_San Gimignano_
"La nobile più Città che Terra di San Gimignano."
San Gimignano of the Beautiful Towers is a place of frowning grey and
brown walls and towers, of mysterious alleys, of shimmering olive-trees
and fields of flowers that lie beyond, of flaming skies at sunrise, of
clamorous bells at nightfall. Hardly, indeed, would he be pressed who
should be called upon to award the crown of beauty to any one, rather
than another, of the smaller towns of central Italy, though San
Gimignano would perhaps deserve it. "No other town or castle in
Tuscany," wrote Gino Capponi, "retains more of the Middle Ages and was
less invaded by the ages that followed; in those towers, and in the
churches and in the houses of massive stone, is still something that
cannot be covered up by the thin plastering of modern times; ancient
memories keep their possession of it, the new life has hardly entered
in."[173] High up on the side of one of the hills of the Val d'Elsa--
"The hill-side's crown where the wild hill brightens,"
as Mr Swinburne sings of it--it watches the fertile valley of the Elsa
spread below, while to the north, beyond Certaldo (haunted still by the
spirit of him who wrote the Human Comedy of the Middle Ages), the
[Illustration:
_Lombardi, Siena_
SAN GIMIGNANO]
Apennines bar the eyes' further progress. Behind it, to the west, are
hills that command a view of Volterra and the distant Mediterranean. The
woods that once gave the little town its picturesque name--"Il Castello
della Selva," the "Castle of the Wood"--have almost disappeared. In
their place it is surrounded with olive plantations, which temper with
their silvery softness the austerity of the towers and the walls:--
"Of the breached walls whereon the wallflowers ran
Called of Saint Fina, breachless now of man,
Though time with soft feet break them stone by stone,
Who breaks down hour by hour his own reign's span."[174]
The people are mediaeval still. You may see them throng the churches as
in the old days of simple faith, or hear them among the vineyards and in
the beanfields answer each other in the _rispetti_ and _strambotti_ of a
more primitive Tuscany. The place is miserably poor, in marked contrast
to the smug prosperity of its neighbours, Poggibonsi and Certaldo.
Living is exceedingly cheap, but there is no trade, and what little work
there is, is but scantily paid. Yet the people are full of old-world
dignity and courtesy, and seem cheerful in spite of it all, even down to
the little beggar _bambini_ who pursue the foreign visitor with
insatiable demands for foreign stamps and soldi, or pester him with
unseasonable offers to serve as guide.[175]
Like most other small Italian towns, the origin of San Gimignano--_il
nobile castello_, or _il florido castello di San Gimignano_--is hidden
in legendary clouds. There is, of course, a tradition of a Roman
foundation, a castle built by Silvius, a young Roman patrician involved
in Catiline's rebellion, of Attila's hordes of Huns hurled back by a
sudden apparition of St Geminianus the martyred Bishop of Modena (whence
the change of name from Silvia to San Gimignano), of a great palace
built by Desiderius King of the Lombards, of privileges granted by
Charlemagne. All these things are presumably mere fables. Luigi Pecori,
the historian of his native town, supposes that in the sixth or seventh
century, when the devotion to St Geminianus was widely spread, a church
was built to his honour here, that people gradually gathered round it,
until by the beginning of the eighth century there was a regular town,
which was fortified by a castle; and as it was then surrounded and
defended by woods, it was called the Castello di San Gimignano or the
Castello della Selva. Be that as it may, the first authentic mention of
the place is in a document of the early part of the tenth century.
