[1] Rondoni (Sena vetus, p. 53) notes that, in contrast to Florence, there was no distinction between the Greater and Lesser Arts in Siena.

[2] Printed in the Archivio Storico Italiano, series III. vol. xxii.

[3] Siena is still divided into terzi or thirds; the Terzo di CittÀ, the Terzo di San Martino, the Terzo di Camollia.

[4] Rondoni, op. cit. p. 60.

[5] Letter of August 11th, 1259, still preserved in the Archivio di Stato of Siena, quoted by Paoli, La Battaglia di Montaperti, p. 13.

[6] The documents cited by Paoli prove conclusively that the story, told by Giovanni Villani, of Farinata contriving that the Germans should be annihilated at Santa Petronilla and the royal standard lost, in order that Manfred might be induced to send a larger force, has no historical foundation. Neither is it a fact that the Sienese were forced to induce the Florentines to resume hostilities because the Germans had been hired for only three months.

[7] The Sienese accounts of the battle by Domenico Aldobrandini and NiccolÒ di Giovanni Ventura (in which, says Prof. d’Ancona, the narrative has “una grandezza veramente epica”) are in Porri’s Miscellanea Storica Senese; for the Florentine version see Villani, vi. 75-79, and Leonardo Bruni, Istoria Fiorentina II. (vol. i. pp. 215-225 in the edition of 1855). Cf. Villari, I primi due secoli della Storia di Firenze, ch. iv., and especially C. Paoli, La Battaglia di Montaperti, already referred to. Il Libro di Montaperti, edited by Prof. Paoli (Florence, 1889), is “the only official document of Florentine source which remains to us of that war.”

[8] Purg. xiii. 115-123.

[9] Inf. xiii. 120; Purg. xiii. 128.

[10] J. A. Symonds.

[11] Assempro II.

[12] Agnolo di Tura, Cronica Senese, 122-124.

[13] Malavolti, ii. 7. p. 132.

[14] Neri di Donato, Cronica Senese, 202-206.

[15] In the continuation (wrongly ascribed to Agnolo di Tura) of the Cronica Senese.

[16] Op. cit. 294.

[17] Leggenda minore, i. 12.

[18] Augusta Drane, vol. i. p. 83. I think that this author unquestionably deserves to be called the best of Catherine’s modern biographers; but the reader must be warned against her historical inaccuracies and her treatment of some of the Saint’s political letters.

[19] Raimondo da Capua, Leggenda, p. 226.

[20] I.e., since his first Communion—that at least seems the more obvious meaning of la quale mai piÙ aveva ricevuta.

[21] Letter 273.

[22] Letter 272.

[23] Letter 11.

[24] Letter 28.

[25] Letter 29.

[26] Letter 109.

[27] Letter 140.

[28] Letter 168.

[29] Letters 185, 196, 206, 209, 218, 229. She has no thought of the Pope’s return as a temporal sovereign. (Cf. letter 370.)

[30] Letter 207.

[31] Letter 240.

[32] Letter 247.

[33] Letter 252.

[34] Letters 270, 267. These have obviously been transposed in chronological order.

[35] Letter 285.

[36] Letter 291.

[37] Letter 295.

[38] Letter 303.

[39] The Dialogue, Il Dialogo della Serafica Santa Caterina da Siena, will be found in Gigli, vol. iv., and has been translated (somewhat freely) into English by Mr Algar Thorold. To the Dialogue and the Letters, we should add the Trattato della Consumata Perfezione and a short collection of prayers, also printed in Gigli, L’opere, etc., vol. iv.

[40] Letter 306.

[41] Letter 310.

[42] Letter 317.

[43] Letter 349.

[44] Letters 350, 362, 357, 372.

[45] Letter 370.

[46] Letter 373.

[47] Barduccio’s letter to a nun at Florence, describing every detail of Catherine’s death, will be found in the Appendix to the Leggenda.

[48] See pp. 144, 145.

[49] Pastor, II., p. 147.

[50] Armstrong, Lorenzo de’ Medici, p. 178.

[51] Diari Senesi, 836, 837.

