The Story of Siena and San Gimignano

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ills upon which it rises enthroned, with the curiously picturesque valleys between them, are still inclosed in frowning walls of the fourteenth century.

s, a dense black smoke arose from the altar of Apollo and a pure white smoke from that of Diana-in commemoration of which was made the balzana, the black and white shield of the Commune that we still see upon Siena's gates and public buildings. There are two other shields

hop. They were men of noble rank, usually three or sometimes six in number, elected by the people in the parliament that met either before the then Romanesque Duomo or in the Piazza di San Cristofano, to hold office for one year. At first the nobles were the greater power in the State; some at least were the descendants of the foreign invaders, the counts and barons of the Frankish and German Emperors, and the result of their prepotency was naturally combined with the territorial rivalry with Floren

M BEHIND

ies. These nobles were divided against themselves; there was bitter feud between the Salimbeni and the Tolomei, between the Malavolti and the Piccolomini. And presently the

te as Alexander III. (from 1159 to 1181) knew how to uphold the rights of Italy no less than the claims of the Papacy against the mightiest of the Kaisers. And, indeed, the Ghibellinism of the Sienese was always of a patriotic Italian type. In 1186 they closed their gates in the face of Barbarossa, believing that he meant to deprive them of their contado, and hurled back his son Henry discomfited from the Porta Camollia. At the close of the century, Siena began to have a Podestà as chief magistrate, like the other cities of Tuscany, who was probably at the outset an imperial nominee, and the consular government appears to have ceased by about 1212; while the people became associated into Arts or Guilds, somewhat resembling the more famous Florentine associations, whose representatives sat in the councils of the Republic and had their voice in the affa

f the Roman Curia, and, perhaps, more immediately to the fact that each was striving to extend its contado at the expense of the other. Poggibonsi, Colle di Val d'Elsa, Montalcino and Montepulciano-in which right was probably with Siena and might with Florence-were perpetual sources of contention, and the Sienese suffered severe defeats time after time. "Do not forget through eternity those that deny thee, that withdraw themselves from the homage they owe thee, that plot against thee and that bring shame to thee."

avourable a turn, that the Florentines were ravaging the contado, had hurled donkeys into Siena with their catapults, and on one occasion had even penetrated into the city itself. By what appears

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s of an old feudal family, rallied round the Twenty-four. The battle began in three places in the city. There was fighting up and down the narrow streets; there was flaming of torches and clashing of weapons round the palaces and towers. The Palazzo Tolomei and the Palazzo Malavolti were burned, and after much devastation and bloodshed, when many had fallen on either side, the Twenty-four got the upper-hand, drove out a certain number of the nobles, and appointed Aldobrandino Podestà. He was a s

this time shows the usual bewildering number of separate councils that we find in mediaeval Italian republics. The four Provveditori di Biccherna with their Camarlingo still administered the revenues of the State, the executive was in the hands of the Podestà and Captain. Laws were discussed and approved in the General Council of the Campana, composed of "three hundred good Catholics, not exc

man whom the triumph of the Guelfs would torture more than all the torments of his burning bed: Farinata degli Uberti. In spite of the express terms of the treaty, Siena turned a deaf ear to the remonstrance of her nominal ally, and refused to expel the fugitives. War being now inevitable, ambassadors were sent to Manfred to obtain his aid. The price of the royal assistance was that the Sienese should swear fidelity and obedience to him. This was done, and in May 1259, from Lucera, the King received the Commune under his protection. To a second embassy, praying him to take the imperial crown and to send a captain with an army into Tuscany, Manfred answered that he loved Siena above all the cities of I

engagement at Santa Petronilla outside the Porta Camollia. A small force of Germans and Sienese made a vigorous sortie, in which the Germans bore the brunt of the fighting, lost the greater part of their number killed, and the royal banner fell into the hands of the Florentines, who retired to their encampment, having suffered severely in killed and wounded. The

brandino and the Conte Guidoguerra, the Florentines decided instantly to resume hostilities-nominally to relieve Montalcino, in reality to destroy Siena. They called the people to arms to follow the standards of their companies, summoned aid from Lucca and Bologna and all the Guelf cities of their league. At the beginning of September the army of Florence with the Carroccio or battle car of the Republic, over which floated the red and white standard of the Commune, entered the Sienese contado, whe

rman constables, his seneschal and an interpreter, stood before the council. There was no thought of surrender then; the Germans shouted with delight at the prospect of double pay and speedy fighting, and Salimbene Salimbeni at once hurried to his palace and returned with the money, driving through the piazza in a cart covered with scarlet and decked with olive. Through his mouth the Twenty-four gave their reply to the Florentine herald: "Go back to your captain and the commissaries, and tell them tha

