. They stretch from Peter in a continuous chronological line round the church, to Lucius III., who sat on the Throne of the Fisherman from 1181 to 1185, succeeding to Alexander III., when our Henry II. reigned in England. They are solemn and dignified—the ideal Pontiffs of the closing chapter of Dante’s De Monarchia, “who in accordance with things revealed should lead the human race to eternal life.” But there is naturally no attempt or thought of portraiture: some of Hildebrand’s infamous predecessors are conceived and represented in the same spirit as he who said: “I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore, I die in exile.” Below them are similar busts of Roman Emperors, the supreme temporal rulers of the world in Dante’s dual scheme, “who in accordance with the teachings of philosophy should direct the human race to temporal felicity.”

The famous pavement of the Duomo—a thing unique of its kind—might well have paved the first terrace of Dante’s Mountain of Purgation. The tradition that this work was originally designed by Duccio (from which it would follow that Dante himself may have seen its first beginnings) is now almost entirely rejected. Documentary evidence proves that it was not begun until the year 1369, shortly after the resumption of work upon the Duomo Vecchio. The greater part of it was laid down after Giovanni da Spoleto[77] in 1396 had begun publicly to expound the Divina Commedia in the Studio of Siena, and we can readily imagine that the men under whose superintendence it was done had in their minds those superb terzine in which the divine poet describes the figured scenes over which his feet passed to meet that creatura bella, the Angel of Humility, whose face was like the morning star.[78] With one solitary exception—the rout of the Assyrians after the death of Holofernes—the subjects shown here are not the same as those on Dante’s duro pavimento. Instead of the examples of the punishment of pride, we have here a series of scenes which can hardly be said to be dominated by one idea, but which in the main (a few scenes standing apart, unconnected with the general scheme), through symbol, type and prophecy, lead up to the Sacrifice of Isaac before the High Altar, as mystically representing the Atonement of Calvary, renewed daily in the Sacrifice of the Mass. In the earliest of these commessi and graffiti, white and black marbles alone are used; later, coloured marbles are employed as well, both in shading and in the decorative portions. Executed at various dates, for the most part in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they have been frequently altered and restored, while in some instances modern copies have been substituted for the originals. Save in the season of the feast of the Assumption, the central portions are kept covered.

The pavement of the nave and aisles is a preparation, in some sort, for the rest. In the nave is first Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, “Contemporaneus Moysi,” with two disciples—symbolical of the mystical wisdom of the Ancients, “when sages looked to Egypt for their lore.” It was executed in 1488 from the designs of Giovanni di Stefano. Next comes Siena herself, represented by the Lupa suckling the Twins, surrounded with the heraldic beasts of the allied cities; this was originally executed in 1373, and (unlike the rest of the pavement) in mosaic, but the present piece is a modern copy. She is followed—in token of what her chroniclers call her perpetual fidelity to the Caesarian Monarchy—by a wheel with the Imperial Eagle in the centre, of the same year. Then follow two allegories of human life, under the sway of Fortune, “who hath the goods of the world so in her clutch.” The first is the so-called Storia della Fortuna, designed by Pinturicchio in 1505.[79] Fortune has landed ten of her subjects on the shore of a solitary island mountain, the paths of which are stony, and where reptiles lurk and crawl. Some run steadfastly on to seek wisdom; one sinks down to rest by the way, wearied already of the quest; one gazes longingly back, another shakes his fist at his mistress. “But she is blessed and heareth not that,” as Dante has it, as she spreads her sail to catch the breeze, and steps off again into her storm-shattered bark to fetch new votaries. Above all change and alien influence, in the flowery garden that crowns the mountain like Dante’s Earthly Paradise, sits Wisdom enthroned, with palm and book; on her right Socrates receives the palm, on her left Crates is casting jewels into the sea; the obvious meaning being that wisdom can be reached only by pursuit of knowledge and contempt of riches. The second, an allegory of ambition, a modern copy of a work originally executed in 1372, shows a crowned king enthroned on the summit of Fortune’s wheel; clinging desperately to the sides of the wheel are men struggling up to take his place or falling from it, while in the corners the sages of antiquity moralise upon the scene. On the pavement of the aisles are the ten Sibyls, inspired prophetesses of the Incarnation and Redemption among the pagans and gentiles. They were laid down in 1482 and 1483, under the rectorship of Alberto Aringhieri, to whose care so much of the beautiful decoration of the Duomo is due; but they have all been restored. In the right aisle we see the Delphic Sibyl, designed and executed by Giuliano di Biagio and Vito di Marco; the Cumaean Sibyl, ascribed to Luigi di Ruggiero and Vito di Marco;[80] the Cuman Sibyl, with the golden bough and the famous Virgilian prophecy, designed and executed by Giovanni di Stefano; the Erythraean Sibyl, designed and executed, also signed, by Antonio Federighi; the Persian Sibyl, which appears to be mainly the work of Urbano da Cortona. In the left aisle are: the Libyan Sibyl, designed by Guidoccio Cozzarelli; the Hellespontine Sibyl, designed by Neroccio di Bartolommeo Landi;[81] the Phrygian Sibyl, probably, like her Cimmerian sister, designed and executed by Luigi di Ruggiero and Vito di Marco; the Samian Sibyl, designed by Matteo di Giovanni and with his signature; the Albunean Sibyl, designed by Benvenuto di Giovanni.[82] These ten figures are among the most characteristic products of Sienese art of the Quattrocento.