[52] Zdekauer, Lo Studio di Siena nel Rinascimento, pp. 119-124.

[53] Letter of August 18th, 1500, published by F. Donati in Miscellanea Storica Senese, i. 7.

[54] Letters of January 6th, 8th, 10th, and 13th from Machiavelli to the Signoria. In the Legazione al Duca Valentino (vol. vi. of edition cited).

[55] In Lisini, Relazioni tra Cesare Borgia e la Repubblica Senese, and elsewhere. It is dated January 27th, and had probably been delivered (though this has been questioned) before Pandolfo left.

[56] In Mondolfo, Pandolfo Petrucci, p. 99.

[57] NiccolÒ Machiavelli e i suoi Tempi, i. pp. 502, 503.

[58] The letters of this Legation in vol. vii. of edition cited.

[59] By a decree of the BalÌa on September 14th, 1509; but this was not quite such a recognition of his dynasty as might appear, because a similar exception was made in 1518 (though only in their own homes) for some of the Piccolomini.

[60] La Sculpture Florentine, i. p. 134.

[61] M. Reymond, op. cit., ii. p. 46.

[62] Duccio is last referred to as alive in a document of June, 1313, and in 1318 his widow Taviana is described as uxor olim Duccii pictoris. See A. Lisini, Notizie di Duccio Pittore, p. 33. On Duccio’s characteristics as a painter, the best thing is written by Mr Berenson, Central Italian Painters, pp. 18-42.

[63] i.e. The officials of the Gabella; see Chapter IX.

[64] The text of the Bull and Enea Silvio’s letter in L. Banchi, Il Piccinino nello Stato di Siena e la Lega Italica (1455-56), in the Archivio Storico Italiano, Series IV., vol. iv., pp. 56-58. See also next chapter, pp. 144-147.

[65] Berenson, op. cit. p. 56.

[66] Italian Painters, i. p. 158.

[67] Berenson, op. cit. p. 56.

[68] That is to say, if the Matteo Balducci who is mentioned as Pinturicchio’s pupil in a document of January 1509 is the same as the Matteo Balducci who in 1517 became Bazzi’s pupil for six years. Frizzoni (L’Arte Italiana del Rinascimento, p. 183) holds that they are two different persons.

[69] Miscellanea Storica Senese, v. 11, 12.

[70] See V. Lusini, Storia della Basilica di San Francesco, pp. 99-101.

[71] Diari, 809. The Cardinal mentioned is Francesco Piccolomini.

[72] See A. Lisini, Misc. Stor. Senese, iv., 5, 6. Mr Heywood’s admirable little book, Our Lady of August and the Palio of Siena, deals exhaustively with this aspect of the past history and present life of the Sienese. The horse races of the Campo had originally nothing to do with the contrade, but were run by the Republic. Foreign nobles, even reigning sovereigns, entered horses, no less than did Sienese notabilities. On August 15th, 1492, the palio was won by a horse belonging to Cesare Borgia; but because his jockey (fantino) had won by a trick of questionable legality, the Signoria made some difficulty about giving him the prize—apparently at the appeal of the representative of the Marquis of Mantua whose horse had come in second. (See Cesare’s letter in Lisini, Relazioni tra C. Borgia e la Repubblica Senese, pp. 11, 12.)

[73] See A. Lisini, Chi fu l’architetto della Torre del Mangia, in the Misc. Stor. Senese, II., 9, 10.

[74] The fullest account of these frescoes is contained in Milanesi, Commentario alla Vita di Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Vasari I. pp. 527-535. Apart from the great beauty of the individual figures, the spiritual power and imaginative insight of the whole conception are surely worthy of the century of Dante and Petrarch. But for a very different appreciation, see Mr Berenson, op. cit., pp. 50, 51.

[75] L. Banchi, Il Piccinino nello Stato di Siena, etc., loc. cit., pp. 226-230; Malavolti, iii. 3, pp. 51b, 52.

[76] Documenti per la Storia dell’ Arte Senese, i. p. 188.

[77] Not to be confused with the more famous Gregorio da Spoleto, Ariosto’s master, who held a chair here in the latter part of the fifteenth century.

