Читать книгу The Story of Siena and San Gimignano - Gardner Edmund G. - Страница 2

SIENA remains the most perfectly mediaeval of all the larger cities of Tuscany. Its narrow streets, its spacious Gothic palaces and churches, the three hills upon which it rises enthroned, with the curiously picturesque valleys between them, are still inclosed in frowning walls of the fourteenth century. The Renaissance came to it late, gave it its enduring epithet of “soft Siena,” and blended harmoniously, almost imperceptibly, with its mediaeval spirit.

According to the more picturesque of the traditions respecting its origin, Siena was founded by Senius, the son of Remus, who brought with him the image of the Lupa, the she-wolf suckling the twins, which still remains the city’s badge. When he offered sacrifice to his gods, a dense black smoke arose from the altar of Apollo and a pure white smoke from that of Diana – in commemoration of which was made the balzana, the black and white shield of the Commune that we still see upon Siena’s gates and public buildings. There are two other shields associated with it: a blue shield with the word Libertas in gold letters; a red shield with a white lion rampant. According to other traditions, scarcely more historical, the first was granted to Siena by Charlemagne, the second (the arms of the People) by the Emperor Otto.

Siena was a place of very small importance during the dark ages. As in the case of its neighbour and rival, Florence, its epoch of greatness begins with the earlier decades of the twelfth century, in the confused period that followed the death of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany. Throughout the greater part of the twelfth century and at the beginning of the thirteenth, the Republic of Siena was nominally ruled by Consuls, who up to the middle of the twelfth century shared their authority with the Bishop. They were men of noble rank, usually three or sometimes six in number, elected by the people in the parliament that met either before the then Romanesque Duomo or in the Piazza di San Cristofano, to hold office for one year. At first the nobles were the greater power in the State; some at least were the descendants of the foreign invaders, the counts and barons of the Frankish and German Emperors, and the result of their prepotency was naturally combined with the territorial rivalry with Florence to make Siena throw in its lot with the Ghibellines, when the great struggle between Papacy and Empire, between republican ideals and feudal traditions, divided Italy. Gradually five noble families came to stand out pre-eminently as the schiatte maggiori, with special privileges from the Republic and a predominating influence in the State, names that we shall meet with again and again in Siena’s story; the Piccolomini, the Tolomei, the Malavolti, the Salimbeni and the Saracini. The Salimbeni were the richest and exercised considerable territorial sway in the contado; the Piccolomini claimed to be of pure Latin descent, and were undoubtedly of more democratic tendencies. These nobles were divided against themselves; there was bitter feud between the Salimbeni and the Tolomei, between the Malavolti and the Piccolomini. And presently the people took advantage of this to rise and claim their share in the administration of the city, and in the reformation of 1147 they obtained a third part of the government.

Gradually the Republic of Siena extended its sway over the neighbouring townlets and over the castelle of the contado, whose feudal lords were forced to reside in the city for some months in the year, to fight for the Commune in war. In spite of internal factions and dissensions, the city increased in wealth and prosperity; its commerce was largely extended; fugitives from Milan, flying from the Teutonic arms of Frederick Barbarossa, introduced the Art of Wool; Sienese gentlemen, led by Filippo Malavolti – a noble whom we dimly discern as a great figure in those far-off republican days – sailed to Syria in Pisan galleys and shared in the capture of Acre. Notwithstanding its traditional support of the imperial cause, it was in this century that Siena gave to the Church the “great Pope of the Lombard League” – Orlando Bandinelli, who during his long pontificate as Alexander III. (from 1159 to 1181) knew how to uphold the rights of Italy no less than the claims of the Papacy against the mightiest of the Kaisers. And, indeed, the Ghibellinism of the Sienese was always of a patriotic Italian type. In 1186 they closed their gates in the face of Barbarossa, believing that he meant to deprive them of their contado, and hurled back his son Henry discomfited from the Porta Camollia. At the close of the century, Siena began to have a Podestà as chief magistrate, like the other cities of Tuscany, who was probably at the outset an imperial nominee, and the consular government appears to have ceased by about 1212; while the people became associated into Arts or Guilds, somewhat resembling the more famous Florentine associations, whose representatives sat in the councils of the Republic and had their voice in the affairs of State.1 Already the glorious Duomo, though needless to say not in its present form, had been consecrated by Pope Alexander, and the Dogana stood on the site of the present Palazzo Comunale, a sign of increasing commercial prosperity. A great part of the public authority was now in the hands of the Camarlingo and the four Provveditori di Biccherna, the officials who presided over the finances of the Republic. Though for a few years we still find the names of consuls, the Podestà was from 1199 onwards the chief officer of the State; we find in 1200 and in 1201 that Filippo Malavolti held this office, but after 1211 it was invariably assigned to a foreigner. In 1208 the oldest of the Sienese palaces, the Palazzo Tolomei, was built; although burned by the people on at least two occasions, it still retains not a little of its early mediaeval aspect.

Throughout the greater part of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Siena – usually more or less allied with Pisa, Pistoia and the Conti Guidi – was engaged in a series of wars with Florence, an intermittent struggle alternating with hollow, insincere treaties of peace. This was due to the antagonistic ideals of Guelf and Ghibelline, to the growing commercial rivalry between the two republics, each especially striving to get into the hands of its own merchants and noble bankers all the increasingly lucrative affairs of the Roman Curia, and, perhaps, more immediately to the fact that each was striving to extend its contado at the expense of the other. Poggibonsi, Colle di Val d’Elsa, Montalcino and Montepulciano – in which right was probably with Siena and might with Florence – were perpetual sources of contention, and the Sienese suffered severe defeats time after time. “Do not forget through eternity those that deny thee, that withdraw themselves from the homage they owe thee, that plot against thee and that bring shame to thee.” So runs the black book of the Commune, the Memoriale delle Offese, in which these things were recorded. “Be mindful of Montepulciano, that, though it be of thy contado, most proudly endeavours to withdraw itself therefrom.”2 Grosseto was the first place of importance that, in 1224, fell permanently into the hands of the Sienese, a town previously swayed by the Counts Aldobrandeschi of Santa Fiora, those most potent nobles of the Sienese contado whose pride and whose imperialistic tendencies are recorded by Dante.