On the pavement of the right transept we have the Seven Ages of Man, a modern copy of what was designed and executed by Antonio Federighi in 1475; the story of Jephthah, by Bastiano di Francesco, between 1481 and 1485; the Death of Absalom, by Pietro del Minella, 1447; and the Emperor Sigismund enthroned, designed by Domenico di Bartolo in 1434. This last is peculiarly interesting as being totally different in character from any other of the series, the work of a singularly striking and certainly the most isolated painter of the Sienese school. We have in all that Domenico does a touch of Florentine science and realism. In the left transept are the Expulsion of Herod, with some spirited fighting in superb Renaissance armour, designed by Benvenuto di Giovanni in 1484 or 1485, with a beautiful frieze of winged lions by Bastiano di Francesco; the Massacre of the Innocents, designed by Matteo di Giovanni in 1481, with a frieze of children, bacchanals, centaurs and amazons, showing how Matteo felt the spirit of the Renaissance more fully than any other Sienese painter of his day; the story of Judith, said to have been designed either by Urbano da Cortona or Matteo di Giovanni, and executed by Federighi in 1473. These three scenes have been completely restored. The raised platform in front of the choir shows some of the earliest of these graffiti, laid down between 1423 and 1426, much damaged and restored; David as the Psalmist and David slaying Goliath are by Domenico di Niccolò del Coro, whose work we have seen in the chapel of the Signoria; the story of Joshua and the victory of Samson are by Paolo di Martino. In the sixteenth century the arrangement of the choir was altered, the high altar being removed from under the cupola to its present position. Beccafumi then set to work to design the graffiti for the pavement in accordance with this new arrangement. His work, roughly speaking, runs from 1518 to 1546. It comprises the story of Elijah in the hexagonal space below the cupola; the story of Moses between this and the platform; and, before the high altar itself, the Sacrifice of Abraham, with Adam and Eve, Abel, Melchizedek and other scenes from the Old Testament, inclosed by a frieze representing the Children of Israel going to seek the Promised Land. In recent years the Elijah series has been completed from designs by Alessandro Franchi. Mr Cust remarks that Beccafumi, save in his earlier scenes, discards the colours that Pinturicchio had used, and “confines himself almost entirely to low tones of colour, which shade from one into the other; and produces his effects by a species of chiaroscuro. Instead of outlining each piece, or figure, in a single colour, he frequently uses, on the same subject, white and two or three different shades of pale-coloured grey marble.”[83]

Just within the great doorway are the sepulchral stones of two of the Sienese nobles who fell at Montaperti: Giovanni Ugurghieri and Andrea Beccarini. The delicately worked Corinthian columns supporting the tribune, the bas-reliefs (by Urbano da Cortona) round their pedestals representing scenes from the life of the Blessed Virgin, are of 1483. The stained-glass window over the portal, representing the Last Supper, was designed by Raphael’s famous pupil, Perino del Vaga, and executed by Pastorino Pastorini in 1549. The basins for Holy Water—perhaps the most beautiful things of their kind in existence—are by Antonio Federighi; the pedestal of the one on the right is supposed to be a real antique from an altar dedicated to Neptune. Near the side-doors are statues of two of Siena’s seven popes; Paul V. (Camillo Borghesi), who pontificated from 1605 to 1621, noted for his quarrel with Venice and for his extravagant ultramontanism; Marcellus II. (Marcello Cervini), a saintly man who held the papacy for a few weeks in 1555, and to whose memory Palestrina dedicated his famous Mass.

