CHAPTER V

_The Campo of Siena and the Palace of the Commune_

At the heart of Siena, where its three hills meet, is the famous Piazza upon which so many of the stormiest scenes in the history of the city have been enacted: the Campo, now known officially as the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. It is a semicircular space, the central portion paved with brick and curiously resembling the concavity of a shell bordered by a stone pavement, surrounded with what were once aristocratic palaces. It is entered by narrow streets, which in stormy times could be securely held by mere handfuls of armed men. On the southern side of the Piazza, built as it were upon the diameter of the semicircle, rises that perfect ideal of a republican home of the State--the superb Gothic Palazzo Pubblico, perhaps better known as the Palazzo Comunale or the Palazzo dei Signori. Pandolfo Petrucci conceived the idea of surrounding the Piazza with a _porticato_, and is said to have commissioned Baldassare Peruzzi to carry out the plan; the Balìa revived the notion at a subsequent period in 1547, long after the fall of the Petrucci, but nothing came of it.

In the Campo is the fountain, known as the Fonte Gaia from the rejoicings that hailed the advent of its waters. On Whitsunday, 1343, the water was brought into the fountain from the Fontebranda, and a fortnight of wild festivity followed. "There was such rejoicing in Siena, such dancing and such illumination," writes the old chronicler, "that it would seem incredible if it were told, nor could anyone believe it who had not seen it." Soon after the completion of the work a beautiful marble Venus was discovered, which is said to have borne the signature of Lysippus. The Sienese were mad with delight, and the artists rushed to worship this divine relic of antiquity--_questa tanta maraviglia e tanta arte_, as Ghiberti, the teller of the tale, calls it--which was finally carried in state to the fountain and enthroned upon it. But things went badly with the Republic; factions ran riot, famine and pestilence ravaged the city. The Twelve who now ruled were less liberal and more ignorant than the Nine, and at length a worthy citizen in the Senate declared that such idolatry was forbidden by the Christian faith; that all their misfortunes came from the presence of this statue, which should straightway be smashed to pieces and buried in Florentine territory. This act of vandalism appears to have been perpetrated. At least, in the Books of the Deliberations of the _Concistoro_ there is an entry under November 7th, 1357, to the effect that the marble statue, at present placed upon the fountain of the Campo, shall be taken away as soon as possible, and dealt with in whatever way shall seem best to the _Signori Dodici_.[69] In the following century Giacomo della Quercia was commissioned to make the marble fountain, from which he was afterwards known as Giacomo della Fonte; he produced a work which has been described as deservedly ranking "among the model fountains of the world." The present fountain is only a modern and incomplete copy, but the mutilated remains of Giacomo's work are still to be seen in the Opera del Duomo.

Something will have been gathered from the preceding chapters of the faction fights that have swept over the Campo and raged round the Palace. Here, too, in one of those fevers of piety that overtook the Sienese at intervals, vast crowds assembled to listen to the burning words of San Bernardino. Specially famous are the discourses that he delivered here in the August and September of 1427, immediately after he had refused the Bishopric of Siena. He had been specially urged to come, not only by the Commune, but by the Pope and the late Bishop, to allay the bitterness of the rival factions within the city. "Ah, my children!" he said, "no longer follow these parties, nor these standards, for you see to what they bring us. You have the example in the time that is passed, how evilly things have fallen out of old for many. Ah! be at peace in your own home." And again, in his last sermon: "There still remain many peaces for us to make. I pray you hold me excused, and so I believe that you accept my excuse. You must consider that I have had many things to attend to in these sermons. Ah! for the love of God, love one another. Alas! see you not that, if you love the destruction, one of the other, what followeth to you therefrom? See you not that you are ruining your very selves? Ah! put this thing right, for the love of God; do not wait for God to lay His hands upon us with His scourge; for if you leave it to Him to do, you will be chastised for it. Love one another! What I have done, to make peace among you and to make you like brothers, I have done with that zeal that I should wish my own soul to receive. And so say I of this, as of the other things of the Commune; I have done it all to the glory and honour of God, and for the weal and salvation of your souls. As I have told you, I have treated you as true children; and I tell you more, that if I could take you by the hair, I would pacify the whole lot of you. And let no one think that I have set myself to do anything at any person's request. I am only moved by the bidding of God, for His honour and glory."[70]