Within the city the factions raged furiously. The power of the nobles or gentiluomini was waning, even in Ghibelline Siena. It was laid to their charge that the wars with Florence had taken so unfavourable a turn, that the Florentines were ravaging the contado, had hurled donkeys into Siena with their catapults, and on one occasion had even penetrated into the city itself. By what appears to have been a comparatively peaceful revolution in 1233, the people obtained an increased share in the government; a supreme magistracy of Twenty-four was created, elected annually by the General Council, eight from each terzo of the city, half from each order.3 But their rule became irksome to the more conservative section of the nobles, who formed a rival party and strove to oust the popolani from power. In 1240 it came to blood, to adopt the Dantesque phrase. The opponents of the new regime, headed by the Podestà, Manfredi da Sassuolo, rose in arms; the people, led by a certain Aldobrandino di Guido Cacciaconti, who is described as one of the “grandi del popolo di Siena,” and who was of an old feudal family, rallied round the Twenty-four. The battle began in three places in the city. There was fighting up and down the narrow streets; there was flaming of torches and clashing of weapons round the palaces and towers. The Palazzo Tolomei and the Palazzo Malavolti were burned, and after much devastation and bloodshed, when many had fallen on either side, the Twenty-four got the upper-hand, drove out a certain number of the nobles, and appointed Aldobrandino Podestà. He was a strong and prudent man, who put down disorder with a firm hand, and reconciled many of the leaders of either party. In the comparative tranquillity that followed, the streets and squares of Siena were paved for the first time. But the struggle with Florence proved disastrous. The Sienese were forced to make a disadvantageous peace, and, in 1255, there was an alliance concluded between the rival republics, in the epoch of Guelf predominance that followed the deaths of Frederick II. and King Conrad.

It was in this brief breathing space, of external peace and internal tranquillity, that a knight of Siena, Messer Folcacchiero de’ Folcacchieri, wrote what was once thought to be the earliest extant example of a regular canzone, describing his own hapless plight through love: Tutto lo mondo vive senza guerra: “All the world is living without war, yet I can find no peace.” The constitution at this time shows the usual bewildering number of separate councils that we find in mediaeval Italian republics. The four Provveditori di Biccherna with their Camarlingo still administered the revenues of the State, the executive was in the hands of the Podestà and Captain. Laws were discussed and approved in the General Council of the Campana, composed of “three hundred good Catholics, not excommunicated nor suspected of heresy.” There was nominally a Parliament, which the Podestà and Captain could not summon without the consent of two-thirds of the Council of the Campana, and without previously explaining what they intended to propose. But “the Twenty-four were the informing soul of the constitution, and once a month they met in secret council without the Podestà and Captain.”4

But it was not for long that the Lion shook hands with the Wolf, as we see them at a later epoch on the pavement of the Duomo. Florence was now the predominant power in Tuscany, fiercely democratic and strenuously Guelf; while Pisa and Siena alone clung to the discredited cause of the Ghibellines, the latter thirsting to recover Montalcino which had been lost in the last war. Away in the south, Frederick’s heroic son, King Manfred, was upholding the claims of the imperial house of Suabia, and Siena looked to him. A band of exiled Florentines came to Siena in 1258, led by that tremendous Ghibelline noble whom Dante was afterwards to see rising from his fiery tomb as though he held all Hell in scorn, the man whom the triumph of the Guelfs would torture more than all the torments of his burning bed: Farinata degli Uberti. In spite of the express terms of the treaty, Siena turned a deaf ear to the remonstrance of her nominal ally, and refused to expel the fugitives. War being now inevitable, ambassadors were sent to Manfred to obtain his aid. The price of the royal assistance was that the Sienese should swear fidelity and obedience to him. This was done, and in May 1259, from Lucera, the King received the Commune under his protection. To a second embassy, praying him to take the imperial crown and to send a captain with an army into Tuscany, Manfred answered that he loved Siena above all the cities of Italy, and that he would shortly send to those parts such a captain of his own blood and so great a force of armed men with him “that he shall make the rough ways smooth, and rule that province in peace.”5 And in December the Count Giordano d’Anglano, the King’s near kinsman, appeared in Siena, with a small force of Germans. He at once took the field in the Maremma, where Grosseto and Montemassi had rebelled from Siena, and forced the former town to surrender in February. Hearing that the Florentines were making huge preparations, and were sending supplies to Montepulciano and Montalcino, another embassy was sent to Manfred in March, headed by the most influential citizen of Siena, Provenzano Salvani.

No sooner had spring come than the Florentine army, headed by their Podesta, Jacopino Rangoni of Modena, entered the territory of the republic and advanced upon Siena by way of Colle and Montereggioni, forcing the Sienese to raise the siege of Montemassi, and to withdraw all their troops for the defence of the city. On the morning of May 18th, there was a smart engagement at Santa Petronilla outside the Porta Camollia. A small force of Germans and Sienese made a vigorous sortie, in which the Germans bore the brunt of the fighting, lost the greater part of their number killed, and the royal banner fell into the hands of the Florentines, who retired to their encampment, having suffered severely in killed and wounded. They broke up their camp and retreated on the 20th, almost simultaneously with the return of Provenzano and his colleagues to Siena followed by a strong force of German and Italian mercenaries from the King.6 The war was at once renewed with activity, Provenzano Salvani being the leading spirit throughout. Montemassi was taken and Montalcino rigorously blockaded.

The critical condition of Montalcino combined with Ghibelline intrigues to bring the Florentines again into the field. Farinata and his fellow exiles gave the anziani, who then ruled in Florence, to understand that Siena was thirsting for a change of government, for the overthrow of the Twenty-four, and the banishment of Provenzano, “who was the greatest popolano of Siena,” and that the nobles were prepared to sell the city to the Florentines. In spite of the strenuous opposition of Tegghiaio Aldobrandino and the Conte Guidoguerra, the Florentines decided instantly to resume hostilities – nominally to relieve Montalcino, in reality to destroy Siena. They called the people to arms to follow the standards of their companies, summoned aid from Lucca and Bologna and all the Guelf cities of their league. At the beginning of September the army of Florence with the Carroccio or battle car of the Republic, over which floated the red and white standard of the Commune, entered the Sienese contado, where it was joined by the men of Perugia and Orvieto. Without counting these, there were at least 3000 horsemen and more than 30,000 infantry; but there were traitors in the army, in secret understanding with the enemy. From their camp beyond the Arbia, the captain and commissaries of the Florentines sent ambassadors to the Sienese, to demand their instant and absolute submission. “Straightway throw down your walls,” they began, “in order that we may enter your city at whatever place likes us best.”

Forthwith the Twenty-four of Siena summoned the council to meet in the church of San Cristofano. There was some wavering at first. The worthy burghers knew nothing of the secret dealings of the Florentine exiles (to which, probably, Provenzano alone was privy), but had heard much of the might and fierceness of the invading forces, and several of the council urged a compromise. At once Provenzano Salvani sprang to his feet and bade them summon the Count Giordano. The Count came and, with the sixteen German constables, his seneschal and an interpreter, stood before the council. There was no thought of surrender then; the Germans shouted with delight at the prospect of double pay and speedy fighting, and Salimbene Salimbeni at once hurried to his palace and returned with the money, driving through the piazza in a cart covered with scarlet and decked with olive. Through his mouth the Twenty-four gave their reply to the Florentine herald: “Go back to your captain and the commissaries, and tell them that we shall answer them by word of mouth on the field.” The whole city was arming; before the church, the piazza of the Tolomei and all the streets leading to it were packed with a wildly expectant and ever increasing crowd. While away in the Duomo the Bishop assembled the clergy and religious, with bare feet moving in solemn procession to implore the divine aid against “the impious appetites of the Florentines,” the Twenty-four had elected Buonaguida Lucari sindaco with full powers – practically Dictator.

