Part 13

The interior of the cathedral, by reason of the very decided black and white bands of marble, although mellowed with age, is not restful to the eye. The nave consists of five bays on each side. The aisles have round arches. The transepts are double and of unequal length. All the windows are pointed with the exception of the two round ones at the east and west ends. The clustered columns of the nave are of very good proportion; above them is a heavy frieze. Between the numerous consoles of this is a series of terra cotta busts of all the Popes. Executed at one time, they are, like the medallion portraits of the Pontiffs in S. Paolo fuori at Rome, not authentic likenesses. What gilding there is, is away up in the roof and on the bosses in the soffits of the arches, but it is old and not really obtrusive. The same may be said for the star-spangled blue vault. The illustration shows the cold light from the north transept window striking Niccolò Pisano's beautiful pulpit, in contradistinction to the warm rays that penetrate this noble fabric through the clerestory windows of the nave. Arnolfo di Cambio and Niccolò's son Giovanni had a share in the execution of this splendid work, which may be ranked next to the pulpit in the Baptistery at Pisa. The pavement of the whole cathedral is composed of _graffiti_ in coloured marble pictures. To preserve this unique pavement the authorities have wisely covered the nave and aisles with a wooden floor; and except during the month of August and on great festivals, when this covering is taken away, the only portion in the lower part of the church exposed to view is that under the dome. This is railed off.

The six niches at the top of the clustered columns that support the cupola are filled with colossal metal figures. On bronze brackets, fixed to each pier of the choir, are thirteenth-century bronze figures of angels holding lamps. One admires the good taste that has always left these bronzes ungilded. The same praise may be accorded in the case of the grand bronze candlesticks on the high altar, and the magnificent tabernacle by Lorenzo di Pietro which rests on it. The only note which really jars is the crescent of hideous gilded cherubims that partially surround the east window. The choir stalls, which were exchanged for those in the convent of Mont' Oliveto Maggiore, nineteen miles out of Siena, have extremely good _intarsia_ work of architectural and "still-life" panels.

In the north aisle is the Piccolomini chapel, with a very fine Renaissance wall of carved arabesques. In niches stand statuettes, in the execution of which Michael Angelo had a hand. The celebrated Libreria Piccolomini adjoins this. Its walls are decorated with the frescoes of the life of Pius II., a scion of this noble House. In the centre of the library stands the beautiful group of the Three Graces, a Græco-Roman work which Raphael drew from and studied.

The baptistery, S. Giovanni Battista, is below the east end of the cathedral on a steep hill-side. Its exceptionally good Gothic front by Giacomo di Mino was never completed, and for this reason, as will be seen in the illustration, the roof of the cathedral has a barn-like termination at this end. The interior is a sort of transverse nave with two piers supporting a groined and vaulted roof. The frescoes of the apse, though much faded, still retain some of the rich colouring with which two Brescian painters decorated them. The font is a very beautiful example of Giacomo della Quercia's work, and is adorned with six bronze gilt panels, one of which is by Donatello. Small figures occupy the corners, and are by the same master-craftsman.

Among the many great names on Siena's roll of fame, the two saints Catherine and Bernardino are perhaps the best known. A little way beyond the margin of the first picture of this chapter, to the left, is the house where the former first saw light. The last of twenty-five children born to Giacomo Beninsca and his wife, her childhood was marked by an extraordinary ascetic devotion overwhelming all other feelings, so that at the age of sixteen she entered the Order of S. Dominic. The series of chapels which the Casa Beninsca is now turned into will be for some, from their sacred associations, the most interesting spots in all the city. The house has a charming _loggia_ and _cortile_, but otherwise no architectural features worthy of note. On the hill above, and behind the spot from which the sketch was made, is the church of S. Domenico, in which S. Catherine worshipped; it is a huge building in the style of all Dominican churches, with a great nave, no aisles, a shallow choir and transepts. Her life was one replete with visions. In the chapel at the west end S. Catherine took the veil. Little could she have known at the time, that she was ordained some future day to be the prime factor in recalling Pope Gregory XI. from Avignon to Rome.

S. Bernardino was the son of the Governor of Massa Maritima, a Sienese town not far from the coast opposite the Isle of Elba. He joined the preaching Order of S. Francis at the age of twenty-two, and was one of those who always drew immense crowds to listen to his eloquent words. When in Florence he made a bonfire of evil books and vanities, thus forestalling one of Savonarola's great revolutionary acts. So great was his influence considered to be that, while in Perugia, the great bell was always tolled during his occupation of the pulpit. Care of the poor was one of his chief aims, and he established the "Monte di Pietà," for lending money on small pledges, to save those in want from the heavy hand of the usurer.