Here is a scene of another kind, from the _Diari_ of Allegretto, under July 1463, when the Duchess of Calabria with a train of Apulian nobles visited Siena:

"In honour of the said Duchess, there was arranged by the Arts a most beauteous pageant and dance at the foot of the Palace of the Signori, and there were invited as many worthy young women and girls as Siena had, who came right well adorned with robes and jewels, and young men to dance. And there was made a great she-wolf, all gilded, out of which came a morris-dance of twelve persons, right well and richly adorned, and one dressed like a nun, and they danced to a canzone that begins: 'She won't be a nun any more.' And at the said dance a goodly collation was provided of marchpanes and other cates in abundance, with fruit of every kind according to the season. To the said Duchess and her nobles it seemed a fair thing and a rich pageant, and that she-wolf pleased them immensely, and they thought that we had lovely women."

On June 19th, 1482, when the factions that preceded the expulsion of the Noveschi were at their height, a preacher of a very different stamp to Bernardino appeared upon the scenes: the future opponent of Savonarola, Fra Mariano, the favourite of the Medici. "Maestro Mariano da Genazzano," writes Allegretto, "of the Osservanti of St Augustine, preached at the foot of the Palace of the Signori, to the Signoria, the Cardinal and all the People, the Signoria with the People having first gone to the Duomo to fetch the Madonna delle Grazie with the baldacchino. And the preacher's introit was: _Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation_, which he repeated three times, each time raising his voice higher. And when the sermon was finished, they brought back the Madonna to the Duomo with all the People."[71]

No less characteristic of Siena than her faction fights and her preachers of peace are the wild games that the Sienese played, the mad races that they ran and still run round the Campo. The oldest of these was the _Giuoco delle Pugna_--a furious game of fisticuffs which sometimes ended seriously. In 1324, on the Sunday before the Carnival, there was a desperate _giuoco delle pugna_ here, 600 a side, the Terzi of San Martino and Camollia engaging the Terzo di Città. The latter was driven off the ground. Then they set to with stones and sticks, and presently with swords and lances and darts, "and so great grew the uproar in the Campo that it seemed that the world was going upside down, by reason of the vast crowd that drew together." The soldiers of the Commune, the Captain, the Podestà, the Nine strove in vain to stop it. Several of the soldiers were killed; armed men poured into the Campo; the Saracini and the Scotti, whose palaces looked out upon the scene, hurled stones from their windows, and the mob in return tried to fire their houses. The secular authority proving helpless, at length the Bishop with the priests and friars of all the religious orders in Siena came into the Campo, with a processional cross in front of them, and passed through the thick of the battle, until it slackened and the combatants drew asunder. A peculiar variety of the _Giuoco delle Pugna_ were the _Asinate_ or donkey-fights. These were exhibited by the _contrade_--those popular associations, for sport and other purposes, into which Siena is still divided. Each contrada that took part came into the Campo with its captain and ancients (allow me this Elizabethan rendering of _alfieri_, the youths who carry the banners of the contrade), with thirty _pugillatori_ and an ass painted in the colours of the contrada. No arms of any sort were allowed--not even a ring on the finger--under severe penalties, corporal and financial; but almost any other sort of violence was permitted. The struggle was to force these donkeys round the Campo, in spite of all the efforts of the rival contrade, and the one that first completed two rounds was the winner. In later years the _Asinate_ gave place to the less exciting _Buffalate_--races with buffaloes. Last remnants of these departed glories are races which are now run twice a year--on the festivals of our Lady's Visitation (July 2nd) and of her Assumption (August 15th)--with mounted horses by the contrade. The race is still called the Palio, from the rich stuff (now represented by a banner) given as prize. No one who cares for Siena and the Sienese should miss any opportunity of seeing these races as often as he can; for in no other way can he enter into the peculiar spirit of this most picturesque of Tuscan peoples.[72]

