The Story of Siena and San GimignanoGardner, Edmund G.
History
The Story of Siena and San Gimignano
Gardner, Edmund G.
Art -- Italy -- Siena; San Gimignano (Italy) -- History; Siena (Italy) -- History
Following up the Via Camollia towards the gate, we have on the right the
Campansi, a former convent of Franciscan nuns, now a poor-house. Most of
its artistic treasures have been removed to the picture gallery, but a
certain number of frescoes have been preserved. In the cloisters is a
large Assumption, mingling Sienese and Umbrian influences, the work of
Matteo Balducci and (according to Mr Berenson) in part of Pietro di
Domenico. On the first floor are: an Annunciation by Sano di Pietro; a
Madonna and Child with St Anne, attended by the Magdalene and St Ursula
(poetical in conception, but rather poorly executed) by Beccafumi; a
Resurrection by Benvenuto di Giovanni. From a window in the women's
department a beautiful view is obtained of San Francesco.
The Madonna of Fontegiusta was built in 1479, as a thanks-offering for
the victory of Poggio Imperiale, by Francesco Fedeli and Giacomo di
Giovanni of Como. Over the outer portal is a beautiful Madonna and Child
with Angels, of 1489, by Neroccio Landi. In the sixteenth century the
fashionable thing was to hear vespers in this church on Sunday
afternoons. In Pietro Fortini's _Novelle de' Novizi_, his five "right
honest but most facetious ladies" attend vespers here, and at the holy
water basin (the work still of Pacchia's father, Giovanni delle
Bombarde) they join company with their "two winsome youths, most
disposed to the service of love," and walk out with them in the cool as
far as the Palazzo de' Diavoli.[158] The marble high altar, with the
Pietà and exquisitely worked setting, is the masterpiece of Lorenzo di
Mariano, executed in 1517 and, according to the legend, sent to Rome on
mules for the edification of Leo X. The frescoed Assumption, in the
lunette above the altar, is by Girolamo di Benvenuto. On the right wall
is a Coronation of the Madonna by Fungai. On the left wall is the fresco
of the Sibyl revealing the mystery of the Incarnation to Augustus, by
Baldassare Peruzzi. It has been damaged and badly restored, and is one
of the painter's latest and less satisfactory works, showing a mannered
and unsuccessful attempt to imitate the style of Michelangelo. The
Madonna commending Siena to her Divine Son is by Bazzi's pupil and
son-in-law, Il Riccio. The shield and whalebones over the door are said
by tradition to have been sent here as a votive offering by Christopher
Columbus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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