From the tenth to the twelfth century, San Gimignano was subject to
Volterra and more particularly to the Bishop of that city; but in the
course of the twelfth century, its people were gradually winning their
way to virtual independence and self-government, like the other communes
of Tuscany, and like them beginning to exert supremacy and authority
over the petty nobles of the small castles in the vicinity. By the year
1200, they had practically attained their liberty. At this time they had
consuls, three or four elected annually, with a special council of fifty
and a larger general council "which met only in cases of peace or war,
usually in the Pieve, and always at the sound of the bell, as though
Religion with her solemn voice invited the citizens into her own
sanctuary to provide for the public weal."[176] Hitherto the Bishop of
Volterra had appointed two rectors, _rettori_, in whom the judiciary
power was vested; but in 1199, instead of these rectors, we begin to
find a Podestà, elected by the Council of the Commune, the first being
Messer Maghinardo Malavolti of Siena. At first, a native of the place
was sometimes elected; but after 1220 the Podestà was always a foreign
noble (usually, but not invariably, from Siena or Florence), who judged
civil and criminal cases, presided over the meetings of the General
Council and led the forces of the Commune in war; he brought with him a
judge and a notary with a certain number of attendants, _berrovieri_,
and was not allowed to entertain nor to receive hospitality from the
citizens. All this was more or less the same, on a smaller scale, as
what took place at this epoch in Florence or Siena; but here in San
Gimignano the effect of the appointment of a Podestà was not to reduce
the authority of the consuls, but rather to abolish that of the rectors
of the Bishop of Volterra, and we find him exercising his magistracy
side by side with the consuls for a longer period here than in the
larger communes. For the rest, his term of office was originally one
year, but it was afterwards reduced to six months; the same Podestà,
however, was frequently re-elected.
Hitherto San Gimignano had consisted of the _Castello Vecchio_,
surrounded by the old walls and with those grim antique gates, of which
the remains stand to-day in the shape of the two _portoni_, with a
suburb outside. But now, at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the
thirteenth centuries, the new circle of walls was built to inclose the
_Castello Nuovo_, as it was called; this is the _seconda cinta_, the
second circuit of walls that still surround the place.
With the thirteenth century begins the series of the wars of the
Sangimignanesi. In 1202, under their Podestà, they sent a force to
relieve Semifonte, then besieged by the Florentines, but ended by
helping to subject the castle to their formidable neighbours. They
amplified their own dominion, destroyed the fortresses of the lords of
various little castles in the contado, forcing them to enter San
Gimignano, and obtained Castelvecchio (which no longer exists) in 1210
from the Bishop of Volterra. They carried on a long intermittent
struggle with Volterra, sometimes for the possession of Monte Voltraio,
sometimes in alliance with the warrior bishop, Pagano de'
Pannocchieschi, whom his people expelled at intervals. Occasionally,
Florence or Siena would intervene and compel the two small communes to
keep the peace. San Gimignano even sent men to the Crusades, and two of
these, Bene Trainelli and a certain Gradalone, are said to have won
great honour. Within the city, there were the usual struggles between
the magnates and the people, the _grandi_ and the _popolani_, which came
to a head in 1233, when the houses of the Knights Templars were burned,
and a number of _popolani_, chosen from each of the then four contrade,
with the rectors of the Arts, were appointed to sit with the consuls in
the councils of the State. There was another tumult in 1236, which the
Bishop Pagano came in person from Volterra to appease, after which the
two Councils appear to have been reduced to one. In the days of
Frederick II., San Gimignano was Ghibelline, took its Podestàs "by the
grace of God and of the Emperor," and sent horse and foot to serve in
the imperial army. But the factions raged here, as everywhere else in
Tuscany. In 1246, irritated by an unusually heavy tax upon the churches,
the Guelfs rose. Headed by the sons of Guido Ardinghelli, they assailed
the houses of the Ghibellines, especially those of the sons of Messer
Salvuccio. The Podestà was absent at Certaldo; but he gathered troops in
the contado, and entered the town while the uproar in the streets was at
its height; he assailed the Guelfs who, under this combined attack and
the rain of bolts and arrows from the towers, were forced to retire.
There were numbers banished on both sides. Thus began the feud between
the houses of the Ardinghelli and Salvucci, that was to bring San
Gimignano into servitude.