It is a far cry from these things to Dante, to whom we owe the story of Provenzano Salvani's act of humility in this place. But Boccaccio has given us a vivid picture of the poet himself at one of these typical Sienese entertainments, which would seem to have been a tournament in the Campo. Dante had found a little book in an apothecary's shop, "which book was of much fame amongst men of worth, and had never yet been seen by him. And as it befell, not having leisure to take it to some other place, he leant with his breast against the bench that stood before the apothecary's and set the book before him, and began most eagerly to examine it; and although soon after, in that very district, right before him, by occasion of some general festival of the Sienese, a great tournament was begun and carried through by certain noble youths, and therewith the mightiest din of them around--as in like cases is wont to come about, with various instruments and with applauding shouts--and although many other things took place such as might draw one to look on them, as dances of fair ladies, and many sports of youths, yet was there never a one that saw him stir thence, nor once raise his eyes from the book."

The superb Palace of the Commune of Siena--built between 1288 and 1308 to house the Podestà with his _famiglia_, or household, and the members of the Signoria--is essentially the architectural and pictorial monument of the government of the Nine. Like several other Gothic palaces in the city, it is partly in grey stone, partly in red brick. Needless to say, the façade tells us a later and more comprehensive story; over every door and window is the _balzana_, the black and white shield of the Commune, but in the centre, between it and the lion shield of the People, are the arms of Duke Cosimo, the sign of the death of the Republic. Above all, rises the mystical monogram of the Divine Name, bringing us back to Bernardino. The tall soaring tower, known as the Torre del Mangia, was begun in 1338 and finished in 1348 or 1349; it has recently been discovered that its architects were two brothers from

Perugia, Minuccio and Francesco di Rinaldo, and that the upper part was designed by the painter, Lippo Memmi, in 1341.[73] The Chapel at the foot of the tower was begun in 1348, "for a certain miracle that Our Lady the Virgin Mary did"--or at least vowed in that year, as a memorial of deliverance from the Black Death, and built in the third quarter of the fourteenth century. The upper part, with its beautiful frieze of griffins, is the work of Antonio Federighi, and dates from 1460. The statues of saints in their niches merely show to what depths Sienese sculpture had sunk by the latter part of the fourteenth century, before the rise of Giacomo della Quercia. The ruined and restored fresco is Bazzi's last work in Siena. He promised in 1537 that he would have it done by the Feast of Our Lady in August for 60 golden scudi, but went off for a holiday to Piombino after beginning it, and did not return to complete the work till the following year. The door behind the chapel leads into a picturesque and deserted court, with a faded fifteenth century fresco and a number of old armorial bearings on the walls.

The Lupa of gilded bronze on the column to the right of the Palace marks the entrance to the apartments of the Signoria. Over the door, two very lean wolves are adoring the crowned Lion of the People. We ascend the steps to the first floor, into a magnificent series of rooms, glowing with masterpieces of Sienese painting. The first room--variously called the _Sala delle Balestre_, the _Sala del Mappamondo_, and the _Sala del Gran Consiglio_--is now a law-court. Here at one epoch the Consiglio della Campana, or Senate, at others the minor councils of the State met. The whole wall above the place of the president of the court is occupied by a vast fresco by Simone Martini painted in 1315, "right marvellously coloured," as Ghiberti calls it. Our Lady, enthroned as Queen of Siena, is holding up the Divine Child standing on her knees to bless the deliberations of the Council; Apostles and the Baptist hold the poles of the canopy, Virgin Martyrs and Angels stand in attendance, while two kneeling Angels offer flowers on behalf of Siena's four sainted patrons--Ansanus, Savinus, Crescentius and Victor. All the faces have the winning sweetness and spiritual loveliness that we find throughout the works of the Sienese school. At the foot of the throne is a poetical inscription: "The angelical flowers, roses and lilies, wherewith the celestial meadow is adorned, do not delight me more than good counsels. But sometimes I see one who, to exalt himself, despises me and deceives my city; and when he speaks worse, he is more praised by each one whom these words condemn." And along the base of the picture is their Queen's answer to the prayers of the Saints: "My beloved ones, be assured that I will make your devout chaste prayers content, as you shall wish. But if the potent oppress the weak, harassing them with shames and harms, your prayers are not for these, nor for whoso deceives my city."

