Streets of Siena and Fazzoletti

PART 6:  Streets of Siena  & Fazzoletti

Negotiating Siena is comfortable, easy, and entertaining.  There are almost no cars, and sooner or later the street you are on will lead to the Campo. It’s hard to get lost. The streets are a mix of classy tourist oriented shops and common businesses like cleaners and corner markets. And interesting people and objects are continually popping into view.

Plaza Matteoti near our B&B

 

Portlanders note:  Cars are not allowed, Motorcycles are restricted, but there are almost no bicycles in Siena.  Don't know why.

Street view of a privae residence in Torre contrade

Jewelry store across the street from our B&B

 

Goose Flags Flying on a Side Street

I spied these workmen on Via dei Montanini, and it reminded me of the question that is supposedly asked of prospective Microsoft employees:  “Why are manhole covers round?”  The obvious answer of course is: “So they won’t fall through the hole.” 

So I began to look for rectangular holes in the street that might have once been covered with heavy pieces of iron.

 

I couldn’t find any.  But I did find this. 

 

Which got me to wondering whether the use of round man hole covers was a renaissance development. 

And finally when we got to Rome I noticed all manhole covers looked like this.   

From watching numerous old Hollywood epics I knew that “SPQR” was emblazoned on banners, shields, and imperial regalia during the great days of the Roman Empire.  “Senatus Populusque Romanus” translates to “The Senate and the Roman People.”  So this is what the Roman Empire has fallen to - 

 from imperial insignia

 

 to sewer lid monogram

 *     *     *     *

During our last night in Assisi Bonnie had started sniffling – Ah! She was getting my cold.  A day later in Siena she had run out of Kleenex.  Finding Kleenex in Italy is no easy task.  The farmacias sell medicines; paper tissues are not medicine. Small grocery stores sell groceries and produce.  Where is a Kleenex store?  We also needed batteries; so we found a Tabachi shop, bought the batteries, then showed him our last Kleenex.  “Do you sell these?”  He reached under the counter and pulled out a little four-pac  of tissues. “Do you have any more?”  He pulled out another one, which exhausted his supply.  

What is a Tabachi?  

  http://goitaly.about.com/od/italytravelglossary/g/tabacchi_def.htm

The next morning Bonnie slept in and I ran some errands:  buying bus and train tickets that would get us to Florence on Sunday morning, washing clothes, and getting some toiletries (and maybe Kleenex?) at a Conad market (Italy’s answer to Safeway).   Well!  Conad does sell “fazzoletti” (tissues), and in big packages.  Ah! – Relief for her “raffreddore.”

Siena’s Museo Civico/City Hall

PART 5: Siena’s Museo Civico/City  Hall

The building at the southeast end of Il Campo is both Siena’s City Hall and City Museum.  The two bottom floors contain paintings and frescos that portray the history of Siena, and the top floor has government offices that are still used today.  Construction started in 1297 and finished in 1310.  About that time the Government of the Nine (the group of nine merchants that ruled the city) adopted it as their headquarters  The Nine became so identified with the building that they were not allowed out of the building except on feast days.  Talk about being tied to your work.  I can’t imagine what it must be like to work in a building where what I was doing was essentially the same as what people who worked there 700 years ago were doing.  We toured the building, and one room we entered was the Council chambers, filled with furniture from the 17^th century  and all set up for a city council meeting.  In one corner was a sophisticated 21 century sound system.  The incongruity was staggering.

The tower on the left side is the Torre del Mangia

In the 12^th century Siena began moving away from government by the Catholic bishops toward government by business men.  It was the equal and intense rival (if not the enemy) of Florence.  The City Hall is where secular government got its start in early Renaissance Europe.  But in 1348 the Black Death killed more than a third of the Sienese population.  The city was irreparably weakened and fell to Florence in 1550.  It has never really recovered.  But the benefits of that is that today we can visit a city that looks very much like it did 600 years ago.

The art in the Museo Civico depicts major events in the city’s history from the late 13^th to the 19^th century.  The works are primarily on secular themes and persons, and the religious works portray saints as human persons living on earth not in a far off heaven.  Both are marks of the burgeoning renaissance attitude of the early 15^th century.  Photography is not allowed in the Museo.  Here are links to three of the Museum’s pieces:  

     Martini’s “Maesta” and “Equestrian Portrait of Guidoriccio da Foligno”
                http://www.casasantapia.com/art/simonemartini.htm

     Lorenzetti’s “Effects of Good and Bad Government”
                http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Allegory_of_Good_and_Bad_Government

Until visiting Assisi and Siena I had little appreciation for frescos or murals.  The only ones I can recall are in Coit Tower in San Francisco, which promoted the ideal of equality of all men.  But they were done for a literate audience and their message was also delivered in other media, which dilutes the force of the murals.  But the early renaissance frescos were aimed at a mostly illiterate audience, and so they must have been extremely powerful pieces of education and propaganda.  Their message was:  beauty is not only in the realm of the sacred, but also in the world of man – which is pretty much the main idea of the renaissance.