“Men of Siena,” cried Buonaguida from the steps of San Cristofano, “ye all know how we have recommended ourselves to the protection of King Manfred; let us now surrender ourselves, our goods and persons, our city and our contado with all our rights, to the Queen of Eternal Life, to our Lady and Mother, the Virgin Mary. Follow me now, all of you, with purity of faith and freedom of will, to make this offering.”

Bareheaded and barefooted, clad like a beggar with a halter round his neck, the Dictator solemnly carried the keys of the city to the Duomo, followed by the people, barefooted too, and crying continually, misericordia, misericordia. There all the clergy met them, and at the foot of the choir the Bishop and Dictator solemnly embraced, in pledge of the complete union of Church and State, while hereditary foes fell into each other’s arms. Then after silent prayer, prostrate before the altar, the Dictator in an impassioned harangue formally made over the city and contado of Siena to the Mother of Heaven, while the Bishop mounted the pulpit and solemnly exhorted the people to mutual forgiveness and to approach the sacraments. The next day there was a long procession through the streets, the keys were blessed and given over to the keeping of the Gonfalonieri (the elected heads of the three terzi). All night the churches had been thronged by crowds approaching the confessionals, by enemies seeking reconciliation with each other, and at daybreak the Twenty-four sent three heralds with the banners of each terzo to call the people to arms in the name of God and of the Virgin Mary.

It was Friday, September 3rd. The whole army consisted of a little more than 20,000 men. There were 800 Germans and other royal horsemen with the imperial banner, under Count Giordano and the Count of Arras; 400 more horsemen, partly Germans and partly noble Sienese, under the Count Aldobrandino degli Aldobrandeschi of Santa Fiora and Niccolò de’ Bigozzi, seneschal of the Commune. The Florentine and other Ghibelline exiles, under the Count Guido Novello and Farinata, were partly with Giordano, partly with Count Aldobrandino. There were 19,000 citizen infantry from the three terzi of the city and the contado, under the Podestà, Francesco Troghisio, and their three Gonfalonieri, with the Carroccio of the Republic over which floated a white standard “that gave right good comfort, for it seemed the mantle of the Virgin Mary.” A number of priests, some of them armed, accompanied the army; the rest with the Bishop, old men and women, spent the day fasting, going in procession from church to church throughout the city reciting litanies and the like. They marched out of the Porta Pispini and occupied the hill of Monteropoli beyond which, in the plain of the Cortine between the Biena and the Malena (little streams that join the Arbia), and on the opposite hill of Monteselvoli, lay the Guelf army – its leaders confidently expecting a revolution in Siena in their favour and the speedy surrender of one of the gates of the city. All during the night the Sienese harassed the Florentine camp, and on Saturday morning, September 4th, the battle began.

The Count of Arras, with some 400 horse and foot, advancing along the Biena, moved round Monteselvoli to fall upon the Florentine left flank; while the rest of the army left their hill, crossed the Arbia and approached the enemies’ position – the Florentines in the valley hastening up their own side of Monteselvoli to join the main body. The German heavy cavalry commenced the assault, dashing like dragons into the ranks of the men of Prato, Arezzo and Lucca, horse and men falling in heaps before their terrible lances. The Count Giordano led his tedeschi straight for the centre of the Guelfic army, where the “martinella” rang continuously over the Carroccio of Florence, round which the flower of the burgher army stood. The Count Aldobrandino with his cavalry and the eager Sienese followed up the German onslaught; but the resistance was long and stubborn. At last Bocca degli Abati, the traitor in the troop of Florentine nobles, hostis e cive factus as Leonardo Bruni puts it, struck Jacopo Pazzi with his sword on the arm that upheld one of the standards of the Republic; a portion of the cavalry went over to the enemy; the rest, seeing themselves betrayed, took to flight. Simultaneously the Count of Arras with the reserve, shouting “San Giorgio! San Giorgio!” burst furiously upon the Florentine flank. Then came, in Dante’s immortal phrase, “the havoc and the great slaughter that dyed the Arbia red.” The Sienese, writes the chronicler Niccolò di Giovanni Ventura, “seemed like unchained lions rushing upon their foes; little did it avail these to call on San Zanobi or Santa Liperata for aid, for they made a greater slaughter of them than do the butchers of their beasts on Good Friday.” The infantry were driven from their position down into the valley, only to be ruthlessly massacred. A band of Florentine burghers – the flower of the Primo Popolo – stood to the end in heroic desperation round the Carroccio and the standards, and fell in their places, resisting to the last, embracing and kissing the blood-stained wood of the car as they died. A number of the fugitives took refuge in the little castle of Montaperto and held out there till later in the day, when it was stormed and they were all put to the sword. It was not until evening had come that the Count Giordano and the Gonfalonieri of the Sienese bade that quarter should be given and prisoners accepted. The number of the slain Guelfs probably lies somewhere between 10,000, which is the Sienese estimate, and the 2500 given by Villani. The Carroccio had been taken; the popolo vecchio of Florence was “broken and annihilated,” in Villani’s terribly expressive phrase; every house in Florence had lost members, and the allied cities suffered only slightly less. Twelve thousand prisoners are said to have been taken.7

We should visit the battle-field to-day, for the walk or drive is one of the pleasantest in the neighbourhood of Siena. About four miles beyond the Porta Pispini we cross the Bozzone, and then, to the left, ascend the long, low hill of Monteropoli. This was the Sienese position before the battle. Opposite is Monteselvoli, and at our feet the Arbia, and between the two long hills the valley. The contadini take an uncanny pleasure in showing us the way, in pointing out and naming the various sites that witnessed the struggle. Away to the left, above the Malena – nearly an hour’s walk from the small railway station of Arbia – is the spot where the battle ended. A steep little hill, the lower part of which is a vineyard, is crowned with olive trees and cypresses, surrounding a pyramid of rough brown stone. The view that it commands is grand and sweeping; the black and barren hills to the south east; Santafiore hid in clouds to the south; and westwards the blood-stained valley of the battle-field, beyond which rises Siena itself with its towers, behind which the sun was already sinking when the Florentines made their last stand.

From the tower of the Marescotti (now of the Palazzo Saracini), Cerreto Ceccolini had watched the whole fight, beating his drum in signal to the people in the streets below, telling them of the course of the struggle, bidding them cry to God and the Madonna while the event hung in doubt, to shout in exultation when the day was won.

