shuttered palaces. As a rule it was empty except for the milk-woman
going from door to door in her big straw hat, and a worn-out
Comacine lion which grinned sardonically at me from an ancient
tower opposite. But to-day peasants were pouring up the hill--the
men in their black wide-awakes and Sunday clothes, and the women,
old and young alike, in their silly Tuscan hats which frivol with
every breath of wind, and are never as becoming as the lovely
head-kerchiefs of the Umbrians. They are worn on the backs of the
heads; the soft brims, which are not wired, form an aureole of
pale-coloured straw, and present a deliciously incongruous effect
when they frame withered faces wrinkled like walnut-shells. I love
the bent old women of Siena who look as if they had forgotten to be
old with their ribbons and flowers and their coquettish young hats!
[Illustration: SIENA FROM THE CONVENTO DELL' OSSERVANZA.]
Yes, Siena was awaking from her slumber. I even fancied that there
was a glint of suppressed laughter in the eye (he had only one eye,
the other was filled with lichen) of my Comacine friend across
the street. Already the city was like a hive, and the sound of a
distant crowd was like the humming of many insects. Every inn had
been full for days, and the people were still pouring in from all
directions.
At nine o'clock we went to see the last of the _prove_ from the
balcony which we had hired from that very agreeable haberdasher,
Signor Tizzi, who has a shop almost opposite the Palazzo Comunale.
It was hot, and the people down in the piazza were crowded together
in the shade of the Torre del Mangia, which lay across the square
like the shadow on a sundial. The whole scene was more like a
dream than a real happening. In the dark cortile of the Palazzo
Pubblico we could see the jockeys in fantastic parti-coloured
suits, waiting for gun-fire; and the fierce white sunlight beat on
the piazza, empty except for the chattering, gesticulating belt of
humanity in the shadow of the Mangia.
Bang! went the gun. And with a rattle of drums the _fantini_
(jockeys) came out to run their mad race, to the accompaniment of
the thunder of iron hoofs on baked sand, and the ceaseless shouting
of the good Sienese.
After the excitement had subsided somewhat we pushed our way
through the crowded streets to the cathedral. It was empty to-day,
although yesterday, on the Festival of the Assumption, it had been
full of glorious living colour. Then the Palio was hanging from
the arch of the transept, and a great throng filled the aisle.
Then, too, the miraculous Madonna delle Grazie, she to whom the
distracted Sienese dedicated their city on the eve of Monte Aperto,
was shown to the people; and the peasants, ever the last to lose
faith, knelt at her shrine all day. As a rule I do not love the
cathedral of Siena, notwithstanding its glorious pavement, and rich
carving, and the Pisani's exquisite pulpit whose equal is not to be
found in Italy. The great church's black and white stripings within
and without make the eyes ache, and the over-elaborated façade is
only beautiful by moonlight. But when High Mass is being celebrated
with mediaeval splendour within its walls, and a great press
throngs the aisles, it is bewilderingly rich. And we found it easy
to forgive even the zebra stripings when we saw the poor people of
the campagna praying to their miraculous Madonna behind the veil of
sunlight which poured down from the clerestory and made a Holy of
Holies of the Cappella del Voto.
That morning we paid another visit to the famous Library of the
Duomo, which Francesco Piccolomini commissioned Pinturicchio to
paint in honour of his uncle Aeneas Sylvius, for we could think of
no better preparation for the Palio than studying this Quattrocento
pageantry. We are told that in his contract Cardinal Francesco
inserted a special clause, insisting that the Umbrian artist
should use a certain quantity of gold and ultramarine and crimson
in his decorations. And truly Pinturicchio has lavished colour on
this splendid monument to the glories of the Humanist Pope, who
was a typical expression of his age in everything, except in his
great revival of the Middle Ages, when he tried to lead a crusade
against the Turks. The room is full of sunlight and the sheen of
gold and precious stones, and Pinturicchio seems to have caught the
world in its morning, with gay youths and maidens walking on the
flower-starred grass, and swift wild-geese high on the wing through
the clear blue heavens. But except in the exquisite panel where
the young Emperor meets his beautiful betrothed outside the Porta
Camollia, he is not such a poet here as he is in the Appartamenti
Borgia at Rome, though he is much gayer. All the more suited to
Siena, whose art was summed up by Lanzi as 'lieta scuola fra lieto
popolo'; forgetting, so it seems, the many Massacres of the Infants
scattered by Matteo di Giovanni through the Sienese churches, which
are revolting in their cruelty and ugliness!
