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
In the Via Venti Settembre, on the left, is Santa Chiara. The altarpiece
is a good work of the chief Florentine painter of the seventeenth
century, Matteo Rosselli. It represents Christ enthroned upon the
clouds, between the Madonna and the Baptist; below are St Francis and St
Louis of France on our left, while on our right--a motive equally happy
in conception and execution--St Clare is bringing Santa Fina into the
celestial company. There are several pictures ascribed to Rosselli in
the town, but this is the only one in the least degree worthy of the
painter of the David of the Pitti. Further on, on the right, are the
Hospitals, including the Spedale di Santa Fina, founded shortly after
her death by the Commune, partly from the alms of pilgrims. In 1274 two
special officers, _Esortatori_, were appointed to visit sick persons, to
beg alms or legacies for the institution. In the entrance hall, formerly
the chapel, are frescoes by Mainardi; four Saints in lunettes and, over
the door, a Madonna and Child blessing those that enter. In the chapel
is preserved the _tavola_, the board upon which Fina made her hard bed
of expiation for the sins of the world, and which blossomed out into
flowers when her sacrifice was accomplished.[195] Beyond is San
Girolamo, a church belonging to a convent of Vallombrosan nuns, with an
altarpiece by Vincenzo Tamagni of 1522, with an upper part added by a
later hand. At the end, connected with the former convent by a covered
way across, is the church of San Jacopo, which belonged to the Knights
Templars before the nuns had it; it is a building of the eleventh
century (said to have been built in 1096 by the Sangimignanesi who
returned from the Crusades), lovely in its ruin, in a little inclosed
plantation of olive trees. The ornamented terra-cotta window and the
curious coloured plates on the façade are noteworthy. Within are old
frescoes, apparently of the Sienese school of the fourteenth century. Mr
Berenson ascribes the St James on the pilaster to Pier Francesco. Then
we pass out, through a breach in the walls, to the olive trees that
clothe them, and to the sweeping view of the valley beyond.
At Santa Chiara, the Via della Fonte leads down between vineyards and
old walls to the Porta della Fonte, over which is a chapel. Outside,
over the gate, a statue of St Geminianus records the attempt of the
Ardinghelli and their allies to capture the town for the Duke of Athens
at this point, in 1342. The wonderfully picturesque fountains below,
where the women linger over their washing and carry up pitchers to the
houses, were constructed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. A
little to the left, among the olives, flaming poppies and purple
foxgloves, where a few oaks still remind us of the woods of old, there
is a superb view of the "Castello della Selva" right above us, with
eight of its towers visible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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