Shortly after the middle of the thirteenth century, a more democratic
form of government was established. Instead of the consuls, the supreme
authority was vested in a magistracy of twelve, elected annually--the
twelve "Captains and Rectors of the People," two captains and one rector
being elected from each quarter of the town. There was the one Council
of the Commune, usually sixty in number. A special magistracy of eight
presided over the public expenses (the _Otto delle Spese_), and the
Podestà, of course, had a special council, which in San Gimignano
consisted of sixteen citizens.
But in the years in which this reformation was effected, immediately
after the death of Frederick II., the factions grew more furious. In
June 1251 the Guelfs rose, headed by the Twelve, expelled the Ghibelline
Podestà, Neri degli Uberti of Florence, and made themselves masters of
the town. Then in September 1252, the Ghibellines rose, headed by
Michele Buonfigliuoli. The Guelfs made their stand at the houses of the
Cini and Cici in the quarter of San Matteo, where after a desperate
battle--the Podestà vainly spreading the red and yellow banner of the
Commune and calling upon the combatants to lay down their arms--the
Ghibellines got the upper hand, sacked the houses and massacred their
opponents. The Guelfs appealed to the Bishop of Volterra, Ranieri de'
Pannocchieschi, who came to San Gimignano and patched up a sort of peace
between the two factions--apparently to the advantage of the Guelfs. The
Ghibellines rose again in January 1253; the gates were broken down and a
portion of the walls destroyed, until at last the men of San Miniato
interposed and assisted in expelling the leading Ghibellines.
This is the epoch of the short, flower-like life and flower-attended
death of the virgin heroine of San Gimignano, Santa Fina. Fina de'
Ciardi, born of a noble but poor family, at the age of ten contracted a
horrible disease and, instead of a bed, chose to lie upon a plank of
hard oak for five years, "offering herself up as a perfect holocaust to
God." She lost her father and mother, had horrible visions of the fiend
in the form of a serpent. Then according to the legend, eight days
before her death, St Gregory appeared to her, and told her that the end
of her miseries was come, for that on the day of his feast she would be
with him in Paradise. She died on March 12th, 1253, being then fifteen
years old. "Hardly had that blessed soul expired," writes the Annalist,
"than the Demons in envy and rage filled the air with such fearful
whirlwinds, that poor mortals were struck with horror. Against them the
sound of the bells of San Gimignano, moved by the invisible hands of
Angels, bore witness to the sanctity of Fina, and straightway caused
those storms and infernal whirlwinds to cease. At these prodigies, the
people flocked to the house of the saint, from which every one imagined
that these effects proceeded. And when they arrived there, they smelt a
fragrance of Paradise, and saw all the room where the sacred body was,
miraculously full of flowers, as also the board upon which she lay. And
when they wished to lift her from it, a part of the mortified flesh
remained attached to it and straightway turned into flowers."[177] Such
are the contrasts offered by mediaeval
[Illustration: APPARITION OF ST GREGORY TO SANTA FINA
(DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO)]
life and legend. The towns where the streets are still running red with
the blood of the citizens, while the remains of houses and palaces are
still smoking in their ruin, are visited by beings of another world, and
have mystical gates and windows that open out upon the unseen.
San Gimignano was now Guelf for a while, and sent a well-equipped little
force to swell the Florentine host at Montaperti in 1260. After the
battle the Ardinghelli, Pellari, Mangieri and other Guelf families fled
to Lucca; the Ghibellines took over the government and recalled Neri
degli Uberti to serve as Podestà. San Gimignano now followed the
fortunes of Siena, as in its Guelf days it had followed those of
Florence. But in 1269, after the battle of Colle di Val d'Elsa, it
became Guelf again under the suzerainty of Charles of Anjou, expelled
the leading Ghibellines, and took a Captain of the People in imitation
of the Florentines. But the neighbouring castle of Poggibonsi still
clung to the decaying cause of the Ghibellines, and sheltered the
_fuorusciti_. It was now, in 1270, reduced by the French soldiery of
Montfort, aided by the Florentines and Sangimignanesi. The splendid
castle, which Giovanni Villani calls the strongest and most beautiful in
Italy, and of which we still see the remains rising above the modern
town, was razed to the ground, and the inhabitants were forced to
descend from the hill into the plain. King Charles put the work of
destruction into the hands of the Sangimignanesi and made over a portion
of the territory of the "rebellious" castle to them, the rest to the
Florentines. Henceforth San Gimignano adhered to the Guelf League of
Tuscany, sent armed men to take part in its wars, and did a little
independent fighting with the Bishop of Volterra. The small Commune
began to have a voice in the counsels of Tuscany. In August 1276, the
Sienese sent for peacemakers from San Gimignano, and the Podestà,
Fantone de' Rossi of Florence, with two of the citizens went at their
request, "for the utility of that City and for the honour of this
Commune."