By noon-time Siena was in a state of wild excitement. We had been
warned that the Porcupine had a good chance of winning the race
because its _contrada_ had drawn the horse which won the July
Palio. So after lunch we drove down to Santa Maria dell'Istrice,
which is a tiny church with a picturesque Renaissance belfry in the
Via Camollia. There were flags in the Via Cavour, and the great
Palazzo Salimbeni was hung with banners, and had velvet cloths
embroidered with the crest of the Montone hanging from its Gothic
windows. The torch-rests and banner-holders in the public squares
each carried the proud silken banners of their _contrade_, and
the whole city masqueraded under their different emblems--now the
Giraffe, scarlet and white; further on the Caterpillar, green and
yellow and blue; then the Dragon and the Wolf; and, at last, the
Porcupine.
[Illustration: SIENESE YOUTHS IN PALIO DRESS]
In the chapel we found three men at arms and two _alfieri_ in
parti-coloured hose and jerkins of magenta velvet, slashed with
black and white. Orestes, the _fantino_, was padding his helmet in
the little cupboard of a sacristy. He was a tall, blue-eyed man,
and looked superb in his bravery of velvet and satin and lace, with
long-toed velvet boots and shining helmet. He showed us the heavy
wooden jockey cap with painted colours which he was to wear in the
race, to protect his head from the blows of the other _fantini_;
and, as he told us with a shrug, he expected some, because, thanks
to Saint Anthony, his horse was undoubtedly the best, and every one
expected him to win.
The poor Captain who was to head the cortège was in a wretched
plight. He was being girded into his armour, and it was not a
dignified process. The day was hot, and the chain mail would not
meet. Eventually some one lent him a boot-lace or a piece of
string, I forget which, and we left him, to see the _alfieri_[8]
tossing their banners out in the street.
After a long delay the knight appeared, looking as dignified and
composed as if he had been wrestling in the spirit rather than in
the flesh before the altar of his chapel. And while the procession
was forming up we drove on to San Pietro della Magione, where
the Horse of the Porcupine is always blessed. The Via Camollia,
although it is one of the main streets of Siena, is so narrow here
that we had perforce to drive past La Magione to the city gates,
where it widens out into a piazza, before we could turn and so
drive back again.
La Magione has a flight of steps leading up to a terrace. It is a
very ancient church, brown and shabby, and many a Templar's horse
has champed at the foot of these same steps while his master prayed
within; and, it may be, shared his blessing before they started out
on the crusade.
With a rattle of drums our friends of the Porcupine came up the
narrow street. Everything was done with such natural grace and
pomp. First the tossing of banners round the ancient well-head
before the presbytery, and then the little service which ended in
the Blessing of the Horse. The animal was led to the foot of the
steps, and the old priest after saying a prayer sprinkled him with
Holy Water. He was a dear, intelligent beast, and behaved to the
manner born. He pricked his ears at the prayer, and though he tried
to walk up the steps, and sniffed inquisitively at the censer, he
did not even sneeze while lie was being sprinkled. Indeed I have
seen the part played worse by many a Christian.
Then the cavalcade formed up again, the drummer and the _alfieri_
leading, the knight on foot with his five pages, the _fantino_ on
horseback, and behind him a man leading the noble beast[9] he was
to ride in the Palio. With a rattle of drums they went off to toss
their banners in another piazza.
By this time Siena was alive with mediaeval processions, and the
music of their drums was borne in upon our ears from every side.
On our way to the Piazza del Duomo, which was the rendezvous
of all the _contrade_, we met many a gay company coming up the
dark alleys; or heard the stirring music of their drums as they
paused to fling their banners below the decorated windows of
fifteenth-century palaces. But the Piazza del Duomo was the
culminating point. The air was thick with silken banners, and at
every moment some fresh _contrada_ came up the hill, till it seemed
as though the square could hold no more. Was it by chance, or to
spite the other by diminishing his glory, that the Oca swaggered up
at the same moment as his ancient enemy the Torre? The _alfieri_
flung their silken banners high into the air, catching them as they
fell, and made them flutter like a carpet round their feet, or
between their legs, or about their necks, in honour of the Virgin.