The victorious army rested that night on Monteropoli, with their prisoners and booty. They made their solemn entry into Siena the next day by the same gate through which they had passed out to the war, the German nobles and soldiers crowned with garlands of olive, singing songs in their own tongue as they made their way in triumphant procession to the Duomo. Three days of general supplication and thanksgiving followed; to the title Sena vetus was added by solemn decree Civitas Virginis, to the litany an Advocata Senensium. According to Malavolti, not more than 600 Sienese had fallen on the field of battle, but among them were many young men of the noblest families in the city. It is needless to re-tell in this place the familiar story of the triumphant entry of the Count Giordano with the Ghibelline exiles and his German mercenaries into the desolate Florence, and how that short-lived despotism was set up which the people themselves – those strenuous burghers and artisans of the Florentine Guilds – overthrew six years later. Montalcino, the original cause of the war, had surrendered to Siena a few days after the battle, and had been cruelly humiliated. According to the Sienese chroniclers, the people of Montalcino came through the Porta Romana in penitential robes, with halters round their necks, crying misericordia, and were forced to go to the field of battle to bury all the abandoned dead. A similar fate befell Montepulciano, which Manfred granted to the Commune of Siena on November 20th. In the following year Provenzano was made Podestà of Montepulciano, and with him went Don Ugo, the Camarlingo di Biccherna, to arrange for the building of a fortress there.

But this epoch of Ghibelline prepotency in Tuscany was brief. The victory of Charles of Anjou over Manfred at Benevento, in February 1266, was followed by the restoration of the Guelf supremacy in Florence. Siena and Pisa now stood alone.

Siena had not long remained united. There was still a Guelf faction within the walls, headed by the Tolomei, and the nobles were daily growing more estranged from the people. There was fighting in the Piazza Tolomei in 1265, when the people fired the palace; and again, in 1267, when, after the fall of Manfred, the Guelfs commenced to raise their heads anew. It was in these years that Provenzano Salvani became the ruling spirit of the State, and, in Dante’s words, “in his presumption thought to bring all Siena into his own hands.” It was mainly through his influence that Siena joined with Pisa in aiding Corradino, the youthful grandson of the great Frederick, in his designs upon Italy. Corradino came, a victim marked for the slaughter; and in August 1268 he rode into Siena with his army, and was received with the utmost joy as true Caesar. It was during his stay here that his troops, united with the Sienese, gained a slight victory in the Valdarno, and the prisoners brought into the city seemed to the exulting Ghibellines an augury of the complete triumph of the imperial cause. In the utter overthrow of these aspirations on the disastrous field of Tagliacozzo, “where without arms the old Alardo conquered,” a friend of Provenzano’s had fallen into the hands of the Angevin victor, who set a heavy ransom as the price of his life. Then was it that Provenzano appeared in the guise of a supplicant in the Campo, as Dante tells us in the Purgatorio, begging money of all that passed by, till the sum was made up “to deliver his friend from the torment that he was suffering in Charles’ prison.”

In the very next year a more bitter fate was Provenzano’s own. With Florentine aid, the Guelf exiles were threatening the Sienese frontier, and Provenzano Salvani, with Count Guido Novello, led a mixed force of Tuscan Ghibellines and Spanish and German mercenaries to attack Colle di Val d’Elsa. Here, in June 1269, they were surprised by a smaller force of French cavalry under Guy de Montfort, “routed and rolled back in the bitter paces of flight,” the Florentines and Guelf exiles taking ample vengeance for the slaughter of Montaperti. More than a thousand Sienese fell. Provenzano himself, to whom before the battle it had been foretold that his head should be the highest in the field, was taken prisoner, and murdered in cold blood by Cavolino Tolomei, who rode through the host with his head upon the point of his lance. Among the Guelf exiles in Colle was a noble lady named Sapia – the wife, it is said, of Ghinibaldo Saracini – who waited in agonised suspense in a tower near the field, declaring that she would hurl herself down from the window if her countrymen were victorious. When she saw them routed, and watched the furious Guelf pursuit, she broke out into the paroxysm of delight recorded by Dante, “crying to God, Henceforth I fear thee no more.”8

The battle of Colle di Val d’Elsa closes the period of Ghibelline supremacy in Siena. In the following year Guy de Montfort, as vicar of King Charles, forced the Sienese to take back their Guelf exiles, who soon drove out the Ghibellines. Instead of the Twenty-four, the chief power was now vested in a Thirty-six, who included both nobles and popolani. The long struggle with Florence was over for the present, Siena being forced to join her rival in the Guelf League under the suzerainty of the Angevin king. And as was inevitable when the Guelfs got the upper hand in an Italian state, in 1280 the nobles, or gentiluomini, were excluded from the Government, which was now put into the hands of the “Fifteen Governors and Defenders of the Commune and People of Siena.” A daring, but unsuccessful attempt of the Ghibelline exiles and their adherents within the walls to recapture the city in 1281 only resulted in strengthening the new democratic government. In 1285 the Fifteen were reduced to Nine, the famous magistracy of the Signori Nove, “the Lords Nine, the Defenders of the Commune and People of the city and district of Siena, and of the jurisdiction of the same,” in which no members of noble houses could sit (though still eligible for the other offices of the State, such as those of the Provveditori di Biccherna). Their term of office was two months, during which they lived at the expense of the State in one or other of the palaces of the city, rented for the purpose, until the present Palazzo Pubblico was built. The Nine were chosen from the popolo di mezzo, the rich and enlightened merchant class, that came between the nobles and the plebeians. Throughout the story of Siena we find the word Monte used to denote the faction or order that held sway, and this was the beginning of the Monte dei Nove, whose adherents were afterwards known as the Noveschi. The order that had previously held the supremacy is henceforth known as the Monte de’ Gentiluomini.

The Siena of this epoch of Guelf predominance is that luxurious city of the gente vana, the “vain folk,” that Dante knew, the city whose paths he trod in the early days of his exile. Senseless extravagance reigned side by side with hectic devotion and mystic enthusiasm. Typical, indeed, of this time are two figures of whom we read in the Divina Commedia; the young nobleman, Lano Maconi, who, having squandered all his substance in riotous living, joined in the unsuccessful expedition of the Sienese and Florentines against Arezzo in 1288, and, when the Sienese fell into an ambush at the ford of Pieve del Toppo, instead of saving his life by flight, dashed into the middle of the Aretines and found the death he sought; Pietro Pettignano, Franciscan tertiary and combseller of the Terzo di Camollia, who saved the soul of Monna Sapia by his prayers, saw visions and wrought miracles, and after a life of humility and righteousness died in 1289, and was venerated as a saint.9 Magnificent processions, gorgeous ceremonies of church and state, sumptuous balls and banquets, celebrated the bestowing of the order of knighthood upon the nobles of city and contado – each aristocratic house striving to eclipse the other in lavish hospitality and brilliant display. Amidst it all we hear the voice of that realist of the Trecento – Cecco degli Angiolieri, who “anticipates Villon from afar”10– singing of the three things for which he cares, la donna, la taverna, e’ l dado, celebrating his sordid passion for Becchina, the shoemaker’s daughter, pouring venomous abuse upon his own father, who persisted in living on and thus keeping him out of his heritage, railing against all mankind in half furious, half humorous style, daring to break a lyric lance even with the divine Florentine, Dante Alighieri himself. More characteristic of Siena is Cecco’s contemporary; Folgore da San Gimignano, in his corona of fourteen sonnets addressed to the brigata nobile e cortese, a club of twelve extravagant young Sienese nobles. Month by month through the year he sets forth a round of pleasures of every kind, feasting and hunting, music and jousting (the latter, in spite of a reference to Camelot, of a very harmless, carpet-knight description), dallying in pleasant places with lovely women. Nowhere else shall you find so perfect a picture of the splendid life and delicate living of courtly circles in “soft Siena” —Siena l’amorosa madre di dolcezza, as another poet called her – with her gay young gallants —