Such being the ideal basis of Siena's policy, we are now given a series of her victories. On the opposite wall, painted by Simone in 1328, is a mediaeval warrior, Guidoriccio, riding alone, fully armed save for the head, his baton of command in his hand, his steed gorgeously caparisoned. The face is an admirable piece of portraiture. Behind him lie the camp of the Sienese and the captured castle from which the banner of the Commune floats. On either hand are preparations for storming the town in front; but he proudly rides forward alone, to summon it to surrender. Guidoriccio dei Fogliani of Reggio was elected Captain of War in Siena for six months in 1326, and afterwards confirmed so many times in the office that he kept it for seven years. In 1328, when the power of Castruccio degli Interminelli was at its height in Tuscany, he led the Sienese against Montemassi (the town represented in the fresco), repulsed the forces sent by Castruccio to its relief and forced it to surrender. In 1329 he put down a formidable bread-riot in the Campo, and in 1331 he won a great victory over the Pisans under the walls of Massa, after which he had himself dubbed a knight on the field of battle and returned to Siena in triumph. He died in 1352, and the Commune gave him a sumptuous public funeral in San Domenico.

Two later battle-scenes are on the wall opposite the windows. First is the great victory gained by the Sienese over the Company of the Cappello in October 1363, at Torrita, in the Valdichiana. After a vain attempt to come to terms, the Sienese hired four hundred German men-at-arms, and took the field with the forces of the city and the contado under Ceccolo degli Orsini, the Captain-General of the Commune. Before marching out of Siena, the republican army was put under the protection of St Paul the Apostle--apparently because the Christian name of the then Prior of the Twelve was Paolo. Orders had been given not to risk a battle; but, as soon as they came up with the enemy, the Germans set upon them, and the Captain with the Sienese following, a complete victory was gained. On the left of the fresco St Paul, with drawn sword, is seated at the gate of Siena, surrounded by warrior Angels. We see the advancing host of the Sienese, in front of which the splendid mercenary cavalry has already burst upon the ranks of the Company and broken through them, while on the right the rout is complete. The Sienese treated their prisoners magnificently; they deprived Ceccolo of his command, for having disobeyed their orders, but knighted him and heaped honours and presents upon him. The Twelve gave a solemn banquet in the Palace to him and his officers, presented him with a palfrey covered with silk, a sword of honour, a suit of armour and a golden crown, with double pay to his troops and household. A solemn Mass was celebrated in the Duomo, with great offerings to the miraculous Madonna, and the Twelve commissioned Lippo di Vanni to paint the fresco in memory of the glorious event. The second fresco, more than a hundred years later, was painted by Giovanni di Cristofano and Francesco d'Andrea in 1480, a record of the epoch when Duke Alfonso of Calabria was virtually the arbiter of Siena's destinies. It represents the battle of Poggio Imperiale, near Poggibonsi, in September 1479, the chief action in the war in which Duke Ercole of Ferrara held the baton of command of the Italian league that defended Florence against the allied powers of Rome and Naples, led by the Dukes of Calabria and Urbino. In the temporary absence of Ercole from the seat of war, Alfonso stormed the camp of the league. The painters have represented it as a triumph of Siena over Florence. On the left the Florentines are flying from the field, their condottiere Costanzo Sforza leading the rout, and the standard of the red lily is being lowered from every battlement and tower. Beneath the banners of the Church, Naples and Siena, the allies--led by "El Possa," a Sienese named Domenico di Michele, who was in the service of the Duke of Calabria--are driving the defeated army before them; in the centre are Alfonso and the Duke of Urbino; reinforcements are advancing on the right, while in the background the light armed foot-soldiers are sacking the Florentine tents.