This was, indeed, the golden age of San Gimignano, from about 1270 to
about 1320. According to Pecori, the population of the _terra_ and
contado together amounted to about 16,000 in the fourteenth century. The
internal government grew more democratic, more definitely Guelf. Instead
of the twelve captains and rectors, it was now ruled by the _Otto delle
Spese_ with the four _Capitani di Parte Guelfa_, and the usual
_credenza_ and General Council. In 1301 these Eight were increased to
Nine, the "Nine Governors and Defenders of the Town," whose term of
office (like that of the Priors of Florence and the Nine of Siena) was
two months. With the Nine was associated a _giunta_ of twenty-four. The
Podestà was publicly elected in front of the Pieve or Collegiata. All
the magistrates assembled, and the Captains of the Parte Guelfa
determined two cities from which he should be chosen. Then they drew by
lot twelve councillors, each of whom nominated two knights from each of
the two cities. They balloted for these, took the names of the eight who
had received most votes, and wrote them on two tickets, four on each,
which were inclosed in wax and put into a vessel of water. A child drew
out one for the first six months, leaving the other for the second. Then
the four names were similarly inclosed in four other wax globules, the
child drew again, and the first name that came out was that of the
Podestà for the next six months. The names on the second ticket,
carefully inclosed in wax, were put into the custody of the Friars Minor
until, at the appointed time, they were brought to the General Council
and the same process repeated for the Podestà of the second six
months.[178] And, indeed, the Podestà of San Gimignano had no easy task;
the factions continued their aimless and deadly course, the Pellari
leading the Guelfs and the Salvucci the Ghibellines, until in May 1298,
the Cardinal Matteo d'Acquasparta came to the place and patched up a
peace, which was solemnly celebrated in the Piazza.
In the following year, 1299, died San Bartolo, the Father Damian of the
Middle Ages. He was the son of Giovanni Buonpedoni, Count of Mucchio in
the Sangimignanese contado. At an early age he entered the Church,
tended the sick at Pisa, served as a simple parish priest at Peccioli
and Picchena, and at length devoted the last twenty years of his life to
the service of the lepers in the leper hospital, the Leprosario of
Cellole. Here he fell a victim to his heroic self-sacrifice, and
suffered so terribly that he was called the Job of Tuscany. By his own
last wish, he was buried in Sant' Agostino, where, two centuries later,
the art of Benedetto da Maiano raised the noble monument we now see.
The day in this epoch that has made most impression upon the imagination
of posterity, probably created comparatively little excitement at the
time. It was only one of many similar embassies from the allied cities
of the Guelf League that came to the gate of San Gimignano on that May
morning of the year of Jubilee, 1300;[179] but the young burgher who
rode in, with trumpeters and others whose coats were emblazoned with the
red lily, was no other than Dante Alighieri, come as ambassador of
Florence to announce that a parliament was to be held for the purpose
of electing a captain for the Guelf League of Tuscany, and to invite the
Commune of San Gimignano to send representatives. The great new Palace
of the Commune was then just finished, and the Tower barely begun. There
was much Guelf fervour in San Gimignano in this year, the Podestà
ordaining that, to avoid disorder and faction, every one should solemnly
declare himself Guelf or Ghibelline, and that the Captains of the Party
should raise a guard of six hundred men, half from the _terra_ and half
from the contado, for the custody of the town, to appear ready in arms
at the sound of the bell. As we might have anticipated, when the Guelfs
split into Blacks and Whites, San Gimignano was "black," and in 1305
sent men to the siege of Pistoia.