Of all the palaces in Siena that which stands on the south side of the Campo, the Palazzo Pubblico, is the most famous. Nearly every one who reads these lines must be familiar, through photographs or otherwise, with the magnificent _campanile_ "del Mangia"--a title that originated with a figure, nicknamed the "Glutton," that at one time struck the hours on its bells. The illustration gives a view of the tower seen through the Arco di S. Guiseppe. It is three hundred and thirty-four feet high, and is built of brick with a machicolated stone cap and bell-turret above. At its base stands the Cappella della Piazza, a very beautiful open _loggia_, built to commemorate the city's deliverance from the great plague that was instrumental in causing the proposed enlargement of the cathedral to be given up. The Palazzo itself consists of a huge central square block with Sienese battlements--square with hatched mouldings. A couple of turrets rise in three storeys above the two side wings of the block. The lowest storey of the building is of stone, the others of that delightful red brick which charms the painter's eye, and is peculiar to Siena. All the windows of the palace are pointed, with a flat containing-member outside the three lights of each. Two good courtyards give entrance by stairways to the upper floors of the building, which is now used for judicial business. Almost opposite, across the Campo, is the Palazzo del Governo, formerly the palace of the great Piccolomini family. It contains the treasures of Siena, the state archives; and in front of it stands the Font Gaia.

In the Via del Capitano, leading into the Piazza del Duomo, is the Palazzo Squarcialupi. This thirteenth-century building was, in the old days, the official residence of the Judges of Appeal and the Captains of War. The Loggia dei Mercanti was built in the fifteenth century for the use of the City Fathers who assembled here in their business capacity of merchants to judge trade disputes. So widespread was the fame of this impartial tribunal that foreigners often brought their differences before it for adjustment. The palace is now known as the Casino dei Nobili. Many fine residences line the tortuous and shady thoroughfares, and others form parts of the different squares. Most of them have iron rings and brackets let into their walls similar to many of the Florentine palaces and those already mentioned in the chapter on Bologna.

It is not, however, so much in the individual buildings that the charm of Siena lies, nor in the long line of painters whose works are on the walls of the Spedale in the Piazza del Duomo, in the Accademia delle Belle Arti, and elsewhere. Rather is it in the personal and intimate note of the beautiful old city taken as a whole. For even the sojourn of a single week will captivate and make one feel as if he belonged to Siena, and Siena to him. It may be that the wheeled traffic, which can follow but two or three distinct lines through her streets, shuts off in silence large areas of the city, and that the visitor is left more to himself and his reveries than is the case in most Italian towns. Whatever it be, it is difficult to define, but the more one knows Siena the more whole-heartedly does one give oneself up to her charm.

Is there anything quite the same, quite so peaceful, and yet so full of history's wars, as the view from the pleasant gardens of La Lizza? Pass on to the walls of the Fortessa at the end of "the Lists," or old tilting-ground, and what a beautiful landscape unfolds itself! Undulating ground, covered with vines and orchards, carries us into a middle distance of cypress and pine-clad hills. These stretch away into an opalescent haze, out of which to the north and east rise the peaks of far-distant mountains. To the west but one great mass soars above the sea of golden mist--Mte. Amiata, always different yet always the same. A solitary mountain, once seen ever remembered; a mountain one can love. What a land of sunshine and pastoral beauty it is! Always at its best in springtime before the summer's sun has laid its grip on the red earth and scorched it sere, and when the showers of April freshen and draw from the warm soil that scent of Mother Earth, which nothing man has ever made can equal and which no money can buy.

ORVIETO

Orvieto, yet another of the wonderful hill towns of Italy, is quite unlike any of those with which this book has hitherto dealt. It has an absolutely insular position, due to its situation on top of an isolated crag of dark volcanic rock which rises out of the wide valley of the river Paglia. The rock, which crowns the steep slopes of a hill, goes upwards a sheer precipice on three sides. On the fourth, the old road circles and winds in and out of olive groves and orchards, until, having climbed the ascent, it finally enters the city in a bold curve close to where the funicular rail from the station terminates. The principal entrance is the Porta Maggiore at the other end of the rock. It is a gateway hewn out of the solid _tufa_ and built across a very narrow natural gorge. Two other gates pierce the walls. One, at the east end, is close to the old Fortessa--now converted into a charming garden. Like an old eagle that in his declining years cannot trust his wings for far flight, this grim old city, built of black lava, broods over the sweep of country below. Very few places in the country occupied so impregnable a position.