It was from these glittering, luxurious scenes that one of Siena’s proudest nobles, Bernardo Tolomei, fled to the desert, in 1313, to found the great convent of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, and to return to the city in 1348 with his white-robed companions, to lay down his life for his fellow-countrymen during the pestilence.

Until the advent of that terrible pestilence of 1348, the epoch of the supremacy of the Nine is the brightest in the history of Siena. “In that time,” wrote Fra Filippo Agazzari, a few years later, “the city of Siena was in such great peace, and in such great abundance of every earthly good, that almost every feast day innumerable weddings of young women were celebrated in the city.”11 It is the epoch in which most of Siena’s noblest buildings were reared, the epoch in which its three supreme painters – Duccio di Buoninsegna, Simone Martini, Ambrogio Lorenzetti – for a brief while raised the school of their native city to an equality with that of Florence. Trade flourished, the university prospered; the Republic remained Guelf, though it retained a certain Ghibelline element within its core that kept it from an aggressive policy, and led the more strenuous Florentines to a proverb touching their neighbour: La lupa puttaneggia, “the she-wolf plays the harlot.” In 1303 the Sienese purchased Talamone – which they fondly hoped to make into a valuable sea-port whereby they might become a great maritime power to rival Genoa or even Venice – from the Abbot of San Salvadore. Henceforth, to their mocking neighbours, they became the “vain folk that hopes in Talamone,” upon which they spent enormous sums of money with no result, owing to the unhealthiness of the situation and the impossibility of keeping the harbour clear. They joined the Italian league against Henry of Luxemburg, sent men and money to the defence of Brescia, and, by their prompt assistance to the Florentines, helped in forcing the Emperor to raise the siege of Florence in 1312, when his army wasted their contado. A little later, when Uguccione della Faggiuola was upholding the imperial cause, 400 Sienese cavalry and 3000 infantry were in the Guelf army that was annihilated at Montecatini in 1315. But in 1326, when Duke Charles of Calabria came to Siena on his way to Florence, and demanded the lordship of the former city as well, they rose in arms against him, barricaded the streets with chains, and forced the proud Guelf prince to accept their terms. The Duke of Athens, in 1343, having made himself tyrant of Florence, attempted to get Siena into his hands, by stirring up the nobles against the Nine; the Nine retaliated by arranging the conspiracy that caused his overthrow and his expulsion from Florence. “For three days,” writes Bindino da Travale, “the balzana floated over the Tower of the Commune of Florence, alone, without any other banner.”

The external wars of this epoch, mainly against Pisa, were unimportant. Within Siena itself the harmony was by no means unintermittent. A passage that we read in the Cronica Senese under the year 1314 is only too typical: “On the sixteenth day of April there was great tumult and battle in Siena, between the Tolomei and the Salimbeni, and all the city was up in arms.” And, in addition to the never ending feud between these two great houses, there were political interests at stake. The Tolomei, with whom were other houses of the magnates, were opposed to the Nine, and adopted the cause of the lower classes of the people, the popolo minuto, who were excluded from the Government by the burgher oligarchy. In 1318 the Tolomei, with certain of the Forteguerri and other nobles, plotted with the notaries and butchers and a number of artisans, to overthrow the Nine; but the attempt was easily repressed. A prolonged vendetta between Salimbeni and Tolomei kept the whole city disturbed between 1320 and 1326, while similar feuds, accompanied by ferocious murders and sanguinary riots, between the Malavolti and Piccolomini, Saracini and Scotti, enlivened the two following decades of the century. In 1346, a section of the Tolomei, allied with the popolo minuto, attempted a rising in the contrada of the Porta Ovile; several of their plebeian adherents were hanged, but the Captain of War was afraid to lay hands upon the nobles. In 1347, the Pope’s legate and the Nine succeeded in reconciling the Piccolomini and the Malavolti.

The terrible pestilence, known as the Black Death, that swept over Europe in 1348, devastated Siena for nearly six months. Even when we remember Boccaccio’s pages, we still read the account in the Cronica Senese with a fresh thrill of horror.12 It raged from May to October. Men and women felt the fatal swelling, “and suddenly, crying out, they died. The father hardly stayed to see his son; one brother fled the other; the wife abandoned her husband; for it was said that this disease was caught by looking, and in the breath.” So great was the mortality that none could be hired to bury the dead. No sooner was a man’s breath out of his body, than his friends took him to the church and buried him, without any funeral service, as best they could. Huge trenches were dug in different parts of the city, and the dead thrown in, indiscriminately, in great heaps. “And I, Agnolo di Tura called Grasso, buried five of my sons in one trench with my own hands; and many others did the like. And also there were some that were so badly covered up that the dogs dragged them out, and ate many bodies in the city. No bells tolled, and no one wept at any misfortune that befel, for almost every person expected death; and the thing went in such wise that folk thought that no one would remain on live, and many men believed and said: This is the end of the world. Here no physician availed, nor medicine, nor any defence; rather it seemed that the more precaution a man took, the sooner he died.” About three quarters of the inhabitants of city and contado perished, though the “more than 80,000 persons” of Agnolo di Tura must be an exaggeration. While the pestilence raged most fiercely, Bernardo Tolomei and his white robed Olivetani came down from their cloistered retreat to tend the stricken people of their native city, and almost all, including Bernardo, died with them. In the following year the Sienese who survived gave themselves up to feasting and riotous living. They all behaved for a while like brothers and relations, says the chronicler; each one felt as though he had won back the world, and no one could settle down to doing anything. And for a long while Siena seemed uninhabited, per Siena non pareva che fusse persona.