A fierce war, on a large scale for two such small states, broke out in
1308 between San Gimignano and Volterra. There were no serious battles,
but much harrying of the country and burning on both sides, and it was
only ended by the intervention of Florence, Siena and Lucca. On the
advent of Henry of Luxemburg, the Sangimignanesi sent men to aid King
Robert and the Florentines. The Emperor came to Poggibonsi, from which
he sentenced San Gimignano to pay a fine, and its walls and towers to be
destroyed. Naturally, it was a mere idle threat.
This was the epoch in which the poet of San Gimignano, Messer Folgore,
flourished. As we have seen, his principal work is associated with
Siena; but there is a second series of sonnets, eight in number, for the
different days of the week, which is more connected with his native
city. They are dedicated to the Florentine, Carlo di Messer Guerra
Cavicciuoli, who had served San Gimignano as condottiere in the war
against Volterra. A more strenuous and virile note is struck here than
in the better-known Sienese series for the months, in as much as,
amidst the singing and love-making, the feasting and jousting, hunting
and hawking, there is at least one day of genuine fighting to be done:--
"To a new world on Tuesday shifts my song,
Where beat of drum is heard, and trumpet-blast;
Where footmen armed and horsemen armed go past,
And bells say ding to bells that answer dong;
Where he the first and after him the throng,
Armed all of them with coats and hoods of steel,
Shall see their foes and make their foes to feel,
And so in wrack and rout drive them along."[180]
For the rest, Folgore was a furious Guelf, and when his party was
crushed by Uguccione della Faggiuola, on the tremendous day of
Montecatini in 1315, he hurled his defiance at God Himself:--"I praise
Thee not, O God, nor adore Thee; I pray not to Thee, and I thank Thee
not; and I serve Thee not, for I am more sick of it than are the souls
of being in Purgatory. For Thou hast put the Guelfs to such torment that
the Ghibellines mock us and harrow us, and, if Uguccione demanded duty
from Thee, Thou wouldst pay it readily."[181]
In 1319 two brothers of the Baroncetti, Messer Tribaldo and Fresco,
conspired to make the first-named despot of the town. He was a leader of
the Guelfs, potent in their councils, lavish with his money. With their
allies and friends the two attempted to surprise the Palace; but the
people rose in arms and drove them from the town; they were sentenced to
perpetual banishment and their goods confiscated. "There was a knight of
the Baroncetti," writes Fra Matteo Ciaccheri in his rhymed chronicle,
"and he was a mighty man: Messer Tribaldo was his name. He sought by
every way and means to become lord of all, and to make himself fine with
the noble mantle. Therefore was he hunted out with great fury, and
Messer Fresco, for they were brothers: for all the town rose in
tumult."[182] After this the Captain of the People, whose office had
hitherto been frequently held by the Podestà, became more important, and
the special council over which he presided was limited to _popolani_.
Guards were continually kept on the Tower of the Podestà and the Tower
of the People; chains were made for the streets and gates, and special
custodians of them appointed for each of the four contrade. But the
factions grew more and more embittered, and the days of the little
Republic were numbered.