On the wall under the portrait of Guidoriccio is the famous old picture of the Madonna from San Domenico, by Guido da Siena. The date upon the picture appears originally to have been 1281. The frescoes on either side--St Ansanus baptising the Sienese and St Victor protecting the shield of Liberty--are by Bazzi, painted in 1529. The blessed Bernardo Tolomei, founder of Monte Oliveto, is also Bazzi's, painted in 1534. These three figures--with their lovely attendant _putti_--are among the finest of his works. Between the next two arches are San Bernardino by Sano di Pietro and St Catherine by Vecchietta. The last of the series, B. Ambrogio Sansedoni, is more modern.

Out of this hall we pass into the _Sala della Pace_, originally called the _Sala dei Nove_, where the Nine met during that most glorious epoch in Sienese history when they held sway. In 1337 they appointed Ambrogio Lorenzetti to decorate their meeting-place with allegorical frescoes. We see the master's signature, _Ambrosius Laurentii de Senis_, under the great fresco--the first of the series--on the wall opposite the window. Here on our left is Justice, enthroned as Queen, inspired from above by the crowned genius of Celestial Wisdom. Over her head is the text from the _Wisdom of Solomon_, which Dante's spirits of righteous rulers formed in that sixth sphere of Paradise that is swayed by the celestial Dominations: "Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth." On her right and left respectively, the Angel of Distributive Justice crowns one and beheads another, the Angel of Commutative Justice gives weapons to one and money to another. At her feet sits Concord, a beautiful woman upon whose brow rests the pentecostal tongue of fire; she holds two cords that proceed from the scales of Justice, uniting the twenty-four citizens who pass in procession to the feet of the Commune of Siena. This is represented by a majestic old man, richly clothed in robes that show the black and white of the republican shield, royally crowned. The mystical cord of union is attached to his sceptre, and in his other hand he holds an image of the Blessed Virgin, whom the Sienese had chosen for their Sovereign Lady. He sits above the Wolf and the Twins. Faith, Hope and Charity hover above his head; Prudence and Fortitude, Magnanimity and Temperance are his assessors. Beyond them, on the right of the throne, reclines golden-haired Peace, in her clinging white robe; and on the left, Legal Justice sits, with a crown and a severed head on her lap. Around are steel-clad warriors, horse and foot--the armed forces of the Republic--while to the gate of the city men come offering "censi, tributi e signorie di terre," as one of the verses of the inscription, which is probably Ambrogio's own, puts it; prisoners are led in in fetters, and others are rigorously kept excluded--for the mediaeval mind can hardly conceive of good government without _fuorusciti_.

On the right wall are shown the effects of good government, the rule of Justice. "Turn your eyes to gaze upon her who is figured here--O ye that rule!--and who is crowned for her excellence"; so runs the inscription. "Behold what great good things come from her, and how sweet and restful is the life of the city where that virtue is preserved that gloweth back more than any other." Within the city are dancing and feasting; the shops are full and trade flourishes; cavalcades of dames and cavaliers pass through the streets. Beyond the walls unarmed trains pass out to the chase; the fields are cultivated, the peasants fearlessly bringing their produce into the city. In the distance is the sea--for the righteous republic will have commerce and become a maritime power--and a harbour said to represent Talamone. Over all hovers Security, a winged woman with a little gallows and a scroll: "Without fear may every one travel freely and each man work and sow, whilst the Commune will maintain this Lady in signory, for she has taken all power from the wicked."