The order of the Nine fell in 1355, and thirteen years of tumultuous, perpetual change followed. The Emperor elect, Charles IV. – “di Lusimburgo ignominioso Carlo,” as Fazio degli Uberti calls him – was on his way from Pisa to be crowned at Rome; the Sienese ambassadors, headed by Guccio Tolomei and Giovanni di Agnolino Salimbeni, had sworn fidelity to him at Pisa on behalf of the Nine, and he had sworn in return to preserve the liberties of Siena, and to make the Nine his vicars. With a thousand knights and barons, the Emperor and Empress entered Siena on March 25th, each under a baldacchino gorgeous with gold, with music playing and banners flying, and were greeted with enthusiasm. No sooner had the Caesar dismounted at the palace of the Salimbeni, than a cry arose throughout the city: “Long live the Emperor and death to the Nine!” The Piccolomini with the consent of the other magnates (excepting only Giovanni di Agnolino Salimbeni) began the rising, and the popolo minuto on the following day rose in arms at their call. When night fell, on the 26th, the chains of the city were cut, and the keys brought to the Emperor; the Nine, helpless and terrified, lurked in the Palace of the Commune, while the people sacked and burned their houses. The next day all Siena was in arms. The Emperor rode through vast acclaiming throngs in the Campo to confer with the Nine in the Palace, while louder and louder rose the deafening roar, “Long live the Emperor and death to the Nine!” – the nobles instigating the populace to further efforts. In the Palace the Caesar received the abdication of the Nine, forced them to renounce all the privileges he had granted them, to annul the oath he had sworn to their ambassadors – while the younger nobles, shouting and cheering, led the populace to sack the palaces of the Provveditori di Biccherna and Consoli di Mercanzia, and the houses of the wool merchants, to release the prisoners, to hunt out the luckless Podestà and War-Captain. The books of condemnation, the papers of the Nine, were burnt before the Emperor’s eyes in the piazza, and their official chest was dragged through the city at the tail of an ass. Though Charles had sufficient decency to refuse to surrender the persons of the Nine to the fury of the mob outside, he let the nobles and populace avenge themselves on their houses and property, and it was not until the evening had come that he sent his soldiers to guard the Dogana del Sale, and to order every one to lay down their arms. But such was the general alarm that no one would receive any of the adherents of the luckless Nine; their servants deserted them, the very priests and religious shrank from them as though they had the plague. The Emperor caused a certain number of citizens to be elected – twelve nobles and eighteen of the popolo minuto to “reform the government,” and went on his way leaving his vicar, the Patriarch of Aquileia, in charge. A supreme magistracy of twelve popolani was elected, henceforth known as the Signori Dodici, four from each terzo of the city, holding office for two months, one of them to serve as Captain of the People; there was further to be a kind of subsidiary council of six gentiluomini, who were not to reside with the Signoria in the Palazzo, but without whom the Twelve could undertake nothing of importance nor open letters that concerned the state. When the Emperor returned from Rome at the beginning of May and passed through Siena again, he was received with great honours and renewed acclamations, as the Deliverer of the People, and made about sixty knights, nobles of Siena and plebeians alike – many of the latter carried bodily to him on the shoulders of the populace and knighted, amidst the wildest clamour and confusion, against their own will and to the great disgust of the imperial barons.

Hardly had the Emperor left the city than the six nobles – with the consent of their leader, Giovanni di Agnolino Salimbeni, who appears prominently during these years as a powerful influence in the Republic on the side of peace and moderation – were forced to lay down their office. The whole government now remained in the hands of the Twelve, who were mostly petty tradesmen and notaries, and whose rule was corrupt and incapable. A number of the subject towns refused to acknowledge them; Montepulciano gave itself to Perugia, and the Sienese, in revenge, persuaded the governor of Cortona to revolt against the Perugians. A fierce war between Siena and Perugia followed. The Sienese gained a creditable victory outside the walls of Cortona. The light armed cavalry of Perugia harried the Sienese contado, and even approached the gates of the city itself, and the Sienese retaliated by taking the mercenaries of Conrad of Landau into their pay – who were, however, intercepted and severely cut up by the Florentine mountaineers of the Val di Lamone – and ravaged the Perugian territories up to the walls of Perugia. Peace was made at the end of 1358, much to the advantage of Siena, who kept Cortona, while the Perugians had to set Montepulciano free at the end of five years. At the beginning of 1365 the latter town made Messer Giovanni di Agnolino their Podestà, and returned to the obedience of Siena.

During these years of the rule of the Twelve, the contado was perpetually threatened by wandering bands of mercenaries – the Compagnia Bianca, mainly Englishmen, but led by German captains; the Compagnia della Stella; the Compagnia del Cappello of Italians, under Niccolò da Montefeltro; the Compagnia di San Giorgio, which is associated with the great name of John Hawkwood. These had to be compounded with, to be guarded against by enrolling other mercenaries, to be played off against each other. In October 1363, the Sienese, led by their Conservatore or War-Captain, Ceccolo di Giordano Orsini, and stiffened by a strong force of Germans and Hungarians, overtook the Compagnia del Cappello, which was devastating the contado, in the Valdichiana, and gained a complete victory, taking its captain and other leaders prisoners. But when, in March 1367, they tried to play the same game with John Hawkwood and his company of Englishmen, near Montalcinello, there was a very different tale to tell; the Sienese were driven back to Siena in headlong rout, their Conservatore was taken prisoner, and peace had to be purchased at a goodly rate of golden florins. Within the city there was restless plotting against the Twelve, followed by banishments and executions – for this government was by no means so reluctant to lay hands upon the nobles as the Nine had been. Realising that the feeling of the city was turning against them, the Twelve sent a splendid embassy to receive Pope Urban V. when he landed at the Port of Talamone (on his way to Rome in that ineffectual, because premature, attempt to heal the leprosy of Avignon), entered into league with him, sent horsemen under Sozzo Bandinelli and Piero Piccolomini to support the cause of the Church at Viterbo and Bologna. This was good so far as it went, but it did not avert the storm that burst upon Siena in 1368.

The Twelve had split into two factions – the “Canischi” and the “Grasselli.” The Canischi sided with the Tolomei, with whom were Piccolomini, Saracini, and Cerretani; the Grasselli were allied with the Salimbeni. The Emperor was expected in Tuscany, and the most honoured citizen of Siena, Giovanni di Agnolino Salimbeni, had come from Montepulciano to head the embassy that went from Siena to greet Caesar in Lombardy. Although even the magistrates in the Signoria were at daggers drawn, Giovanni’s influence had delayed the catastrophe; but, on his return from the Emperor, he was killed by a fall from his horse on the way from Siena to Rocca d’Orcia. The nobles rose in mass, united with the adherents of the Nine, and senza colpo di spada, at the beginning of September, forced the Twelve to surrender the Palace and the entire control of the State. A new magistracy of thirteen consuls was established; one from each of the five Greater Families, five representatives of the lesser nobles, three to represent the Nine. An embassy was dispatched by this new government to the Emperor; but, in the meanwhile, the Salimbeni had made common cause with the adherents of the Twelve, and sent ambassadors on their own account. On September 24th the Salimbeni, shouting for the People and the Emperor, rushed out of their palace and gardens in arms, joined forces with the Twelve, broke open the Porta di San Prospero, and admitted Malatesta de’ Malatesta, the imperial vicar, who with 800 horse had been lying in wait. From street to street the people and nobles struggled desperately with each other; during the three weeks of their rule, the latter had fortified their houses and enrolled soldiers for this emergency, which enabled them to hold their own at first even against the trained cavalry of the imperial vicar, while their overbearing and tyrannous conduct had exasperated the people to madness. A last stand was made in the Campo round the Palazzo, where there was a grim struggle, grande e aspra battaglia, until Malatesta carried the place by storm, and the populace, rushing in after the imperial soldiery, sacked it. The nobles fled from the city with their families, carrying with them all the goods that they could save from the wreck. Malatesta fortified himself in the Poggio Malavolti, from which, until the following January, he practically ruled the city as imperial vicar; while in the Palazzo a popular council of 124 plebeians met, which was called the Consiglio de Riformatori, and created a new supreme magistracy of twelve, composed of five of the popolo minuto, four of the Twelve, three of the order of the Nine; the Signori Dodici Difensori del Popolo Senese. The same proportion of the three ordini or Monti was to hold in the general council of 650 popolani. To reward the Salimbeni for their services to the People, or, as Malavolti, the aristocratic historian of Siena, puts it, “for the perfidy they had used against the other nobles,” they were given five castles in the Sienese contado and declared popolani, so as to be eligible for the chief magistracy.