Led by the Ardinghelli, the _fuorusciti_ were ravaging the contado, when
in 1332 the Sangimignanesi, headed by their Podestà, Messer Piero di
Duccio Saracini of Siena, took and burned Camporbiano, which had
sheltered them. But Camporbiano was in the contado of Florence. The
Florentines instantly summoned the Podestà and the leaders of the
expedition to appear before them, and, when they did not appear,
condemned the Commune of San Gimignano to pay a heavy fine, and their
Podestà, with one hundred and forty-eight men of the town, to be burned
alive. When the Florentine troops were actually on the march, the
Sangimignanesi begged pardon, and threw themselves on the mercy of the
Commune and People of Florence, who forgave them fairly magnanimously,
on the condition of taking back the exiles and making good the damage
that they had done to Camporbiano, according to the valuation of the men
of the latter place themselves and of the Florentine ambassadors. After
this, the Florentines soon began to treat San Gimignano as a vassal
State, demanding soldiers and tributes, forcing its councils to ratify
their corrections of the statutes. When the Duke of Athens made himself
lord of Florence in 1342, the Ardinghelli (who had been expelled again)
attempted in the night to surprise the town, with the aid of the ducal
forces, at the Porta della Fonte. The attempt failed, but in the
following February the Commune was forced to submit to the Duke, who
began to build a castle to secure his hold. A few months later, on his
fall, it was razed to the ground and his adherents expelled. Again the
Ardinghelli, led by Primerano and Francesco, in secret understanding
with their friends within, attempted to get possession of the town, and
again they were unsuccessful. Civil war now broke out in the contado,
and in 1346 the Ardinghelli, with a strong force of armed men collected
from all quarters, again assailed the walls. At last, by the
intervention of the Florentines, a peace was patched up, and the
Ardinghelli returned.
Broken in spirit by the pestilence of 1348, hopelessly in debt to the
banking houses of Florence and with factions still devastating the town,
in the spring of 1349 the Commune of San Gimignano was compelled to
surrender the custody and government of the State to the Florentines for
three years, with the conditions that the Commune of Florence should
every six months send a _cittadino popolano_ from Florence as Captain of
the Guard and another as Podestà (the latter, however, elected by the
Sangimignanesi themselves), and that the citizens of San Gimignano
should be declared true and lawful citizens of Florence, with the same
rights and privileges as the Florentines.
The mutual hatred of the Ardinghelli and the Salvucci now blazed out
afresh. Temporarily allayed by the appearance of some three hundred
Florentine cavalry in the town, it came to a head in 1352. In a street
brawl, a certain Ser Ilario struck Michele di Pietro, one of the Nine;
Rossellino di Messer Gualtieri degli Ardinghelli (the brother of the
Primerano already mentioned), who was present, was made responsible and
fined. The Salvucci declared that Bartolommeo Altoviti, who was Captain
of the town for the Florentines, had favoured Rossellino, and contrived
that he should be succeeded by Benedetto di Giovanni Strozzi. Benedetto
was easily convinced by them that Rossellino and Primerano were plotting
with Altoviti against him. He promptly arrested the two brothers, "young
men of great expectation and following," says Matteo Villani, "and
Guelfs by disposition and birth," and imprisoned them. They threw a
letter out of their prison tower, calling upon their friends to deliver
them. It fell into the hands of the Captain, who, impelled "either by
zeal of his office or by his own evil disposition or by the instigation
of the Salvucci, their enemies," determined to put them to death. The
Commune of Florence, believing them innocent, sent an express command to
Benedetto that he should not take their lives: but the Elsa had risen in
flood, and the messengers could not pass that night. The Captain,
hearing that they were on the way, hurried on the execution; on August
9th, he had the two young nobles publicly beheaded in the Piazza at the
foot of the steps of the Palace, together with the supposed accomplice
to whom they had written the fatal letter.