On the opposite wall is Evil Government, the fruits of Injustice. Tyranny, a hideous horned monster, with dagger and poisoned cup, sits enthroned above a goat. Avarice, Pride and Vainglory float over him. Foul and horrible shapes sit round him as ministers: Cruelty (torturing a child), Treason and Fraud, Fury, Division and War. At his feet lies Justice--dishevelled, overthrown, bound. Murder and outrage wanton within and without the walls; the smiling fields are devastated, while at the gate of the ruined, bloodstained city hovers the dark and ragged demon of Fear, with a scroll: "Through selfish ambition in this city has Justice been subjected to Tyranny; wherefore by this way no one passes without dread of death: for without and within the gates they plunder."[74]

Beyond the _Sala delle Balestre_ is the Chapel of the Palace. The antechapel, the walls and the roof of the chapel itself are covered with frescoes by Taddeo di Bartolo--frescoes that are the first great Sienese achievement in painting in the Quattrocento--executed between 1406 and 1414. On the walls and arches of the antechapel are Roman heroes and philosophers of antiquity; Apollo and Minerva, Jupiter and Mars; a view of the Eternal City; and, over the door that leads into the room adjoining the consistory, a gigantic St Christopher. The Sienese claim, not without reason, that Perugino himself imitated these frescoes nearly a hundred years later, in the Sala del Cambio at Perugia. In the chapel are saints and Angels and the four closing scenes of the Madonna's life; her farewell to the Apostles, her death, her being carried upon the bier, and lastly her Assumption--the Divine Son sweeping down with Cherubim and Seraphim to draw His Mother from the grave. Among all the Italian pictures of the Assumption, Taddeo's still can hold its own for its vividness and originality. For the rest, the whole chapel is a perfect gem of the arts and crafts of the early Quattrocento. The holy water stoop is by Giovanni di Turino, the iron railing by Giacomo di Giovanni; the beautiful stalls of the choir, carved and inlaid with illustrations to the Nicene Creed, were executed by Domenico di Niccolò, afterwards called Domenico del Coro, between 1415 and 1428, and may possibly have been designed by Taddeo di Bartolo. Under the Nativity, on the little wooden door between the chapel and the _Sala di Balìa_ is the Wheel of Fortune, on which man is seen transformed to ass as he rises, recovering human shape as he falls. To a later period belong only the organ with Siena's wolf, which is a work of the early Cinquecento, and the altarpiece. The latter, by Bazzi and one of his later works, was originally in the Duomo; it represents the Madonna and Child with St Joseph and St Calixtus, with a beautiful landscape background in which the ruins of ancient Rome are seen. "This work," says Vasari, "is likewise held to be very beautiful, inasmuch as one sees that Sodoma in colouring it used much more diligence than he was wont to do in his things."

We pass next into a small passage or anteroom, out of which the _Sala di Concistoro_ opens on the left, the _Sala di Balìa_ on the right. In the former, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Signoria met, the nominal governors of the State; in the latter, the Collegio di Balìa, the select committee that in reality held the Republic in its hands. There are bits of old fresco in this waiting room--Madonnas and Saints, a kneeling magistrate watched over by his celestial patron--and several panels of the Quattrocento; especially a Madonna and Child with four Angels in an old frame, dated 1484, by Matteo di Giovanni, and San Bernardino preaching in the Campo and liberating a possessed woman after his death, ascribed by Mr Berenson to Vecchietta.

The _Sala di Concistoro_, with a marble doorway ascribed to Giacomo della Quercia, has a ceiling covered with frescoes by Domenico Beccafumi, painted between 1529 and 1535--precisely at the time when his rival, Bazzi, was working on his saints in the other hall. They represent scenes from Roman and Greek history, with allegorical figures of Concord and Justice, and are extravagantly praised by Vasari, who declares that the Justice in particular is painted "so powerfully that it is a marvel." The foreshortening, the effects of light and shade are certainly exceedingly clever; but it is a little too much to say, as Lanzi does, that "Beccafumi should be called the Correggio of lower Italy."

The pictorial decorations of the _Sala di Balìa_ were commissioned by the Signoria in 1407, and begun in the following year. The Virtues on the ceiling are by Martino di Bartolommeo Sensi, a Sienese painter who belonged to the order of the Riformatori and whose chief works are in the neighbourhood of Pisa. The scenes on the walls are by Spinello Aretino, the Aretine who ranks as the last of the Giotteschi and who was then nearly eighty years old, and his son Parri. They represent the life of the great Sienese Pope, Alexander III., but are not arranged in chronological order and the subjects are frequently doubtful. Among them we may notice the Pope giving a blessed sword to the Doge of Venice, Sebastiano Ziani, on the wall opposite the first window; on the entrance wall, the capture of an Italian town by the imperialists and the naval victory of the Venetians on Ascension Day, 1176, in which the Caesar's son Otto was taken prisoner. The latter scene is a splendid rendering of mediaeval naval warfare--note especially, on the right, the episode of the capture of the prince and the frenzied efforts of the imperialists to rescue him. The second fresco on the arch probably represents the recognition of the Pope, when disguised as a monk at Venice, by a French pilgrim. On the wall opposite the second window is the building of Alessandria with its elevation into a Bishopric, and, apparently, the humiliation of the Emperor Barbarossa. There is a curious representation of the burning of a heretic on the arch. Opposite the entrance is the presentation of the captured prince to the Pope, and the latter's triumphal procession with the Emperor and the Doge leading his horse. Beyond is the _Sala Monumentale_, painted in honour of Vittorio Emanuele II. by modern Sienese artists with certain great scenes in the story of the unification of Italy--the armistice after Novara, the battles of San Martino and Palestro, the meeting of Vittorio Emanuele and Garibaldi, the Roman Plebiscite and the funeral of the King. With the impartiality that, in some respects, is characteristic of modern Italy, Alexander III. is represented in one of the medallions among the precursors of the political regeneration of his country.

In this _Sala di Balìa_--then called the Sala del Papa--there was a notable tragedy enacted in 1455, in the very year that the "Magistracy of the Fifteen of the Balìa" was first instituted--originally of fifteen citizens to superintend the prosecution of the war against Piccinino. The commander of the Sienese forces, Count Giberto da Correggio, was in secret treaty with the enemy, sent him supplies while Siena starved, and attempted to occupy Grosseto on his own account. The government was warned by the officers of the Duke of Milan that their general was going to betray them, but the Balìa had already ample proofs in its hands; not daring to arrest him in the midst of his troops, they waited their time. "What human cunning could devise no means to do," writes Malavolti, somewhat sanctimoniously, "was easily ordained by the Divine Justice, that seldom suffers such enormous crimes to remain unpunished." They heard that, on September 6th, the Count would come to the city, to demand payment of a large sum of money which he claimed from the government. The morning that he was expected, the Fifteen met, reviewed the evidence against him, and decided upon their measures. The Count confidently entered the city with thirty horsemen, rode to the Palazzo de' Marescotti (the present Palazzo Saracini), where he had apartments, and demanded an audience of the Balìa. In the evening four nobles of the city, with a number of citizens and the trumpeters of the Signoria, came to bring him in state to the Palace for the audience that he had demanded. The Count and his chancellor went up into the chapel, while the doors of the Palace were closed and his other attendants detained in the Sala delle Balestre. When all was ready, the Count was called before the Fifteen in the Sala di Balìa--the Priors being meanwhile assembled in the Sala di Concistoro. Perhaps he passed through that little door upon which even then was the design of Fortune's wheel. With all marks of honour and respect, he was invited to seat himself with the Fifteen, by the side of the Prior of the Balìa, and questioned about what had gone on in the field. He answered insolently and proudly--upon which he was accused to his face of treason, and the intercepted letters shown him that he had interchanged with Piccinino. He sprang to his feet: "What! do you imagine that I am a prisoner in your hands?" "Quite otherwise," answered Lodovico Petroni, one of the Fifteen, seizing hold of his cloak. At the signal armed men rushed in--they had been lying in wait in the room beyond--and stabbed him to death. The still quivering body was dragged to the window and hurled out on to the pavement below. Later on, it was carried to the Duomo and buried

