Frommer's EasyGuide to Florence and Tuscany by Stephen Brewer

Author:Stephen Brewer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FrommerMedia
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Beneath the pulpit spreads a flooring mosaic of 59 etched and inlaid marble panels (1372–1547), a showpiece for 40 of Siena’s medieval and Renaissance artistic luminaries. Most prolific among them was Domenico Beccafumi, born into a local peasant family and adopted by his lord, who saw the boy’s talent for drawing. Beccafumi studied in Rome but returned to Siena and spent much of his career designing 35 scenes for the flooring (from 1517–47); his richly patterned images are a repository of Old Testament figures. Matteo di Giovanni, another Sienese, did a gruesome Slaughter of the Innocents—a favorite theme of the artist, whose fresco of the same scene is in Santa Maria della Scala (see below). Many of the panels are protected by cardboard overlays and uncovered only from mid–August to early October in honor of the Palio.

Umbrian Renaissance master Bernardino di Betto (better known as Pinturicchio, or Little Painter, because of his stature) is the star in the Libreria Piccolomini, entered off the left aisle. Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini (later Pope Pius III—for all of 18 days before he died in office) built the library in 1487 to house the illuminated manuscripts of his famous uncle, a popular Sienese bishop who later became Pope Pius II. Pinturicchio’s frescoes depict 10 scenes from the pope’s life, including an especially dramatic departure for the Council of Basel as a storm rages in the background.

In the Baptistery (not a separate building but beneath the choir), the great trio of Sienese and Florentine sculptors of the early Renaissance, Jacopo della Quercia, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Donatello, crafted the gilded bronze panels of the baptismal font. Donatello wrought the dancing figure of Salome in the “Feast of Herod,” and della Quercia did the statue of St. John that stands high above the marble basin.

Piazza del Duomo. 0577-283-048. Admission on cumulative ticket, or 3€, except when floor uncovered 6€. Mar–May and Sept–Oct Mon–Sat 10:30am–7:30pm, Sun 1:30–5:30pm; Nov–Feb Mon–Sat 10:30am–6:30pm, Sun 1:30–5:30pm; June–Aug Mon–Sat 10:30am–8pm, Sun 1:30–6pm. Baptistery: Piazza San Giovanni (down the stairs around the rear right flank of the Duomo). 0577-283-048. Admission on cumulative ticket, or 3€. Mid-June to mid-Sept daily 9:30am–8pm; mid-Sept to Oct and Mar to mid-June daily 9:30am–7pm; Nov–Feb daily 10am–5pm.

Museo Civico/Palazzo Pubblico ART MUSEUM Siena’s medieval governors, the Council of Nine, met in the Sala della Pace, and to help ensure they bore their duties responsibly, in 1338 Ambrogio Lorenzetti frescoed the walls with what has become the most important piece of secular art to survive from medieval Europe. His “Allegory of Good and Bad Government and Their Effects on the Town and Countryside” provides not only a moral lesson but also a remarkable visual record of the Siena and the surrounding countryside as it appeared in the 14th century. Probably not by accident, the good government frescoes are nicely illuminated by natural light, while scenes of bad government are cast in shadow and have also deteriorated over the years. In an uplifting panorama on the good side of the room, the towers,

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