Thirsting for vengeance, the Ardinghelli, on December 20th, introduced
the soldiery of the lords of Picchena and of the exiled Rossi of
Florence into the town by the Porta di Quercecchio. Followed by the
majority of the people, they assailed the houses of the Salvucci, who
were taken by surprise and made little resistance, drove them out of the
place, sacked and burned their palaces and those of their adherents, and
occupied the town for themselves. On Christmas Day, the Salvucci and
their friends appeared in Florence, demanding the aid of the Commune
under whose guardianship (they said) they had been thus robbed and
maltreated. On the other side the Ardinghelli, in the name and with the
authority of the Commune of San Gimignano, sent ambassadors, declaring
that they had driven out the Ghibellines and would hold the town in
honour of the Commune of Florence and of the Parte Guelfa. In February,
the Florentines sent their Podestà, Paolo Vaiani of Rome, with a strong
force of horse and foot, to restore order. Reaching the town and
receiving no answer to their summons, they set their camp in hostile
array and began to waste the country; but none sallied out nor made any
resistance. Then the people forced the Ardinghelli to surrender. It was
agreed that the Florentines should make peace between them and the
exiles, should have the custody of the town for five more years, and
should keep a Captain of the Guard there with seventy-five horsemen at
the cost of the inhabitants, and that the Salvucci should return after
six months. But the lords of Picchena having made no apology to Florence
for their share in the matter, the Florentines in June destroyed their
walls and fortress, "in order that this castle might no more be the
cause of San Gimignano and Colle being stirred up to any
rebellion."[183]
Very striking is the last, piteous appeal of Fra Matteo Ciaccheri to his
countrymen, to let the dead rest and save San Gimignano before it is too
late:--
"Among the castles it is the very flower, and we are destroying it with
all our might. It is the will of God, our Lord, that it should come to
nought for our sin; within my heart I feel bitter grief thereat! Each of
us has been hunted out, because we have turned to these factions, and we
have been slain and burned and taken and robbed. For God's sake, let us
let the past be past, and each one strive to be a good brother, and look
upon each other with kindly eyes. And so shall we save this noble jewel,
which doth ever move my heart with love, so delightful and beauteous it
seemeth to me."[184]
But all efforts were useless. The Salvucci and the Ardinghelli would
have no dealings with each other, "and they kept all the town in gloom."
Each house longed to be avenged on the other and opposed the other at
every turn. At length the Ardinghelli, being poorer and weaker than the
Salvucci, decided to anticipate their enemies and to urge the people to
make a complete and perpetual surrender to the Commune of Florence. In
spite of the protests of the Salvucci, this was decided in a general
Parliament in July, 1353. The Salvucci had potent friends in Florence,
whom they stirred up to get the submission rejected, on the grounds that
it was not the will of the people of San Gimignano themselves, but the
work of a faction. The Signoria declared that they "only desired the
love and the goodwill of all the Commune, and not the lordship of that
town in division of the people." Then two hundred and fifty of the chief
men of San Gimignano appeared before the Priors and Gonfaloniere of
Florence, assuring them that it was the will of all their people, whose
only hope of salvation lay in being accepted by the Florentines. Hearing
this, the Signoria formally proposed to the Council of the People of
Florence that the surrender should be accepted; but such was still the
influence of the Salvucci that it was barely carried. "That which every
one should have desired, as a great and honourable acquisition for his
native land," says Matteo Villani, "found so many opposed to it in the
secret balloting, that it was only carried by one black bean. I am
ashamed to have written it, so infamous was it of my fellow citizens.
The motion being carried, the _terra_ of the noble castle of San
Gimignano and its contado and district became part of the contado of the
Commune of Florence."[185]
[Illustration:
_Lombardi, Siena_
IN THE TOWN OF THE FAIR TOWERS]
There was a great display of confidence and magnanimity on either side.