ng Manfred; let us now surrender ourselves, our goods and persons, our city and our contado with all our rights, to the Queen of Eternal

ereditary foes fell into each other's arms. Then after silent prayer, prostrate before the altar, the Dictator in an impassioned harangue formally made over the city and contado of Siena to the Mother of Heaven, while the Bishop mounted the pulpit and solemnly exhorted the people to mutual forgiveness and to approach the sacraments. The next day there was a long procession through the streets,

dobrandino. There were 19,000 citizen infantry from the three terzi of the city and the contado, under the Podestà, Francesco Troghisio, and their three Gonfalonieri, with the Carroccio of the Republic over which floated a white standard "that gave right good comfort, for it seemed the mantle of the Virgin Mary." A number of priests, some of them armed, accompanied the army; the rest with the Bishop, old men and women, spent the day fasting, going in procession from church to church throughout the city reciting li

es, hostis e cive factus as Leonardo Bruni puts it, struck Jacopo Pazzi with his sword on the arm that upheld one of the standards of the Republic; a portion of the cavalry went over to the enemy; the rest, seeing themselves betrayed, took to flight. Simultaneously the Count of Arras with the reserve, shouting "San Giorgio! San Giorgio!" burst furiously upon the Florentine flank. Then came, in Dante's immortal phrase, "the havoc and the great slaughter that dyed the Arbia red." The Sienese, writes the chronicler Niccolò di Giovanni Ventura, "seemed like unchained lions rushing upon their foes; little did it avail these to call on San Zanobi or Santa Liperata for aid, for they made a greater slaughter of them than do the butchers of their beasts on Good Friday." The infantry were driven from their position down into the valley, only to be ruthlessly massacred. A band of Florentine burghers-the flower of the Primo Popolo-s

TLEFIELD O

rdi,

ls the valley. The contadini take an uncanny pleasure in showing us the way, in pointing out and naming the various sites that witnessed the struggle. Away to the left, above the Malena-nearly an hour's walk from the small railway station of Arbia-is the spot where the battle ended. A steep little hill, the lower part of which is a vineyard, is crowned with olive trees and cyp

beating his drum in signal to the people in the streets below, telling them of the course of the struggle, bidd

than 600 Sienese had fallen on the field of battle, but among them were many young men of the noblest families in the city. It is needless to re-tell in this place the familiar story of the triumphant entry of the Count Giordano with the Ghibelline exiles and his German mercenaries into the desolate Florence, and how that short-lived despotism was set up which the people themselves-those strenuous burghers and artisans of the Florentine Guilds-overthrew six years later. Montalcino, the original cause of the war, had surrendered to Siena a few days after

arles of Anjou over Manfred at Benevento, in February 1266, was followed by the

It was mainly through his influence that Siena joined with Pisa in aiding Corradino, the youthful grandson of the great Frederick, in his designs upon Italy. Corradino came, a victim marked for the slaughter; and in August 1268 he rode into Siena with his army, and was received with the utmost joy as true Caesar. It was during his stay here that his troops, united with the Sienese, gained a slight victory in the Valdarno, and the prisoners brought into the city seemed to the exulting Ghibellines an augury of the complete triumph o

the bitter paces of flight," the Florentines and Guelf exiles taking ample vengeance for the slaughter of Montaperti. More than a thousand Sienese fell. Provenzano himself, to whom before the battle it had been foretold that his head should be the highest in the field, was taken prisoner, and murdered in cold blood by Cavolino Tolomei, who rode through the host with his head upon the point of his lance. Among the Guel

, which was now put into the hands of the "Fifteen Governors and Defenders of the Commune and People of Siena." A daring, but unsuccessful attempt of the Ghibelline exiles and their adherents within the walls to recapture the city in 1281 only resulted in strengthening the new democratic government. In 1285 the Fifteen were reduced to Nine, the famous magistracy of the Signori Nove, "the Lords Nine, the Defenders of the Commune and People of the city and district of Siena, and of the jurisdiction of the same," in which no members of noble houses could sit (though still eligible for the other offices of the State, such as those of the Provveditori di B

apia by his prayers, saw visions and wrought miracles, and after a life of humility and righteousness died in 1289, and was venerated as a saint.[9] Magnificent processions, gorgeous ceremonies of church and state, sumptuous balls and banquets, celebrated the bestowing of the order of knighthood upon the nobles of city and contado-each aristocratic house striving to eclipse the other in lavish hospitality and brilliant display. Amidst it all we hear the voice of that realist of the Trecento-Cecco degli Angiolieri, who "anticipates Villon from afar"[10]-singing of the three things for which he cares, la donna, la taverna, e' l dado, celebrating his sordid passion for Becchina, the shoemaker's daughter, pouring venomous abuse upon his own father, who persisted in living on and thus keeping him out of his heritage, railing ag