On the northern slopes of the hill there has been unearthed in a peasant's garden one of the most complete Etruscan _necropoli_ in Italy. One tomb is left exactly as it was found, with the contents--vases, jars, utensils of bronze, &c.--in their original position.

In the troublous times that so often overtook Papal Rome no fewer than thirty-two different Pontiffs found refuge in Orvieto from incipient revolutions. The impregnable situation of the city rendered it safe and immune from attack. Pope Clement VII., who fled here after the sack of Rome by the Emperor Charles V., caused the Pozzo di S. Patrizio to be made. This extremely cleverly constructed well is hewn out of the solid rock for a depth of one hundred-and-eighty feet, and has a double spiral staircase outside the water shaft. The Papal Court naturally followed the Pope, and Orvieto in the days which have gone must have worn a more human air than it does now. One can understand that then its dark, solemn streets resounded with a little gaiety, and its palaces had a greater show of life than they have at the present time. True, the owners now spend most of the year in Rome, and reside in their fortress homes for the summer months only. But even their advent does not, to the stranger, bring much more life into this solemn place. No other word describes the palaces of Orvieto better than the above. Nearly every one of these fortress palaces has a tower of defence, the walls of which are from eight to ten feet thick. Many of them are connected with one another by underground passages, and none have any windows at all accessible from the outside. The lower class of inhabitants are quiet and sad-looking. They appear even to this day to live under some heavy mental weight. Maybe generations of suppression and the dominance of an intriguing Court has had an influence that is inbred into the children born now. Then, too, it was so far down hill and up across the opposite slopes to the world beyond! So toilsome a climb to return home! You feel this to-day when you live in Orvieto--feel that this silent city is an island. Can you be surprised, when you think of these adverse influences, that the poorer Orvietans have not quite the gay and friendly air of the peasantry of the plains? But whatever the people may be, they live in a wonderful old city, and they live under the shadow of a grand Gothic cathedral.

Standing in a fine open piazza with the Palazzo del Papa on one side, the Hospital on another, and the Bishop's palace on a third, this fine church occupies the vantage ground of Orvieto. In the Vatican, one of Raphael's well-known frescoes illustrates the miracle of Bolsena. It was to commemorate this that Pope Urban IV. founded the cathedral. The magnificent façade has three porches. The centre one has round arches, and the other two are pointed. Four flat panels are at the bases of the shafts that divide the façade. These shafts end in crocketed pinnacles surrounding the Gothic turrets, which soar upwards beyond the three gables at the top of the façade. The gables themselves rise above the roofs of the nave and aisles. The only fault one can find with this beautiful building, and it is one common to most Italian Gothic churches, is that the façade is "stuck on," and does not really form part of the architectural composition of the building. A glance at the illustration will explain what is meant.

The four panels are justly placed among the masterpieces of Italian sculpture of the thirteenth century. Vasari attributes the designs to Niccolò Pisano. This may be, but it is known that Giovanni Pisano and others were the artists who executed them. The first in order begins at the lowest left-hand corner of the north panel, and records the Creation of the World and all beasts and birds. Then follow the histories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Jubal--making bells, and Tubal-Cain measuring on a scroll with a compass.

This completes the first and best panel of the four. Each incident is enclosed by a very beautifully cut and intricate pattern of the vine. The second panel depicts scenes from the Old Testament; the third, the Tree of Jesse, the Nativity and Life of Christ, with classic foliage intervening. The fourth is very good and represents the Resurrection; here figures of a very Greek type rise from Greek sarcophagi. Saints, Virgins, and the Saviour in Glory surrounded by Apostles also find places on this panel. It finishes in the lowest right-hand corner with a most realistic scene in Hell. Raphael, it is said, came to Orvieto to study these wonderful works.

Immediately above and at the bases of the four shafts are the huge bronze symbols of the four Evangelists. They rest on the _abaci_ of the pilasters which form a sort of drip-course right along the façade. Over the centre porch is a bronze tent, the curtains of which Angels draw aside revealing the Virgin and Child seated. The lights, forming the tympanums of the porches, are thin sheets of alabaster. The columns are spiral and twisted, octagonal and quadrangular. Each is set against a different coloured background of black lava, red, white, or grey marble; and each is covered with geometrical mosaic. The wheel window of the façade is beautified with exceptionally good tracing. It is framed by quatrefoils in panels, with the head of a saint in each. On two sides of these, in recessed rectangular niches, are statues of the Twelve Apostles.

At the top of the frame are canopied niches with a row of saints. The whole of this wonderful front is covered by modern mosaics which do not quite fit in with the severe lines of the architecture. Neither does the scheme of colour in which they are executed take its place with the warmth of the marble as well as it might.