[78] Purg. xii 10-93.

[79] Nuovi Documenti per la Storia dell’Arte Senese, p. 389.

[80] Mr R. H. Hobart Cust (to whose excellent Pavement Masters of Siena I am indebted for many of these dates and authorships of the pavement designs) points out that the Cimmerian Sibyl is the one intended.

[81] The Lupa and Marzocco shaking hands in front of the tablet refers to the alliance between Siena and Florence concluded in the year 1483, in which this Sibyl was laid down. In Allegretto’s Diari Senesi, under June 16th, 1483, we read: “The League was proclaimed on a chariot between the Signoria of Siena and the Florentines, with honourable conditions, according to what Giovan Francesco called Il Moro, the trumpeter of the Signoria, said. God grant it be true; for I cannot believe it!” (Diari, 815).

[82] We can measure the proportionate value attached to the designing and executing of these works from the fact that in the case of the painter Matteo, who only designed and did not execute, the remuneration was four lire, whereas Federighi, who both designed and executed his Erythraean Sibyl, received nearly 650 lire. See Cust op. cit. pp. 41, 47.

[83] Op. cit. p. 152.

[84] See Pietro Rossi, L’Arte Senese nel Quattrocento, p. 38.

[85] Folgore, translated by J. A. Symonds.

[86] See the fine sonnet sequence entitled Niccola Pisano in Rime e Ritmi. The sculptor is said to have copied his Madonna from the Phaedra on the antique sarcophagus used as a tomb for the Countess Beatrice.

[87] There is an eloquent appreciation of the pulpit in Mr F. M. Perkins’ Giotto, pp. 8-13.

[88] V. Lusini, Il San Giovanni di Siena, p. 23 (note). Giacomo was paid 52 golden florins and 34 soldi for his work.

[89] Pastor, vi. p. 201. There appears to be absolutely no foundation for the aspersions made by Gregorovius and other writers upon the moral character of this really admirable personage. Cf. op. cit., p. 199 (note).

[90] Nuovi Documenti, pp. 362, 364-368, 560.

[91] The bas-relief of St John Evangelist, over the altar to the right of the entrance, is the mediocre work of some sculptor of the Quattrocento, possibly Urbano da Cortona.

[92] See the document in Milanesi, Vasari III., pp. 519-522.

[93] Cf. G. W. Kitchin, Pope Pius II., p. 36.

[94] Historia Friderici III. Imp., p. 73.

[95] See Misc. Storica Senese, iv. 7-8.

[96] The question is well discussed in Miss E. March Phillipps’ monograph on Pinturicchio, pp. 116-123.

[97] Anonymous Chronicle existing in the Archivio di Stato and the Biblioteca Comunale, quoted by Lisini, Notizie di Duccio, p. 5.

[98] Berenson, Central Italian Painters, p. 117.

[99] Op. cit., p. 41 (note).

[100] In the Appendix to V. Lusini, Il San Giovanni di Siena, there are a number of interesting letters about the progress, etc., of the work, from Ghiberti to the Operaio del Duomo and Giovanni di Turino, and from Giacomo to the Signoria.

[101] Cf. M. Reymond, op. cit., II. p. 98.

[102] Cf. Documents concerning the authorship of this fresco in Lusini, op. cit. p. 60 (note).

[103] See Alessio, Storia di San Bernardino, p. 60 (and note).

[104] Letter 321.

[105] Leggenda minore, i. 2.

[106] Rondoni, Tradizioni popolari e leggende, etc., p. 150.

[107] Nuovi Documenti, pp. 240, 241.

[108] Documenti, II. pp. 326, 339; Nuovi Documenti, p. 239.

[109] Leggenda, pp. 205, 206.

[110] See pp. 48-50.

[111] This does not refer to Bazzi’s fresco, but to an earlier picture figured in Gigli, I. p. 24; possibly Andrea di Vanni is meant, as it closely resembles his work.

[112] See the Deliberations of the BalÌa and the Concistoro for July 21st and 22nd, in Pecci, Memorie, etc., II. pp. 211-213.