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to the desert, in 1313, to found the great convent of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, and to return to the city in

d the more strenuous Florentines to a proverb touching their neighbour: La lupa puttaneggia, "the she-wolf plays the harlot." In 1303 the Sienese purchased Talamone-which they fondly hoped to make into a valuable sea-port whereby they might become a great maritime power to rival Genoa or even Venice-from the Abbot of San Salvadore. Henceforth, to their mocking neighbours, they became the "vain folk that hopes in Talamone," upon which they spent enormous sums of money with no result, owing to the unhealthiness of the situation and the impossibility of keeping the harbour clear. They joined the Italian league against Henry of Luxemburg, sent men and money to the defence of Brescia, and, by their prompt assistance to the Florentines, helped in forcing the Emperor to raise the siege of Florence in 1312, when his army wasted their contado.

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re other houses of the magnates, were opposed to the Nine, and adopted the cause of the lower classes of the people, the popolo minuto, who were excluded from the Government by the burgher oligarchy. In 1318 the Tolomei, with certain of the Forteguerri and other nobles, plotted with the notaries and butchers and a number of artisans, to overthrow the Nine; but the attempt was easily repressed. A prolonged vendetta between Salimbeni and Tolomei kept the whole city disturbed between 1320 and 1326, while sim

could. Huge trenches were dug in different parts of the city, and the dead thrown in, indiscriminately, in great heaps. "And I, Agnolo di Tura called Grasso, buried five of my sons in one trench with my own hands; and many others did the like. And also there were some that were so badly covered up that the dogs dragged them out, and ate many bodies in the city. No bells tolled, and no one wept at any misfortune that befel, for almost every person expected death; and the thing went in such wise that folk thought that no one would remain on live, and many men believed and said: This is the end of the world. Here no physician availed, nor medicine, nor any defence; rather it seemed that the more precaution a man took, the sooner he died.

na was in arms. The Emperor rode through vast acclaiming throngs in the Campo to confer with the Nine in the Palace, while louder and louder rose the deafening roar, "Long live the Emperor and death to the Nine!"-the nobles instigating the populace to further efforts. In the Palace the Caesar received the abdication of the Nine, forced them to renounce all the privileges he had granted them, to annul the oath he had sworn to their ambassadors-while the younger nobles, shouting and cheering, led the populace to sack the palaces of the Provveditori di Biccherna and Consoli di Mercanzia, and the houses of the wool merchants, to release the prisoners, to hunt out the luckless Podestà and War-Captain. The books of condemnation, the papers of the Nine, were burnt before the Emperor's eyes in the piazza, and their official chest was dragged through the city at the tail of an ass. Though Charles had sufficient decency to refuse to surrender the persons of the Nine to the fury of the mob outside, he let the nobles and populace avenge themselves on their houses and property, and it was not until the evening had come that he sent his soldiers to guard the Dogana del Sale, and to order every one to lay down their arms. But such was the general alarm that no one woul

to acknowledge them; Montepulciano gave itself to Perugia, and the Sienese, in revenge, persuaded the governor of Cortona to revolt against the Perugians. A fierce war between Siena and Perugia followed. The Sienese gained a creditable victory outside the walls of Cortona. The light armed cavalry of Perugia harried the Sienese contado, and even approached the gates of the city itself, and the Sienese retaliated by taking the mercenaries of Conrad of Landau into

g force of Germans and Hungarians, overtook the Compagnia del Cappello, which was devastating the contado, in the Valdichiana, and gained a complete victory, taking its captain and other leaders prisoners. But when, in March 1367, they tried to play the same game with John Hawkwood and his company of Englishmen, near Montalcinello, there was a very different tale to tell; the Sienese were driven back to Siena in headlong rout, their Conservatore was taken prisoner, and peace had to be purchased at a goodly rate of golden florins. Within the city there was restless plotting against the Twelve, followed by banishment