The whole of the main building is constructed in bands of black lava and white marble. Semicircular chapels in the aisles break the monotony of the lower portion of the exterior; while the upper is rendered less severe by the pointed clerestory windows, a dripstone and string-course, and a good cornice.

The interior is one of the best in Italy. It was greatly improved when the colossal statues which stood at the bases of the piers were removed, and the side chapels cleared of their altars and rather meretricious adornments. The massive columns of the nave, eight of which are round, four clustered, and two engaged, have capitals that partake of a style far more classic than Gothic. Above the round arches they support runs a triforium gallery. This is open in the nave, and covered at the west end, where it follows the slope upwards of the gables of the aisles. At the east end it is carried over the window, being also covered in here. The windows of the aisles are all filled, or partly filled, with thin slabs of alabaster. The effect of light produced through this thick but comparatively translucent medium is extremely mellow and beautiful.

The short transepts are raised three steps above the nave, and the choir five. A fine red marble balustrade separates the latter from the rest of the church. The open stalls in the choir have some extremely good _intarsia_ work. The wooden screen that shuts them off from the nave is a carved mass of most intricate geometrical design. Under the east window is the bishop's throne, backed and surrounded with more good _intarsia_, in which saints and sainted bishops with their symbols most effectively figure. The walls above and around are covered with fourteenth-century frescoes by Pietro di Puccio and Ugolino, both native artists. In their present faded state they harmonise beautifully with their surroundings, to which the colour of the well-worn red marble floor of the cathedral adds a pleasant note.

The work of Luca Signorelli can be better studied in the Cappella della Madonna di S. Brizio than anywhere else in Italy. This chapel practically forms the shallow south transept. In the magnificent frescoes which adorn its walls one can trace the possible influence of this great painter on the works of Michael Angelo. Two panels of the ceiling came from the brush of Fra Angelico. The north transept is almost entirely occupied by the Cappella del S.S. Corporale. The reliquary containing the "Corporal," or linen cloth of the Miracle of Bolsena, is kept over the altar. This reliquary is a fine piece of silver-gilt work, with two dozen beautiful panels of blue enamel. It was on to this linen cloth that the Blood dropped from the broken Host, and convinced the officiating priest of the Real Presence. Pope Urban IV. had it brought from Bolsena, and commenced to build this magnificent cathedral as a great shrine in which the sacred relic should rest for ever.

Behind the cathedral, that is to the east, Orvieto, not many years ago, was a ruined, broken-down mass of insanitary buildings. Gardens now take the place of what was a plague-spot, and the houses of the city as we find it now occupy barely one-half of the area contained within the walls. In this respect modern ideas have decidedly improved Orvieto. What is left of the old streets is well looked after from the sanitary point of view; and from the artistic, there are not many places in Italy where subjects are to be found in such plenty. The massive Torre del Moro is close to the Piazza del Popolo, where stands the ruined church of S. Domenico. This fine Romanesque structure is entered by a flight of steps at the west end; it is built over a massively constructed crypt, now used as a granary. The mighty arches of this crypt sustain part of the church, but it does not extend beneath the whole of the fabric. One of the numerous arched gateways which are to be found throughout the city intervenes between it and the little buttressed dwelling underneath the east end. From this rises the solid _campanile_. An arcade runs round the whole church. This good feature is composed of round arches, containing small round-headed lights. The outer member of each arch is finished by a broad, flat, square billet, the inner has a cable pattern. Above is a dripstone and string-course.

Saturday sees the piazza crowded with country folk, and it then presents a busy scene. All the rest of the week it is silent and deserted. I was there with my sketch-book one afternoon. A thunderstorm was rolling about in the hills. The air was charged with disturbing electricity. Swifts flew screaming round the ruined church. A kestrel up in the battered old tower cried to her young. The storm crept nearer. Grand cumuli clouds piled themselves higher and higher above the lightning-riven mass of rain-sodden blackness below. A beautiful swallow-tail butterfly, brilliant against the deep purple background, came gracefully sailing across the square into the sunshine. It hovered, now here, now there, like a spirit from another world seeking rest but finding none. Little puffs of wind stirred odd bits of straw and paper about the piazza. Dust began to eddy round and round. A drop of rain fell on to the open leaves of my sketch-book. It was the writing on the wall; so I closed the book and hurried home. For half an hour the heavens emptied themselves on Orvieto. To me a stage-play of some scene in her past was re-enacted in the sky; the passing storm seemed so appropriate to the rugged old city.

ROME