The steep Via Benincasa--once the Via de' Tintori--leads up from Fontebranda into the town. It is the headquarters of the most typical and vivacious of the Sienese contrade--the "Nobile Contrada dell'Oca." A few houses up the street, on the left, is a graceful building in the style of the early Renaissance, which now occupies the site of the house of Giacomo Benincasa: the _Oratorio di Santa Caterina in Fontebranda_. "Many from beyond the mountains," so runs an entry in the _Libro dei decreti di Concistoro_, at the time when Catherine's canonisation was in progress at Rome, "French, Venetians, Romans and of other nations who have come to your city, have with great diligence asked for the house where dwelt in your city the blessed Catherine of Siena; and they have gone to it with great reverence and devotion, kneeling down in many places and kissing the walls and the door, saying with many tears: Here she stood and touched, that precious vessel and gift of God, blessed Catherine of Siena, who in her life did so many miracles. And many have wondered that the Commune of Siena in that place has not made some temple to the praise of God and honour of that Spouse of Christ."[107] The house had passed through many hands since the death of St Catherine (who, during the latter part of her life, lived with her mother in another house in the present Via Romana), and was then in a ruinous condition, as the document just quoted goes on to state. But in 1464 the inhabitants of the Costa Fontebranda petitioned the Signoria to buy the house, offering themselves to pay all the rest of the expenses for the building and adornment of the chapel or oratory, "the which they are disposed to do in such form and so well adorned, that it will be to the honour of God and St Catherine of Siena and of your Magnificent Signory, and the consolation of all your city." The oratory was begun in the same year and finished in 1473, after several appeals from the Esecutori di Gabella to the Signoria for aid in money. In one of these, they remind the Signoria that "it pertains to the Republic to study that spiritual devotions and divine temples should increase in the city; especially in yours, because of the celestial gift of the sweetest liberty which we enjoy among very few cities in the world." And in another they set forth that, with the aid of their Magnificent Lordships, the oratory has been built, "which has been a thing very devout and honourable, especially by reason of the great concourse of citizens and strangers who go there on the days of her feast"; but that they need some more things to make it complete--such as a picture for the altar, candlesticks, an image of the Saint in high relief, and a sacristy--for which they want three hundred gold florins.[108]