near the Campanile, without any honour or name to mark the spot. That same night the Balìa notified to the Pope and their other allies what had been done. To his Holiness they declared that "this astute seminator of evil, this your insidious foe, this traitor to our Republic" had been done to death by the people in a tumult; to the Duke of Milan they sent a piece of his cloak, drenched in blood; to Venice and to Florence they told the truth, pleading the sacred duty of saving the State, citing as precedents the deaths of Carmagnola and Baldaccio d'Anghiari. Pope Calixtus insisted that they should justify themselves by publishing the evidence, and when this was done, on September 18th, he absolved the Fifteen, each severally by name. But to the appeal of the Sienese envoys for a general absolution for all the people of the city, he replied that he could not grant it, "because you Sienese would be too strong in Paradise."[75]

Two antique coffers in this room--one of them with the Lupa carved by Antonio Barili--are also worthy of notice. In the Loggia on the second floor of the Palace is a frescoed Madonna and Child by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.

The second door to the left of the wolf in the Piazza leads, through a picturesque little court covered with old frescoes, to a series of rooms on the ground floor, at present used by the municipality. In the _Sala dei Signori di Biccherna_, the room in which the Camarlingo and Quattro Provveditori met, is the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, a fresco painted in 1445 by Sano di Pietro. Two of the Angels are holding a scroll with a poem, thus blending painting and poetry together in the characteristic early Sienese way: "This blessed glorious Virgin pure, Daughter of her Son and Spouse and Mother--because the Eternal Father found her more humble than any other person, He giveth her here the crown of the Universe. Virgin Mother of the Eternal God, by whose holy hands thou art crowned, to thee be recommended the devout and faithful city of Siena, as it hopeth in thee; hail, full of grace." The San Bernardino on the right is also by Sano. In the same room there is a small fresco by Bazzi--the Madonna and Child with the little St John, St Michael Archangel and St Galganus. Like all his work in the Palace it is late, about 1537, but, unlike the rest, it is badly drawn and carelessly executed.

In the _Stanza del Sindaco_ there is a much finer fresco of Bazzi's--the Resurrection of Christ, with the three Maries approaching through the early spring landscape. It was originally painted, probably in 1535, in the place where the salt was sold, and was sawn out in the last century. Vasari specially praises the beauty of the Angels' heads. In another room is a frescoed Madonna by Vecchietta. On the ground floor is also the entrance to what during the fifteenth century was the Sala del Gran Consiglio, but which in the latter part of the sixteenth century, after the final fall of the Republic, was converted into a theatre.

At the back of the Palace is the picturesque market-place, the _Piazza del Mercato_. Out of the market, the Via de' Malcontenti and the Via di Porta Giustizia still indicate the ways by which condemned prisoners were conveyed in carts to the place of execution beyond the walls. We know that the feet of St Catherine frequently trode this mediaeval _via crucis_; but it is questionable whether the execution of Niccolò di Toldo took place in the ordinary spot, as there is frequent record of political prisoners being done to death in front of the Palace and elsewhere. In his fresco in San Domenico, Bazzi seems to identify the place with the little valley before us, between the hills of Montone and Santa Agata, crowned by the churches of the Servites and Augustinians.