The Emperor came back to Siena on October 12th, with the Empress. He entered at the Porta Tufi, where the Twelve and the Salimbeni met him, all crowned with flowers and bearing olive branches. He alighted at the Salimbeni palace, while his followers were quartered in the deserted houses of the exiled nobles. The next day, after Mass in the Duomo, he knighted Reame and Niccolò Salimbeni – “and very little pleasure did any one take in that,” says the Sienese Chronicle grimly. An enormous present of money was made to him and the Empress, as also to Malatesta, and when the Emperor left on the 14th, the Empress remained behind for some days to induce Siena to redeem the imperial crown which had been pawned in Florence. In the meanwhile the nobles were making alarms and excursions in the contado, almost up to the gates of the city. There was another revolution in December. The lowest portion of the populace, or at least lower than those hitherto represented in the administration – “verily plebeians and entirely new men,” as Malavolti has it – assailed the Palazzo, forced their way in, hunted out the representatives of the Twelve and Nine alike. Finally by a sort of general compromise a council of 150 riformatori was appointed, who reformed the State by the creation of a supreme magistracy of Fifteen Defenders, composed of eight of the popolo minuto, four of the Twelve, three of the Nine. This was the origin of the Monte dei Riformatori, because the name was retained in the families of those popolani who took a part in this regime, the names of Nine and Twelve (Nove and Dodici) being retained in those families who belonged to these two orders and shared their fortunes. The Monti of Riformatori, Dodicini, and Noveschi were likewise known as the People of the Greater Number, the People of the Middle Number, and the People of the Lesser Number respectively.13

The Emperor rode again into Siena, with the Empress and a long train of knights and nobles, on December 22nd. He dismounted as before at the Palace of the Salimbeni. The nobles were still ravaging the contado and, by means of the Marquis of Montferrat, Charles made some sort of attempt to effect a reconciliation between them and the people, which was cut short by the intrigues of the Salimbeni and Dodicini, who had gained the shallow Caesar’s ear. The arrival of a papal legate, the Cardinal of Bologna, with armed men at the end of the month increased the general alarm: it was rumoured that Charles intended to sell Siena to the Pope. The Emperor demanded the surrender of the fortresses of Massa, Montalcino, Grosseto, Talamone and Casole, and implied that he meant to reform the State; the Fifteen summoned a general council of more than 800 citizens, and returned an absolute refusal. Then the Salimbeni thought that the time had come to strike. On January 18th, Niccolò Salimbeni rode furiously through the street with armed followers, shouting “Long live the People! Down with the traitors who want the nobles back!” Malatesta with his cavalry entered the Campo, drew up in front of the Palace, calling upon the Signoria in the name of Caesar to surrender, and to expel the three representatives of the Nine. Instantly the alarm was sounded from the Mangia Tower. The armed forces of the people poured into the Campo, and their captain, Matteino di Ventura Menzani, with the gonfalone in his hand, led them against the foreign cavalry. The bells were ringing a stormo from churches and palaces, clashing and clanging over the heads of republicans and imperialists, when Caesar himself, his royal helmet crowned with a garland, appeared upon the scenes. With the Salimbeni and a long train of horsemen he was making his way to the Palazzo, when the victorious people, having routed Malatesta, burst upon him at the Croce del Travaglio. The imperial banner was struck down and the imperial forces broken. At the Palazzo Tolomei “there was an incredible battle,” the imperial escort fighting desperately to cover the Caesar’s retreat. One of the Salimbeni, with an olive branch in his hand, came into the Campo in the name of Caesar to implore the Captain to grant a cessation of hostilities, but was promptly sent about his business. By the time that the unfortunate Emperor got back to the Salimbeni Palace, he had lost more than 400 killed – including two of his nephews – and all the hospitals were full of his wounded.

Before the fight had ended the Defenders sent a solemn procession to bring back the three of the Nine who had left the Palace; “with a goodly company, preceded by the trumpets, with garlands on their heads and with olive branches in their hands; they put them back in the Palace in their place, embracing them and kissing them with the greatest tenderness and craving pardon.” The Captain of the People issued a proclamation that no one should sell nor give any food to the Emperor and his folk. “The Emperor remained alone with the greatest fear that any rascal ever had. The people stared at him; he wept and made excuses, embraced and kissed every person that went to him, and said: ‘I have been betrayed by Messer Malatesta and by Messer Giovanni and by the Salimbeni and by the Twelve.’”14 Half starved and altogether terrified, the unfortunate man promised anything the Sienese wanted, in order to get away from the dreadful city. He made the Defenders his vicars in perpetuity, granted the Sienese all conceivable privileges, pardoned everybody everything, accepted a handsome sum of money, and went. Many of the Salimbeni and others tried to escape disguised among the knights of his train, but several were detected and handed over to the Captain of the People. It was said that there had been a conspiracy to make over the lordship of Siena to Malatesta with an annual tribute to the Emperor, to give the Salimbeni and the Dodicini two days of complete vengeance over their foes, to allow the soldiers three days’ sack of the city. But the matter was hushed up and the prisoners released, to the indignation of the populace.

A few months of anarchy followed. The Salimbeni and the Dodicini were at the throats of the Noveschi in the city, while the banished nobles maintained a state of war in the contado. The Defenders and the Council of the Riformatori appointed an esecutore to maintain order and execute justice, and formed a new association known as the Casata Grande del Popolo, with the white lion for arms, to preserve the popular constitution of the State. In July, 1369, by arbitration of the Florentine Republic, peace was at last made, and the six exiled families – Piccolomini, Malavolti, Saracini, Tolomei, Forteguerri, Cerretani – were reconciled with the Republic and restored to their country, with the right of sitting in all the magistracies of the State, saving only those of the fifteen Defenders, the three Gonfalonieri, and the Councils of the Riformatori. The treaty was received with universal satisfaction – but the peace was of brief duration. Although the Salimbeni had previously made terms with the other nobles, they continued to hang the banner of the People out of their windows “come consorti del Popolo.”