[113] Letter of August 5th, 1526, in Machiavelli, Lettere familiari (Opere, edition cited, vol. viii. p. 208). In answer to Machiavelli, Vettori gives further details in a letter of August 7th (loc. cit. pp. 210-214); “I believe,” he says, “that on other occasions it has happened that an army fled at shouts, but that it should fly for ten miles, without anyone pursuing it—this I do not believe has been ever read nor seen.” According to the Sienese accounts the papal army numbered some 18,000 men and lost more than 1000, while 150 Sienese were killed. Vettori says that 400 foot soldiers and 50 light cavalry issued out of Siena and put to flight 5000 infantry and 300 horsemen; but he evidently refers only to the sally from the Porta Fontebranda.

[114] Sozzini, Diario, p. 24.

[115] Sozzini, op. cit. pp. 26, 27.

[116] In the sonnet written in the name of the Mangia of the Tower of the Campo (the figure, removed in 1780, that sounded the hours, a kind of Sienese Pasquino) to the painter Riccio. Appendix to Sozzini, Document xiv.

[117] I have given this in full as a specimen of these donations of which we hear so often in the story of Siena. No less characteristic is the reply of the officiating canon, Antonio Benzi: “Your great and profound humility, Most Illustrious Lords, is manifestly founded on Faith, Hope and Charity. Faith is shown by the desire of uniting yourselves with our most just Saviour, receiving into your souls His most holy Body; Hope is shown by the consigning and restitution of the keys of your City to the most glorious Queen of the Heavens; Charity, by the vow of marrying the maidens in perpetuity by your free Republic. We, albeit unworthy of so great an office, in the name of Blessed Christ and of His Immaculate Mother, accept your vows and oblations. We remind you that Faith without works is said to be dead; that whoso trusteth in God with pure heart, will be immovable as Mount Sion; and that Charity unites us with God. Therefore have living Faith, firm Hope and ardent Charity; to the end that you may obtain your desire and that your City may be preserved in true liberty to the honour of God and of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, our Advocate and of all the faithful Christian people.” (Appendix to Sozzini, Diario, Documents vi. and vii.)

[118] See the Genealogical Table of the Family of Pius II.

[119] La Cacciata della Guardia Spagnola da Siena, pp. 522, 523. The “twentieth hour” means four hours before sunset, or about four o’clock in the afternoon.

[120] Diario, pp. 89, 90.

[121] Sozzini, p. 93.

[122]

Quoted in Rondoni, Siena nel secolo xvi. p. 250. For other prophetic doggerel of the same kind ascribed to Brandano, see Olmi, I Senesi d’una volta, p. 270. Brandano died in Siena during the siege, in May 1554.

[123] Giornale dell’ Assedio della CittÀ di Montalcino printed in the Archivio Storico Italiano, Appendix, vol. viii.

[124] Malavolti, iii. 10, p. 160b.

[125] Ibid. p. 161; Sozzini, pp. 157, 158.

[126] In this and subsequent quotations from Montluc I have availed myself of Cotton’s translation of the Commentaries.

[127] Sozzini, Diario, p. 307.

[128] Op. cit. p. 317.

[129] Trattenimenti, i. pp. 8-10. He adds hideous details of their mutilation at the hands of the Spaniards, which have too frequently been quoted; Sozzini (who tells us that on one occasion the Spaniards succoured the fugitives, p. 376) mentions once that some contadini had their noses and ears cut off, but neither he nor Montluc gives any other hint of the peculiar hideousness and atrocity of Bargagli’s version.

[130] See Mr Montgomery Carmichael’s excellent and picturesque account of the Spanish Praesidia, in In Tuscany, pp. 283-314.

[131] Nuovi Documenti, p. 76.

[132] Nuovi Documenti, p. 75. These officers were first appointed in 1413.

[133] Nuovi Documenti, p. 201. She says that she has had the house designed by uno valentissimo maestro; but does not name him. See also P. Rossi,L’Arte Senese nel Quattrocento, pp. 27-29.

[134] Bargagli quoted by A. Marenduzzo, Veglie e Trattenimenti Senesi, p. 14.