And, in faith, how could she be otherwise than pleased to see these
pretty boys with beating drums and fluttering banners doing her
honour so merrily in the sunshine before her house!
[Illustration: SEEN AT THE PALIO.]
From the Gothic windows of the Bishop's Palace the Cardinal, who
yesterday had blessed the people in the cathedral, looked down upon
the scene. Once, when the _alfieri_ of the Wave tossed their blue
and white flags thirty feet into the air and caught them again, he
clapped his jewelled hands. The press thickened, but always the
silken banners clove the sunshine, and the drums sounded merrily,
now in the narrow street leading up between the vescovado and the
ancient hospital, now from the Via del Capitano. We saw knights
on horseback mingling with the crowd, and little children of the
Quattrocento, and Pinturicchio townsmen in scarlet and green and
orange and blue with fur-edged tunics and peaked caps. It was
the Pinturicchio of the library come to life again; or rather it
was the old light-hearted Siena who, even in the horrors of the
Spanish siege, would have her games, though she had no bread. The
gay drummers of the different _contrade_ seemed to have caught the
rhythm of her joyous heart-beats.
When we reached our seats the police were already clearing the
course, and the centre of the piazza was a seething crowd, with
fans which fluttered like butterflies over a field of wheat. What
a gay scene it was! The sunlight gilded La Mangia, and flamed from
Bernardino's monogram on the Palazzo Pubblico. The amphitheatre of
seats all round the course was filled, and every window and balcony
was peopled, and hung with scarlet and crimson cloths. Up the steep
Via Casato we could see the massed banners of the _contrade_, and
hear their impatient drumming as they waited for the signal to
enter. The voice of the people was like the roar of waves on a
distant shore.
At last every one seemed to have been driven behind the barrier
except a few sellers of beer and lemonade. A patrol of horse
carabinieri galloped round the course. Bang! went the gun. La
Mangia gave voice. To the fanfare of trumpets and the dull roar of
the people mediaeval Siena swept into the piazza.
Slowly and stately they came on. First a horseman in scarlet and
blue bearing the great Comunal Banner of the city, followed by
trumpeters in the livery of the Palazzo, and then the companies
of the ten _contrade_ who were to compete for the Palio. As each
one entered the piazza the whole procession paused for them to
toss their banners. Then with a blare of trumpets they passed
on--knights in burnished armour with drawn swords, pages in silk
and velvet with flowing cloaks and waving plumes, _alfieri_ with
proud banners, _fantini_ riding slowly with their racers led behind.
Victorious Montone, the winner of the July Palio, came first,
waving and tossing its red and yellow banners; then came the
gay Giraffe, scarlet and white; and then the Snail, who looked
depressed because he had drawn a sorry white nag more fit for
tilting at windmills than racing. The Tortoise followed him, yellow
and blue and red; and then the Wave, in pale blue slashed with
white; and next the stately Goose, St. Catherine's _contrada_,
wearing the red and white and green of United Italy. Behind them
marched our friends the Porcupine in their brave purple velvet and
shining armour, and the splendid Golden Eagle and the Blue Men of
the Nicchio, and the _Contrada_ of the Wolf. Still they came on,
with many pauses while the _alfieri_ waved and tossed the silken
banners, now carpeting the ground with the fluttering folds, now
whirling them round necks and under arms and legs, or tossing
them up before the Casa Nobile, till the course was like a bed of
flowers. And still the Mangia's deep voice acclaimed, and still the
trumpets blared and the drums rolled, till the procession stretched
all round the Campo, and the great banner of Siena at its head was
furled before the Palazzo Comunale.