The Sangimignanesi sent a blank sheet of parchment with their seal to
Florence, for the conditions of their submission. The Florentines
crossed it and sent it back with two other blank sheets, for the
Sangimignanesi to fill up as they pleased. Finally, on August 11th,
1353, the terms were arranged in the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence. They
were, remarks Pecori, "most honourable terms, alike for those who
dictated and those who received them." And this is true, so far as
everything connected with the taxes and with the local statutes and
customs of the place are concerned; and all of the _terra_ and contado,
except the "magnates, or those that are considered such by the statutes
of the said town," are to be "in perpetuity, verily and originally, of
the contado and of the people, _popolani_ of Florence." One of the
articles stipulates that "all the artisans of San Gimignano, who shall
wish to be admitted to the matriculation of any Art in Florence, can be
received gratuitously by the respective consuls; it being expressly
stated that it is lawful to each one of that town to exercise his own
art there freely, notwithstanding the ordinances of the Arts of
Florence." But, in San Gimignano itself, there is to be a Florentine
Podestà with full jurisdiction and power, according to the statutes of
the _terra_ itself, and further, an unmistakable note of servitude, it
is stipulated "that in the Terra of San Gimignano there be constructed a
fortress, at the expense of this Commune, in the place that shall be
determined by the commissaries of the Signoria of Florence."[186]
Thus ended the independence of San Gimignano, after a period of a
century and a half. As long as the great Republic into whose hands they
had fallen lasted, the Sangimignanesi kept up some sort of appearance
of communal liberty, and were even allowed to send ambassadors and treat
with the other communes of Tuscany on their own account--in small
matters of commerce and boundaries. The nine Governors and Defenders of
the Town became the eight Priors (reduced to six in 1390) and the
Gonfaloniere of Justice, after the Florentine model. When the Podestà
entered upon his term of office, he came out in state upon the steps of
the Palace, presented the letters of the Signoria of Florence to the
assembled people, took the oath and received from the Gonfaloniere the
baton of command and the keys of the town. In like fashion the Priors
and the Captains of the Parte Guelfa entered upon their terms of office
with great pomp, always magnificently attired; the great banner and the
seal of the Commune were still solemnly consigned to the crimson-robed
Gonfaloniere; and in public ceremonies the magistrates were accompanied
by young squires with trumpets, robed in red and yellow, the colours of
the Commune, with black caps and green cloaks emblazoned with the arms
of San Gimignano in silver. Down to the eighteenth century, San
Gimignano was famous for the magnificence of its municipal functions.
Until the end of the fourteenth century, painting in San Gimignano
appears to have been exclusively practised by Sienese masters. In the
fifteenth century it was exclusively Florentine. At the end of this
century, San Gimignano produced two excellent painters of its own,
though neither of them in the front rank. Sebastiano Mainardi (died in
1513) became the favourite pupil of Domenico Ghirlandaio, whose sister
Alessandra he married; he was a diligent artist, who followed his master
with ability, and frequently worked from his designs. Vincenzo di
Bernardo Tamagni (1492-1533) worked under Raphael in the Vatican, and
imitated his style with considerable success. Vasari praises his soft
colouring and the beauty of his figures. His life appears to have been
unfortunate. In 1511 Bazzi had him imprisoned for debt in the prison of
the Podestà of Montalcino, and in 1527 he was ruined in the sack of
Rome, after which, says Vasari, "he lived on, in little happiness."
Bernardo Poccetti (1542-1612), by whom there is much second-rate fresco
painting in Florence, was also a native of San Gimignano.
At least one Sangimignanese in the days of the Renaissance acquired an
European reputation. Filippo de' Buonaccorsi was born here in 1437, of
an old and noble family. He was one of the humanists who flocked to Rome
in the days of Pius II. Here he was associated with Pomponius Laetus in
the founding of the famous Academy, and took the name of Callimachus,
which was supposed to be the classical equivalent of Buonaccorsi. He was
a leader in the real or fictitious plot against Paul II., of which
Platina gives us so vivid a picture in his life of that Pontiff, and
saved himself by flight. Later on, he made his way to Poland, where King
Casimir IV. made him tutor to his sons and one of his secretaries, and
frequently sent him on embassies. When Casimir's son, John Albert,
succeeded to the throne in 1492, Filippo became his chief minister and
adviser, and is said to have counselled the King to resist the nobles
and aim at despotic power. He died at Cracow in 1496, leaving a number
of works in Latin, dealing with the history of Poland and Hungary. On
one occasion, when on his way to Rome as ambassador from King Casimir to
Pope Innocent VIII., Buonaccorsi passed through San Gimignano. He
received a pompous reception from the Commune, in order that others, his
fellow-citizens, might be encouraged to follow in his footsteps.