[135] The Captain of War—afterwards the Senator—will not be confused with the Captain of the People. The one was an alien noble, the other a Sienese burgher.

[136] Diari Senesi, 775, 776.

[137] Purg. v. 133-136.

[138] Vasari.

[139] V. Lusini, Il San Giovanni di Siena, p. 14.

[140] “That vain folk which hopes in Talamone, and will lose more hope there than in finding the Diana,” Purg. xiii. 151-153. The Diana was a subterranean stream supposed to exist under Siena for which, in 1295, the General Council of the Campana decreed that the search should be undertaken.

[141] Documenti, ii. p. 337; cf. Allegretto, Diari, 773. Notice the title SpectabilitÀ; in a less democratic city than Siena, they would have been Magnificence. Incidentally, we may observe (a point frequently missed by English writers, especially of fiction dealing with the Italian Renaissance) that Magnificence was a much less pretentious title at the end of the Quattrocento than it sounds to us now, being little more than the equivalent of “Your Worship” or “Your Honour” (though also applied to ambassadors); while Excellence was, until the middle of the sixteenth century, reserved for quasi-independent potentates, such as the Duke of Ferrara or the Marquis of Mantua, ruling fiefs of the Church or Empire.

[142] See pp. 88, 89. In reading these documents, it should be borne in mind that the Sienese and Florentine year (but not the Roman) began on March 25th. The same rule applies to the dates on the Tavolette of the Biccherna and Gabella.

[143] Rondoni, Sena Vetus, p. 37. For further information upon the Tavolette the reader may be referred to Mr W. Heywood’s charming little book, A Pictorial Chronicle of Siena, to which I am indebted.

[144] Cf. Heywood, op. cit. p. 69.

[145] “The fury of arms having cooled down on every side, the Pope [Paul II.] easily found means to conclude an universal peace between the powers of Italy, wherein was named the Republic of Siena, in the name of which it was accepted and ratified by Messer NiccolÒ Severini, Sienese orator in Rome, in the month of May 1468.” Malavolti, iii. 4, p. 70 b.

[146] Diari Senesi, 813. The Cardinal Malfetta is G. B. Cibo, afterwards Innocent VIII., cf. p. 76.

[147] Diari, 815, 816. The Lorenzo di Antonio mentioned is the Venturini who was executed in 1486 (see p. 78).

[148] Cf. Sozzini, Diario, pp. 23, 24 (where, however, Gabella is confused with Biccherna), and Heywood, op. cit. pp. 87, 88.

[149] For various documents touching these votive pictures after the Battle of Camollia, see Nuovi Documenti, pp. 434, 435.

[150] Nuovi Documenti, p. 245.

[151] Dante, Purg. xi. 109-111.

[152] See Gigli, La cittÀ diletta di Maria, pp. 29-35. The houses of Provenzano Salvani’s family were in this part of the city—hence the name.

[153] See the Deliberation of the Concistoro for July 2nd, 1460, pro porta Sancti Francisci, in Lusini, Storia della Basilica di San Francesco, p. 123 (note).

[154] Nuovi Documenti, pp. 222-224. The Ufficiali sopra l’Ornato della CittÀ are proposing to make a fountain on the Poggio de’ Malavolti.

[155] The imposing tower at the back of the Palazzo Tolomei, at the beginning of the Via dei Termini, is the Torre Miganelli or Castelli, in which the public bells were hung.

[156] See the Miscellanea Storica Senese, iii. 4, p. 59.

[157] The story of Anselmo and Angelica is inserted in the Annali Senesi under 1395, and is told by Sermini and Ilcino. That of Ippolito and Cangenova (which from the mention of Messer Reame should, if historical, be referred to the same epoch) is related by Olinda in Bargagli’s Trattenimenti.

[158] The sole value—and that is not much—of Fortini’s work lies in such little transcripts from Sienese life in the Cinquecento. The rest is sheer pornography, and the man’s life was as vile as his novels are filthy.

[159] Cf. Alessio, op. cit. pp. 103, 104.

[160] Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, iii. p. 68.

