Immediately after boasting that hadn't seen a single dog turd, I did see one. But it was very dainty.
I did see massive frescos too. Siena has some of the earliest secular frescos apparently. It's a relief, because with crucifixion after crucifixion after crucifixion one does begin to feel one can have too much of a good thing.
The first secular frescos I saw were in a huge echoing building opposite the Duomo called Santa Maria della Scala. Not sure what she was doing up a ladder but perhaps on her way to heaven. It was the hospital in mediaeval times, and amazingly, was still being used in the late 20th century. In the long room where the beds of the sick were so recently lined up, there are frescos of people being treated hundreds of years ago in the very same room. A young man with a ghastly wound in his thigh is being tenderly washed prior to surgery. A couple of porters are carrying stretchers. A fat bored mink (sorry, 'monk' but I can't bear to correct it) is hearing confession from a very ill old man in bed.
The establishment also acted as an orphanage and cared for foundlings - in fact local woman overburdened with children could just come and donate their latest child knowing it would be well looked after. They had an army of wet nurses and one of the frescos showed them being paid. I had the place completely to myself and as there were seats, I spent a lot of time there.
I also visited the famous Allegory of Good Government in the Museo Civico. That's the one which includes a personification of Pax as a girl relaxing on a sofa holding a palm frond or olive branch and reading a magazine. (I was lying about the magazine.) In the same painting there are quite a few
armed guards, bad hombres in handcuffs and indeed, almost on the lap of Justice herself, a severed head. The implication being that Peace wouldn't be able to sprawl in that carefree manner were it not
for the First Responders.
Good Government is reflected in an attractive townscape showing girls dancing to a golden tambourine, a bloke buying shoes, somebody giving a lecture, and outside the city walls, a team working with pick axes, a plough, hunting with dogs and a nice black and white pig. Once again, it's hovered over by an angel holding a miniature Polly Pocket size gallows. (Stocking filler idea?) The message is loud and clear.
Bad Government is represented by a devilish looking guy with horns but his fresco has been much damaged. I did manage to see one murder though and I guess there were originally plenty more.
Oh how I wish my eyesight, knees and Latin were in better nick.
After all that I went to the Campo and was faced with a pizza almost as large as the Campo itself. Of course I didn't normally eat there - I'm not completely daft - but it was my last sunlit moment in sunlit
Siena so I wanted to wallow slightly. Lots of people sit or lie down in the Campo but if I were to do so I fear the paramedics would be called.
I was nerving myself up for Florence, but as it turned out, even a whole bodyful of nerves wasn't going to be enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment