The prevailing note of Siena and the Sienese seems, as I have said, to
be a soft and tranquil grace; yet this people had one of the stormiest
and maddest of Italian histories. They were passionate in love and hate,
vehement in their popular amusements, almost frantic in their political
conduct of affairs. The luxury, for which Dante blamed them, the levity
De Comines noticed in their government found counter-poise in more than
usual piety and fervour. S. Bernardino, the great preacher and
peace-maker of the Middle Ages; S. Catherine, the worthiest of all women
to be canonised; the blessed Colombini, who founded the Order of the
Gesuati or Brothers of the Poor in Christ; the blessed Bernardo, who
founded that of Monte Oliveto; were all Sienese. Few cities have given
four such saints to modern Christendom. The biography of one of these
may serve as prelude to an account of the Sienese monastery of Oliveto
Maggiore.
The family of Tolomei was among the noblest of the Sienese aristocracy.
On May 10, 1272, Mino Tolomei and his wife Fulvia, of the Tancredi, had
a son whom they christened Giovanni, but who, when he entered the
religious life, assumed the name of Bernard, in memory of the great
Abbot of Clairvaux. Of this child, Fulvia is said to have dreamed, long
before his birth, that he assumed the form of a white swan, and sang
melodiously, and settled in the boughs of an olive-tree, whence
afterwards he winged his way to heaven amid a flock of swans as dazzling
white as he. The boy was educated in the Dominican Cloister at Siena,
under the care of his uncle Christoforo Tolomei. There, and afterwards
in the fraternity of S. Ansano, he felt that impulse towards a life of
piety, which after a short but brilliant episode of secular ambition,
was destined to return with overwhelming force upon his nature. He was a
youth of promise, and at the age of sixteen he obtained the doctorate in
philosophy and both laws, civil and canonical. The Tolomei upon this
occasion adorned their palaces and threw them open to the people of
Siena. The Republic hailed with acclamation the early honours of a
noble, born to be one of their chief leaders. Soon after this event Mino
obtained for his son from the Emperor the title of Caesarian Knight; and
when the diploma arrived, new festivities proclaimed the fortunate youth
to his fellow-citizens. Bernardo cased his limbs in steel, and rode in
procession with ladies and young nobles through the streets. The
ceremonies of a knight's reception in Siena at that period were
magnificent. From contemporary chronicles and from the sonnets written
by Folgore da San Gemignano for a similar occasion, we gather that the
whole resources of a wealthy family and all their friends were strained
to the utmost to do honour to the order of chivalry. Open house was held
for several days. Rich presents of jewels, armour, dresses, chargers
were freely distributed. Tournaments alternated with dances. But the
climax of the pageant was the novice's investiture with sword and spurs
and belt in the cathedral. This, as it appears from a record of the year
1326, actually took place in the great marble pulpit carved by the
Pisani; and the most illustrious knights of his acquaintance were
summoned by the squire to act as sponsors for his fealty.
It is said that young Bernardo Tolomei's head was turned to vanity by
these honours showered upon him in his earliest manhood. Yet, after a
short period of aberration, he rejoined his confraternity and mortified
his flesh by discipline and strict attendance on the poor. The time had
come, however, when he should choose a career suitable to his high rank.
He devoted himself to jurisprudence, and began to lecture publicly on
law. Already at the age of twenty-five his fellow-citizens admitted him
to the highest political offices, and in the legend of his life it is
written, not without exaggeration doubtless, that he ruled the State.
There is, however, no reason to suppose that he did not play an
important part in its government. Though a just and virtuous statesman,
Bernardo now forgot the special service of God, and gave himself with
heart and soul to mundane interests. At the age of forty, supported by
the wealth, alliances, and reputation of his semi-princely house, he had
become one of the most considerable party-leaders in that age of
faction. If we may trust his monastic biographer, he was aiming at
nothing less than the tyranny of Siena. But in that year, when he was
forty, a change, which can only be described as conversion, came over
him. He had advertised a public disputation, in which he proposed before
all comers to solve the most arduous problems of scholastic science. The
concourse was great, the assembly brilliant; but the hero of the day,
who had designed it for his glory, was stricken with sudden blindness.
In one moment he comprehended the internal void he had created for his
soul, and the blindness of the body was illumination to the spirit. The
pride, power, and splendour of this world seemed to him a smoke that
passes. God, penitence, eternity appeared in all the awful clarity of an
authentic vision. He fell upon his knees and prayed to Mary that he
might receive his sight again. This boon was granted; but the revelation
which had come to him in blindness was not withdrawn. Meanwhile the hall
of disputation was crowded with an expectant audience. Bernardo rose
from his knees, made his entry, and ascended the chair; but instead of
the scholastic subtleties he had designed to treat, he pronounced the
old text, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
Afterwards, attended by two noble comrades, Patrizio Patrizzi and
Ambrogio Piccolomini, he went forth into the wilderness. For the human
soul, at strife with strange experience, betakes itself instinctively to
solitude. Not only prophets of Israel, saints of the Thebaid, and
founders of religions in the mystic East have done so; even the Greek
Menander recognised, although he sneered at, the phenomenon. "The
desert, they say, is the place for discoveries." For the mediaeval mind
it had peculiar attractions. The wilderness these comrades chose was
Accona, a doleful place, hemmed in with earthen precipices, some fifteen
miles to the south of Siena. Of his vast possessions Bernardo retained
but this--
The lonesome lodge,
That stood so low in a lonely glen.