The top floor is a great place to view the countryside and portions of the city

On to Siena

PART 4: On to Siena

Thursday September 26:

Yesterday we bought bus tickets for the two hour ride to Siena.  The bus leaves from Sta Maria degli Angeli, but no one that we talk to (Serena at the B and B, or the fellow at the Tabachi that sold us the tickets) can tell us exactly where the Siena bus stops. They are "pretty sure" it’s in Sta Maria near the basilica, behind the train station.”  The city bus driver says he knows where it is and that he stops there.  So down the hill we go, and wind through the streets of Sta Maria, which appears to be a much busier town than Assisi.  Whereas Assisi is pretty and touristy, Sta Maria is commercial.   The bus drops us off in front of the Basilica, and the driver says we can catch the Siena bus “over there” on the street running alongside the Basilica.

The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli is (according to Rick Steves) “a grandiose church built around a humble chapel.”  The chapel is the Porziuncula, the church Francis restored and the place where he died.  Its plaza is a little run down and edged with kiosks selling souvenirs and trinkets.  We are definitely outside the park-like atmosphere of Assisi.

We had 40 minutes until the bus was scheduled, so we peeked inside the church and caught a glimpse of the Porziuncula, far at the other end. Anxious, we returned to the street to find the exact place where the bus would come, and to forestall missing a bus that might come early.  We spied an information booth across the street, and the woman there told us the Siena bus comes “right there, by that orange sign,” which was right alongside the basilica.  But it was a sign for the city bus, not the Siena bus.  But 40 minutes later and 20 minutes late, the Siena bus arrived.

Two hours later (about noon) we were in Siena, standing inside a city bus tunnel-like station waiting for a bus that would take us up the hill to the old walled city.  The schedule board said we should have a ten minute wait, but that extended to an hour as bus after bus came, but not ours.  When it did come, it was SRO and our bags were in the way of everyone getting on or off the bus.  They all seemed to be Sienese – no tourists.  But they were also polite. 

City buses in Italy were always crowded and we seldom had a seat, but the passengers, if they understand you, were pretty helpful.  On the Metro in Rome, during morning rush hour a twenty something fellow advised me to put my backpack on backwards to prevent pickpocketing.  Good advice.

The bus took us to Piazza Gramsci, which looked like Siena’s port of entry with cars, buses, motorcycles and pedestrians going every which way.  The map indicated our hotel was to the south and not too far.

On the way out of Piazza Gramsci

After ten minutes of puzzling over street names - Is it Via dei Termini or Via delle Terme; the Rick Steves Guidebook says one, our printed reservations say the other – we came to Antica Residenzia Cicogna, our home for the next three days.  And both addresses were correct, the front entrance is on Terme, the rear entrance on Termini.  This was another seven room B&B, which Rick Steves describes as homey, elegant and ideally located.  He is right on all three points. Elisa, who runs the B&B with her father, told us the building dates from the 17^th century. They have been remodeling and running it since 1990.  The room we stayed in was a two room suite that could easily accommodate four people.  When we made reservations in May, Elisa told us that was the only room left during the time we would be in Siena.

Siena has a lot to recommend it:  cars (with a few exceptions)are not allowed in the center of the city; it’s cathedral is one of the finest in Europe; its town square (Il Campo) is regarded as the finest in Italy; and it’s Museo Publico has been in continuous use as the seat of government since the 13^th century.  It is big enough (60,000 population) to attract significant cultural activities, but small enough that visitors can grasp it in a few days.

IL Campo and the Palio:  The Campo is the heart and geographical center of the city, and where the two Palio races are run in July and August.  The Palio is a horse race around the square.  Each of the city’s 17 districts (contrades) is represented in at least one of the races.  The Palio was developed in the mid 17^th century as a way to control the intense rivalries that had developed among the contrades.  The race today is a no holds barred free for all:  three laps around the square (about 1200 meters).  The jockeys ride bareback and if one falls off, his horse can still win the race if he can keep the lead.  The winner has bragging rights over the city for the following year.  We asked Elisa who won the Palio this summer, and her face lit up:  “Oca (goose) which is the contrade where the B&B is, and Onda (wave).”  That explained why we saw Oca banners flying all over our neighborhood.  Each of the contrades is identified by the name of an animal (goose, panther, tortoise) or object (wave, tower, forest).  Originally they were formed around parish churches.  Here are views of the Campo at the time of the Palio, and when were there.

 

When there is no horse race Il Campo is a great place to see or be seen.