Among the lowest degrees of the popolo minuto– men of the infima plebe, workers and carders of the Art of Wool, who lived in the narrow lanes up and down the Costa di Porta Ovile – an association had been formed which afterwards came to be known as the Compagnia del Bruco, from the badge of the contrada. In July 1371, induced partly by hunger, partly by the oppression of the Masters of the Arte della Lana, a number of them rose, took grain by force from the houses where it was stored, and made a disturbance in the Campo. The Senator (as the Conservatore and Capitano di Guerra was now called) arrested three of their ringleaders, put them to the torture and sentenced them to death. They were wool-combers of the Art, all belonging to the association. At once the whole Compagnia rose in arms, and with tremendous uproar, on July 14th, assailed the Palace of the Senator, demanding that the three should be released or else they would burn the place down. Hearing this, the Captain of the People, Francesco di Naddo, left the Palazzo del Commune with the gonfalone and the trumpets before him, and forced his way up to the Senator’s Palace. He induced the Senator to surrender the three prisoners – with the sole result that the whole Compagnia, roaring “Out with the Nine and the Twelve,” “Long life to the People,” led by a certain Ferraccio swept through the streets, tore down the banner of the People from the Salimbeni palace, seized the gonfaloni of the terzi, drove headlong before them a band of nobles who had tried to stay their march, and finally – with the aid of the greater part of the populace – captured the Palazzo and expelled the four of the Twelve and the three of the Nine from the Signoria, substituting seven of the “Popolo del Maggior Numero.” There was a short breathing space in which the Council of the Riformatori attempted a sort of compromise. But in the meanwhile the leaders of the Dodicini, with some of the Salimbeni and others of the people who misliked what had happened, gained over the Captain and the three Gonfalonieri to their side. It was arranged that the Captain should secretly introduce armed men into the Palazzo, that each Gonfaloniere should secure his own terzo, and that the Salimbeni should march in from the contado with all their forces and seize the city gates, after which there should be a general massacre of all their opponents and the whole State should be reformed. The plot was to take effect on August 1st; but some inkling of what was intended reached the Signoria. Many arrests were made, and the conspirators resolved to precipitate matters. But on the night of the 29th, hearing the clash of arms in the Captain’s apartments, the Defenders were put upon the alert, and succeeded in taking the Captain red-handed in the act of opening the gate. When day broke, the whole city was in an uproar. The three Gonfalonieri and the Dodicini had armed their adherents to the number of nearly two thousand men; they had occupied the mouths of the Campo and the Croce del Travaglio. A horrible massacre commenced in the quarters of the carders’ association. The conspirators, armed with crossbows, lances and swords fell upon the unarmed populace, hunting them up and down the narrow lanes along the Costa d’Ovile, breaking into the houses, murdering men, women and children alike. Then they turned to assail the Palace. But the shrieks and the cries for aid of the fugitives had roused the nobles and certain of the Noveschi, who armed themselves and moved to the support of the Signoria. There was fierce fighting in the Campo and at the foot of the Palace, and in each terzo; but at last the victory was complete on the side of the government, and the soldiery of the Salimbeni only moved up from the contado to find that all was over. There was a large number of executions. On the 1st of August, the day on which the conspiracy was to have taken effect, the Captain of the People himself, dressed in scarlet, was led out into the Campo and solemnly beheaded upon a scaffold covered with scarlet cloth. The Gonfaloniere of the Terzo di Città was taken in hiding near San Domenico, and executed at the Porta Salaia; his two colleagues, who had escaped, were declared rebels, with many others. In the new reformation of the State, the popolani of the Middle Number (Dodicini) were excluded, the Fifteen being composed of twelve popolani of the Greater Number (Riformatori) and three of the Minor Number (Noveschi), while almost all the artisans, minori artifici, were added to the number of the Riformatori.

The government of the Riformatori lasted till 1385. It was practically a government of artisans; though patriotic and energetic, their rule was extremely oppressive, and burghers and nobles alike murmured. There were continual plots, followed by banishments, torturings, executions. The Salimbeni were expelled in 1374, their houses and possessions wasted; but they gathered together in the contado, captured many castles, and carried on a formidable war against the State. In the stormy years that followed the return of the Popes from Avignon and the consequent schism in the Church, Siena suffered greatly from the bands of mercenaries who appeared at intervals in the territory of the Republic, ravaging the country with great damage. In June 1384 the army of the Sienese, engaged in a war in the Papal States against the Prefetto di Vico and Hawkwood, was completely defeated, and the Riformatori compelled to purchase an ignominious peace. This shook their power. Shortly afterwards a futile attempt to get possession of Arezzo by purchase from Enguerrand de Courcy, who had occupied it for Louis of Anjou – in which they were forestalled by the diplomatic skill of the Florentines – brought things to a climax. The Malavolti with the Piccolomini, Cerretani, and other nobles joined the Salimbeni in arms, and made war upon the Republic, cruel reprisals being committed on either side, men’s tempers embittered; the Riformatori, in despair, were ready to admit the Dodicini and Noveschi and all the people into their order. The Florentines secretly fanned the flames. By the beginning of March the Riformatori no longer dared to leave the city, while the nobles threatened the gates of Siena itself. “Although I am not one of the Riformatori,” says the chronicler,15 “yet do I say that the Riformatori were more thoroughly artisan than any other government ever was, and also the most loyal men towards their Commune; and they were more courageous against their neighbours than any other government.” According to him they were undone by Florentine intrigue, and by the fault of a few bad men among them. On March 23rd, 1385, certain of the Dodicini forced the Bargello to release a prisoner whom he had arrested near the Porta Salaia. This was the occasion of the rising. The Riformatori called their partisans to arms, while the Dodicini and Noveschi, led by the Saracini and Scotti, assailed them furiously in the Campo. For the greater part of the day the struggle raged through Siena. The masses of the people were desperately excited, but divided and disposed to support the Riformatori. Then said a Jew to one of the Saracini: “Do you wish to conquer? Now cry, Viva la Pace! And at that word all the people will hold with you.” The rabble, tutta la gente minuta, at once turned upon the Riformatori, and the rout was complete; and on the following day the nobles and their allies entered Siena in triumph. “Thus,” writes our chronicler,16 “the city was despoiled of all the Arts, and the Kingdom benefited thereby and all the Marches and the Patrimony, and Pisa grew populous with them. And I, the writer, who am not one of the Riformatori, judged that it was ill done; for the city of Siena was ruined and wasted, seeing that successively more than four thousand good artisans, citizens of the city, were driven out, of whom not the sixth part ever returned.”