The rest of his substance he abandoned to the poor. This was in 1313,
the very year of the Emperor Henry VII.'s death at Buonconvento, which
is a little walled town between Siena and the desert of Accona. Whether
Bernardo's retirement was in any way due to the extinction of immediate
hope for the Ghibelline party by this event, we do not gather from his
legend. That, as is natural, refers his action wholly to the operation
of divine grace. Yet we may remember how a more illustrious refugee, the
singer of the Divine Comedy, betook himself upon the same occasion to
the lonely convent of Fonte Avellana on the Alps of Catria, and
meditated there the cantos of his Purgatory. While Bernardo Tolomei was
founding the Order of Monte Oliveto, Dante penned his letter to the
cardinals of Italy: _Quomodo sola sedet civitas plena populo: facta est
quasi vidua domino gentium._
Bernardo and his friends hollowed with their own hands grottos in the
rock, and strewed their stone beds with withered chestnut-leaves. For S.
Scolastica, the sister of S. Benedict, they built a little chapel. Their
food was wild fruit, and their drink the water of the brook. Through the
day they delved, for it was in their mind to turn the wilderness into a
land of plenty. By night they meditated on eternal truth. The contrast
between their rude life and the delicate nurture of Sienese nobles, in
an age when Siena had become a by-word for luxury, must have been cruel.
But it fascinated the mediaeval imagination, and the three anchorites
were speedily joined by recruits of a like temper. As yet the new-born
order had no rules; for Bernardo, when he renounced the world, embraced
humility. The brethren were bound together only by the ties of charity.
They lived in common; and under their sustained efforts Accona soon
became a garden.
The society could not, however, hold together without further
organisation. It began to be ill spoken of, inasmuch as vulgar minds can
recognise no good except in what is formed upon a pattern they are
familiar with. Then Bernardo had a vision. In his sleep he saw a ladder
of light ascending to the heavens. Above sat Jesus with Our Lady in
white raiment, and the celestial hierarchies around them were attired in
white. Up the ladder, led by angels, climbed men in vesture of dazzling
white; and among these Bernardo recognised his own companions. Soon
after this dream, he called Ambrogio Piccolomini, and bade him get
ready for a journey to the Pope at Avignon.
John XXII. received the pilgrims graciously, and gave them letters to
the Bishop of Arezzo, commanding him to furnish the new brotherhood with
one of the rules authorised by Holy Church for governance of a monastic
order. Guido Tarlati, of the great Pietra-mala house, was Bishop and
despot of Arezzo at this epoch. A man less in harmony with
coenobitical enthusiasm than this warrior prelate, could scarcely have
been found. Yet attendance to such matters formed part of his business,
and the legend even credits him with an inspired dream; for Our Lady
appeared to him, and said: "I love the valley of Accona and its pious
solitaries. Give them the rule of Benedict. But thou shalt strip them of
their mourning weeds, and clothe them in white raiment, the symbol of my
virgin purity. Their hermitage shall change its name, and henceforth
shall be called Mount Olivet, in memory of the ascension of my divine
Son, the which took place upon the Mount of Olives. I take this family
beneath my own protection; and therefore it is my will it should be
called henceforth the congregation of S. Mary of Mount Olivet." After
this, the Blessed Virgin took forethought for the heraldic designs of
her monks, dictating to Guido Tarlati the blazon they still bear; it is
of three hills or, whereof the third and highest is surmounted with a
cross gules, and from the meeting-point of the three hillocks upon
either hand a branch of olive vert. This was in 1319. In 1324, John
XXII. confirmed the order, and in 1344 it was further approved by
Clement VI. Affiliated societies sprang up in several Tuscan cities; and
in 1347, Bernardo Tolomei, at that time General of the Order, held a
chapter of its several houses. The next year was the year of the great
plague or Black Death. Bernardo bade his brethren leave their seclusion,
and go forth on works of mercy among the sick. Some went to Florence,
some to Siena, others to the smaller hill-set towns of Tuscany. All were
bidden to assemble on the Feast of the Assumption at Siena. Here the
founder addressed his spiritual children for the last time. Soon
afterwards he died himself, at the age of seventy-seven, and the place
of his grave is not known. He was beatified by the Church for his great
virtues.