[161] Landucci, Sacra Leccetana Selva, pp. 76-79.

[162] Assempro xl. It was this Frate Bandino who founded the convent of Sant’ Agostino in Siena.

[163] Assempro xli. is the life of NiccolÒ Tini.

[164] Letter 326, written from Rome, December 15th, 1378.

[165] Mr Heywood, in his account of these frescoes (The Ensamples of Fra Filippo, pp. 227, 228), appears to have missed this, the essential point of the allegory.

[166] Assempro xxiv.

[167] Nuovi Documenti, pp. 202, 203.

[168] For further details, see Antonio Canestrelli’s admirable monograph, L’Abbazia di San Galgano.

[169] Oraffi (Vita del B. Bernardo Tolomei, pp. 44-72) gives what is said to be the text of this homily. It may, possibly, be a genuine work of the Saint, but as it speaks of “the schism arisen in the Sacred Empire, now many years ago, between Frederick of Austria and Ludwig of Bavaria,” it could not have been delivered on this occasion.

[170] Frizzoni, op. cit. p. 115.

[171] Cf. Frizzoni, op. cit. p 117.

[172] Commentarii, x. pp. 482-484.

[173] Storia della Repubblica di Firenze, i. pp. 389, 390.

[174] A. C. Swinburne, Relics.

[175] There are two hotels in San Gimignano: the Albergo Centrale and the Leone Bianco. The present writer’s experience has been confined to the Albergo Centrale, which is pleasantly situated and excellent for so small a town.

[176] Pecori, Storia della Terra di San Gimignano, p. 41.

[177] Coppi, Annali, memorie, etc., pp. 108-114. I have spared my readers some of the details of “cette existence d’expiation.” Not many of us can look upon these things with the eyes of M. J.-K. Huysmans, in his Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam: “Elle fut, en somme, un fruit de souffrance,” he writes of Lydwine, whose life was very like a prolonged version of Fina’s, “que Dieu Écrasa et pressura jusqu’À ce qu’il en eÛt exprimÉ le dernier suc; l’Écale Était vide lorsqu’elle mourut; Dieu allait confier À d’autres de ses filles le terrible fardeau qu’elle avait laissÉ; elle avait pris, elle-mÊme, la succession d’autres saintes et d’autres saintes allaient, À leur tour, hÉriter d’elle” (p. 291).

[178] Pecori, p. 113.

[179] In May 1899, San Gimignano kept the sixth centenary of Dante’s embassy, and it was on this occasion that the real date 1300 (instead of 1299, as hitherto supposed) was discovered.

[180] Rossetti’s translation.

[181] Sonnet 33 in Navone’s edition.

[182] Cronachetta di San Gimignano, 163-171.

[183] Matteo Villani, iii. 22, 46, 55, 69: Pecori, pp. 168-171.

[184] Cronachetta, 8-21.

[185] iii. 73.

[186] The conditions of this final submission are given in full in Pecori, pp. 174-179.

[187] With the exception of the churches of Cellole and San Pietro, San Gimignano is in the diocese of the Bishop of Colle. The chief ecclesiastical dignitary of the town, the head of the Collegiata, is the Proposto or Provost—at present the learned Don Ugo Nomi-Pesciolini, whose invariable kindness and courtesy to visitors are well known to English travellers.

[188] See the list given by Mr Berenson, Florentine Painters, pp. 132-134.

[189] “The bones of a virgin lie hidden in the tomb which thou beholdest, stranger; she is the glory, the example, the guardian of her fellow-citizens. Her name was Fina; this her native land. Dost thou seek miracles? Scan what the wall and life-like statues teach.”

[190] It has been argued that the last line of the epitaph proves that the frescoes were painted not later than 1475; but this is not by any means conclusive, as the subjects had probably been settled from the beginning.

[191] So I gather from Fra Matteo and Pecori; other writers call it the Palazzo Ardinghelli.

[192] See the Confessions, i. 9.

[193] Confessions, viii. 12.

[194] Ibid. ix. 10, 11.

[195] See above, p. 330 (and note).

[196] iii. 96.