At the end of the right aisle, over the door of the Campanile, is the tomb of Tommaso Piccolomini, Bishop of Pienza, who died in 1483, by Neroccio; below it, three on each side, are bas-reliefs by Urbano da Cortona, representing scenes from the lives of the Madonna and her parents; that of Joachim among the shepherds is full of pastoral charm. The Cappella del Voto, in the right transept, glowing with lapislazuli and gold, was built in 1661 by Cardinal Fabio Chigi, to enshrine the miraculous Madonna—the Madonna delle Grazie—to which the Sienese had paid their vows in the days of Montaperti, and which is still credited with wonderful powers. The superbly modelled Magdalene and Jerome, by Bernini, the great Roman sculptor of the seventeenth century, are strongly characteristic of that master’s exaggerated and emotional, but undeniably powerful style. Further on in the transept, Siena’s first and latest pope face each other; Alexander III., the Orlando Bandinelli, so frequently mentioned, and Alexander VII., the above-named Fabio Chigi, who reigned from 1665 to 1667, a good, easy man, who loved letters, and of whom the Venetian envoy wrote that “he had merely the name of a pope, not the substantial power of the papacy.” In the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, let into the wall, are reliefs of St Paul and the four Evangelists, by Giovanni da Imola and Giovanni di Turino.

Opposite the Cappella del Voto is the Chapel of the Baptist in the left transept. It contains, in a richly worked reliquary, what is supposed to be one of the arms of the Baptist himself, which Pius II. presented to Siena in 1464. The chapel was built by Giovanni di Stefano, the external marble decorations being by Lorenzo di Mariano. Of the two pedestals that support the marble columns at the entrance, the one on the right is a genuine antique, which Antonio Federighi bought in exchange for a pair of oxen, and the one on the left is his own imitation of it.[84] Within, the presiding genius of the place is Donatello’s St John in bronze, one of the master’s latest works, full of dramatic expression and the same spirit of austere prophecy that we found in the Magdalene of the Florentine Baptistery. The marble statues of St Ansanus and St Catherine of Alexandria are by Giovanni di Stefano and Neroccio respectively; the latter, assigned to the sculptor in 1487, was left unfinished at his death. The bas-reliefs of the Font—representing scenes from Genesis, and two of the labours of Hercules—are fine and characteristic works of the school of Giacomo della Quercia, and should perhaps be ascribed to Antonio Federighi. The eight frescoes were originally executed by Pinturicchio and his pupils, between 1501 and 1504, for Alberto Aringhieri. On the left and right of the entrance, by Pinturicchio himself, we see Alberto in youth and age; first as a young knight keeping vigil, then advanced in years, kneeling in prayer, in the dress of a knight of Rhodes; they are full of charm, especially the first, in its harmonies of grey and red, the highest expression of Sienese chivalry:—

The fresco opposite, representing the Birth of the Precursor, is also from Pinturicchio’s hand. Appropriately placed above the two portraits of Alberto are the Vigil of St John and his Preaching in the Wilderness; they are very naive and charming, with odd formal trees and landscape against the gold background, and are ascribed by Mr Berenson to Baldassare Peruzzi, of whom there is documentary evidence that he worked here in 1501; they would thus be very early works of his, of the same period as they are in the same style as the little Madonna in the Accademia. These four frescoes have been repainted. The three that remain have been entirely replaced by later work; the Baptism of Christ and the Martyrdom of the Baptist, painted by Francesco Rustici at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Saint in Prison, by a modern artist, Cesare Maccari.

High up to the left of this chapel is the tomb of Cardinal Riccardo Petroni, a famous decretalist but a man of great charity (in spite of Dante the two things are not quite incompatible) in the days of Boniface VIII. It is probably by either Tino di Camaino or Gano, and is a good example of these sepulchral monuments of the early Sienese school, though here, as the monument is to a churchman, the religious ideal prevails over the usually more secular style. In the left transept are statues of the two Piccolomini Popes, Pius II. and Pius III., of whom more presently. As far back as the middle of the sixteenth century, it was supposed that the highly-revered wooden Crucifix, near the statue of Pius III., was the one carried by the Sienese at Montaperti. The chapel of St Ansanus, opposite that of the Blessed Sacrament, has an altar-piece by Francesco Vanni, painted in 1596, representing the Saint baptising the people of Siena, which is a decidedly favourable specimen of the later Sienese school. The bronze relief on the pavement, the tomb of a Bishop Giovanni Pecci, who died in 1426, is a signed work of Donatello. The bas-reliefs let into the wall—representing the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Procession and Adoration of the Magi—date from the first half of the thirteenth century; they are specially interesting here as, when compared with the great pulpit, they illustrate the state of sculpture in Tuscany before the advent of Niccolò Pisano, and enable us to realise what Niccolò effected.

The famous pulpit, by Niccolò and his pupils, was