ssy was dispatched by this new government to the Emperor; but, in the meanwhile, the Salimbeni had made common cause with the adherents of the Twelve, and sent ambassadors on their own account. On September 24th the Salimbeni, shouting for the People and the Emperor, rushed out of their palace and gardens in arms, joined forces with the Twelve, broke open the Porta di San Prospero, and admitted Malatesta de' Malatesta, the imperial vicar, who with 800 horse had been lying in wait. From street to street the people and nobles struggled desperately with each other; during the three weeks of their rule, the latter had fortified their houses and enrolled soldiers for this emergency, which enabled them to hold their own at first even against the trained cavalry of the imperial vicar, while their overbearing and tyrannous conduct had exasperated the people to madness. A last stand was made in the Campo round the Palazzo, where there was a grim struggle, grande e aspra battaglia, until Malatesta carried the place by storm,

nd for some days to induce Siena to redeem the imperial crown which had been pawned in Florence. In the meanwhile the nobles were making alarms and excursions in the contado, almost up to the gates of the city. There was another revolution in December. The lowest portion of the populace, or at least lower than those hitherto represented in the administration-"verily plebeians and entirely new men," as Malavolti has it-assailed the Palazzo, forced their way in, hunted out the representatives of the Twelve and Nine alike. Finally by a sort of general compromise a council of 150 riformatori was appointed, who reformed th

han 800 citizens, and returned an absolute refusal. Then the Salimbeni thought that the time had come to strike. On January 18th, Niccolò Salimbeni rode furiously through the street with armed followers, shouting "Long live the People! Down with the traitors who want the nobles back!" Malatesta with his cavalry entered the Campo, drew up in front of the Palace, calling upon the Signoria in the name of Caesar to surrender, and to expel the three representatives of the Nine. Instantly the alarm was sounded from the Mangia Tower. The armed forces of the people poured into the Campo, and their captain, Matteino di Ventura Menzani, with the gonfalone in his hand, led them against the foreign cavalry. The bells were ringing a stormo from churches and palaces, clashing and clanging over the heads of republicans and imperialists, when Cae

em and kissing them with the greatest tenderness and craving pardon." The Captain of the People issued a proclamation that no one should sell nor give any food to the Emperor and his folk. "The Emperor remained alone with the greatest fear that any rascal ever had. The people stared at him; he wept and mad

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sguised among the knights of his train, but several were detected and handed over to the Captain of the People. It was said that there had been a conspiracy to make over the lordship of Siena to Malatesta with an annual tribute to the Em

white lion for arms, to preserve the popular constitution of the State. In July, 1369, by arbitration of the Florentine Republic, peace was at last made, and the six exiled families-Piccolomini, Malavolti, Saracini, Tolomei, Forteguerri, Cerretani-were reconciled with the Republic and restored to their country, with the right of sitting in all the magistracies of th

tried to stay their march, and finally-with the aid of the greater part of the populace-captured the Palazzo and expelled the four of the Twelve and the three of the Nine from the Signoria, substituting seven of the "Popolo del Maggior Numero." There was a short breathing space in which the Council of the Riformatori attempted a sort of compromise. But in the meanwhile the leaders of the Dodicini, with some of the Salimbeni and others of the people who misliked what had happened, gained over the Captain and the three Gonfalonieri to their side. It was arranged that the Captain should secretly introduce armed men into the Palazzo, that each Gonfaloniere should secure his own terzo, and that the Salimbeni should march in from the contado with all their forces and seize the city gates, after which there should be a general massacre of all their opponents and the whole State should be reformed. The plot was to take effect on August 1st; but some inkling of what was intended reached the Signoria. Many arrests were made, and the conspirators resolved to precipitate matters. But on the night of the 29th, hearing the clash of arms in the Captain's apartments, the Defenders were put upon the alert, and succeeded in taking the Captain red-handed in the act of opening the gate. When day broke, the whole city was in an uproar. The three Gonfalonieri and the Dodicini had armed their adherents to the number of nearly two thousand men; they had occupied the mouths of the Campo and the Croce del Travaglio. A hor

y were forestalled by the diplomatic skill of the Florentines-brought things to a climax. The Malavolti with the Piccolomini, Cerretani, and other nobles joined the Salimbeni in arms, and made war upon the Republic, cruel reprisals being committed on either side, men's tempers embittered; the Riformatori, in despair, were ready to admit the Dodicini and Noveschi and all the people into their order. The Florentines secretly fanned the flames. By the beginning of March the Riformatori no longer dared to leave the city, while the nobles threatened the gates of Siena itself. "Although I am not one of the Riformatori," says the chronicler,[15] "yet do I say that the Riformatori were more thoroughly artisan than any other government ever was, and also the most loyal men towards their Commune; and they were more courageous against their neighbours than any other government." According to him they were undone by Florentine intrigue, and by the fault of a few bad men among them. On March 23rd, 1385, certain of the Dodicini forced the Bargello to release a prisoner whom he had arrested near the Porta Salaia. This was

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