Then came the Palio itself, borne on the great _carroccio_
decorated with the banners of Siena and her _contrade_. How the
people yelled as the enormous waggon, so splendidly mediaeval
with its poles and banners and its four heraldic horses, rumbled
round the square. Before it went two rows of children, little
Quattrocento children in striped jerkin and hose, scarlet and green
and black, linked together with long festoons of laurel. And round
the car rode knights in jousting helmets, clad in velvet and cloth
of gold, on richly caparisoned steeds with jewelled reins. Just so
did the victorious and exultant Sienese bring back the _carroccio_
of the Florentines which they had captured in the bloody fight of
Monte Aperto when they trampled the lilies of Florence into the
dust. And there, below the black and white oriflamme of Siena,
was a great banner of crimson velvet and gold--the colours of the
famous banner of the Florentines, which was brought back to Siena
more than six hundred and fifty years ago!
[Illustration: SIENA: THE PALIO.]
Although the tiers of seats erected for knights and pages below the
Palazzo Comunale already looked like a bed of tropical flowers,
more banners came fluttering down the Via Casato--the _comparse_
of the seven other _contrade_ who were not to take a part in the
race. They fluttered round the course to gay mediaeval music, and
joined the parterre of colour below the Palazzo beside the great
_carroccio_.
And now everything was ready. Two ropes were stretched across the
course at the starting-point--one the whole width of the track, the
other leaving a gap through which the horses could pass into line
so as to get as fair a start as possible; though every one knows,
and the _fantino_ as much as any one, that the start has little to
do with the race. His great object is to try and place himself out
of reach of the _nerbate_ of his special enemies, but even this
is hopeless if two or three have come to an arrangement to hold a
mutual enemy back until some outsider has carried off the prize.
Down in the crowded square the man who was to give the signal of
gun-fire had his fuse already lighted. In the dark courtyard of
the Palazzo we could see the _fantini_, no longer in their bravery
of velvet and silk and burnished steel, but clad in the colours of
their _contrade_, and wearing on their heads painted wooden caps to
guard their skulls from the blows of the _nerbi_.
Bang! There was a rattle of drums. Out came the _fantini_. They
moved slowly to the starting-point, and a great shout rent the air
as Siena with one voice acclaimed them. In the crowded square,
on the housetops, from the windows and the balconies, men waved
their hats, and women their scarves and handkerchiefs. Even little
children forgot their toy balloons, clapping their hands and
shouting while their erstwhile treasures floated away unnoticed.
They edged their horses between the ropes. Some blows were
exchanged; a horse reared, and one _fantino_ almost lost his seat.
Bang! went the _mortaletto_. Down went the ropes.
They were off!
From the start the Oca never had a chance. As for the Snail,
the whole field passed it before it had completed one round.
The Porcupine made a good effort, but the impetuous and dashing
_fantino_ of the Nicchio headed him off at the difficult turning
of San Martino. As they came up the hill for the last time it was
a race between the Tortoise and the Nicchio. The Tortoise was
leading, but the Nicchio overhauled him as they mounted towards
the Via del Casato, and as they came into the straight they were
neck and neck.
How the people yelled! How they called upon the Virgin and St.
Antony to come to the assistance of their _contrada_!
There was an indescribable confusion.
Bang! They had passed the post.
It was the Tortoise won the race!
In a flash the crowd had burst through the barriers and flooded
round the horses. The carabinieri came at a double to the rescue of
the Victorious Tartuca, for the men of the Oca were attempting to
mob him. The horse had already been spirited away lest it should
come to harm. The great mass of people swayed and roared.
Rattle-tap-tap; rattle-tap-tap. Through the crowd, with an escort
of stalwart troopers, came the waving banners of Tartuca with the
Palio in their midst, and away they marched with it to get the
blessing of Madonna.
It was all over, though the Mangia was still ringing overhead, and
the people were still shouting themselves hoarse.
'Or fù giammai
Gente si vana com'è la sanese?'[10]
SAN GIMIGNANO DELLE BELLE TORRI
'And far to the fair south-westward lightens,
Girdled and sandalled and plumed with flowers,
At sunset over the love-lit land,
The hillside's crown where the wild hill brightens
Saint Fina's town of the Beautiful towers,
Hailing the sun with a hundred hands.'
SWINBURNE.
We left Siena to her merry-making, and stole away early in the
morning to San Gimignano delle Belle Torri. From Poggibonsi we
drove right into the heart of Faery-land. Were we not bound for
Tuscany's most mediaeval city, which is still caught in the web
of beautiful thoughts spun round her towers by poets from Messer
Folgore, the thirteenth-century San Gimignanese, to our own
Swinburne? Our way lay through the rich Val d'Elsa, 'smiling in the
sweet air made gladsome by the sun.' Little hills ringed round with
the slender conventional pine-trees which Gozzoli loved to plant in
his Gardens of Paradise rose from the billowing plain. The vines
were linked from tree to tree in great festoons, heavy with grapes;
the plumy tassels of the maize were taller than a man; the roadside
was full of flowers--bright pink cloves, crimson wild peas,
chicory and Canterbury Bells. Indeed it was a veritable Paradise,
a Promised Land, not flowing with milk and honey, for milk is
sometimes very difficult to obtain in Tuscany where there are no
pasture grounds, but heavy with wine and corn, and the manifold
fruits of the earth.
[Illustration: THE TOWERS OF SAN GIMIGNANO.]
Long before we reached San Gimignano we saw her towers rising up
above the festooned vines like those Giants in Dante's _Inferno_,
which from a distance he took to be a city of many towers. He must
have been thinking of San Gimignano as he had seen it more than
once when he rode across the Tuscan vales from Florence, for it
looks ridiculously like a city of giants striding among miniature
houses. Its thirteen square towers of uneven heights massed on
the top of its little hill make the most fantastic sky-line in
Italy, and if the chroniclers speak truth the city to which Dante
came as Ambassador in the year of grace 1300 boasted no fewer than
seventy-six of these ambitious towers.
San Gimignano is like the Enchanted Princess in our childhood's
fairy tales. I think she must have fallen asleep one summer day,
wearied with waiting on her little hill for the Prince who was to
wed her. Perhaps she watched them jousting in the plain, those
petty princelings who tried to win her hand and always proved
themselves unworthy of her beauty and her ancient lineage, and I
know she sickened to hear their battle-cries as they issued by
night from their towers to plunder and slay. No laughing Tuscan
princess this, but a grave-eyed dreamy girl who loved to think of
saints although she blushed and trembled at a poet's tale, and
dreamt of queening it over the valleys which rippled from her
old brown walls to Volterra, or the fair city of Certaldo where
Boccaccio was born. She fell asleep in the fourteenth century when
she yielded up her keys to Florence, tired of waiting for the
prince who never came; and she dreams on among her flowers, very
beautiful, and happy at last with her poets and her saints, wearing
the threadbare garments of her ancient glory as befits a queen, and
at rest now that the faithless Salvucci and the unhappy Ardinghelli
no longer wage their useless warfare under her towers.
San Gimignano is a city where one could dream the world away, and
count its loss as nothing compared to the fragrant memories in
which she dwells. I think the people of San Gimignano do really
dream. They are very gentle and grave, and occupied with simple
tasks--the men working in the vineyards, and the women sitting at
their spinning-wheels outside their fourteenth-century palaces,
or plying their distaffs on the steps of the ancient well in the
Piazza del Pozzo, whose wall is worn into grooves, the width of my
hand, by the ropes of seven hundred years.
Flowers and grasses grow from her ancient towers, and white doves
nest in the narrow windows whence men-at-arms kept watch upon the
streets. It is as though the spirit of gentle Saint Fina lingers
still in the old grey town which gave her birth. The sweet-smelling
flowers 'called of Saint Fina' run riot on its walls and towers,
and her name is ever on the children's lips when they meet the
traveller at their city gates.
Let us go then to her chapel, for they will not let us rest till we
have seen it: they can find no beauty in their ragged palaces, and
no appeal in their gaunt grey towers or their lovely broken walls.
And we soon found that we must pay our respects to Fina first if we
would have peace to look elsewhere.
It was Domenico Ghirlandaio, in his way as great a poet as
Botticelli, whom the San Gimignanesi commissioned to paint the
story of their beloved Santa Fina; and in no other picture, save
his great 'Nativity' in the Accademia of Florence, did he reach
such a high poetic standard. He has chosen only two scenes from the
life of the little girl saint of San Gimignano--her vision of St.
Gregory, who appeared to her some days before her death and warned
her of her approaching end, and the miracle of the healing of her
old nurse Beldia as she lay in state awaiting burial.