Asciano : A Famous Painting

 

On his tour of Siena and Southern Tuscany, Edward Hutton's first stop after leaving Siena was Asciano whose claim to fame was its churches. One of them contained a famous depiction of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin. Although, modern scholars attribute the painting to an unknown Master, Hutton followed Bernard Berenson and gave it to Sassetta.

As you gaze southward from the platform of Siena, from the Porta Romana or the bastion of S. Barbara, you see before you, across the narrow gardens that hem Siena in and fill all her valleys with plenteousness, a country of a very different character, that has much in common with the bare uplands about Volterra, a strong and masculine country of vast and barren undulations, of low and restless clay hills, very tragic in aspect and full of mystery. 

 

Almost invisible at midday in the glaze of the summer sun, often hidden in early morning by the mists of the valleys, this strange wilderness reveals itself only at evening, when it seems to lie like a restless sea between the city and that far away fair mountain, Mont’ Amiata, whose beautiful and pure outline nothing can ever trouble or modify. Forbidding at first, little by little, as day by day, evening by evening, you gaze on that vast loneliness, it begins to attract you, to call you, to fascinate you; its little cities half-hidden here and there in the sombre billows of clay or suddenly shining out in a glint of stormy sunshine, or delicately revealed in some virginal dawn, beckon you from Siena, till at last you set out to find them where they are repeating their beautiful names—Asciano, Buonconvento, Montepulciano, Pienza, S. Quirico, Montalcino, Radicofani, Chiusi…. (175)

 

But the true splendour of Asciano lies in her churches, which are to be found alike in her three divisions. There is S. Agata in the town proper, the Collegiata since 1542, a fine and interesting building of the transition period. It is perhaps here that Asciano keeps her greatest treasure. For in the choir behind the high altar, on the left, is a magnificent altarpiece, an early work by Sassetta, representing the Birth of the Blessed Virgin, with scenes from her life. … It is certainly the earliest important work by Sassetta that has come down to us. It must have been one of the greatest and noblest works anywhere to be seen in Europe when it was new, for it is full of a sweet gravity, precision, and daintiness that still entrance us and lift up our hearts. In the midst, in a beautiful and lofty room before a cheerful fire… sits some sister, maybe of S. Anne, with the Blessed Virgin—our Life, our Sweetness, and our Hope—in her arms. A servant warms some linen before the crackling flames, while to and fro through the sunlit room angels softly pass and repass, intent on the service of their Queen. Nor are they forgetful of S. Anne, who, still abed, is served by one of them, while another waits on guard, fascinated by the little Virgin. To the left without sits S. Joachim, talking, it may be, with the doctor, while a little lad, perhaps S. Joseph, runs in from the garden, charmingly visible, with its well and cypress and border of flowers, through an open doorway. Above are three scenes: in the midst the Madonna and Child with four angels, to the left the death, and to the right the funeral of the Blessed Virgin. Nothing can exceed the intimate loveliness of this work. (175-176)

 

 

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 Edward Hutton: Siena and Southern Tuscany, New York, 1910. 

Siena: Duccio's Maesta

Writing in 1910 Edward Hutton called Duccio's Maesta Siena's greatest achievement. After an account of the town-wide procession that accompanied the painting on its way to installation in the Duomo, he went on to describe the painting in his own inimitable fashion. 

 

Among the many fragments that go to make up the museum of the Opera, it is, after all, to that room on the third floor which holds Duccio’s broken Majestas that we shall return again and again. Before this marvellous altarpiece one often wonders whether this was not the greatest thing Siena ever accomplished in the world of action, in the world of art, in the world of the intellect. It alone, at any rate, endures for ever. (118)

 

Duccio was born about 1255, and already in 1278 he was employed as a painter by the state … He was the true founder of the Sienese school, which was in its own way as lovely in its results as, and perhaps more original in its aim than, the other schools of painting in Italy. Duccio seems to have got his training from some Byzantine master, perhaps in Constantinople itself, perhaps in Siena. (118-119)

 

The picture thus honoured is one of the great works of the Middle Age. In the midst, on a vast throne, is seated the Madonna Advocata Senesium, with her Divine Child in her arms. Four angels on either side gaze at this wonder, leaning dreamily on the back and sides of the throne, while in the right and left on either side six others stand on guard. In front of these stood SS. John Evangelist, Paul, Catherine, John the Baptist, Peter, and James; and before all in adoration knelt the four Bishops, the patrons of the city, SS. Savinus, Anasanus, Crescentius, and Vittorius. On the footstool of the six-sided throne was written—

 

MATER SANCTA DEI SIS CAUSA SENES REQUIRI SIS

               DUCCIO VITATE QUIA DEPINXXIT ITA.

 

This, being interpreted, prays, “Holy Mother of God, be thou the cause of rest to Siena, and to Duccio life, because he has painted thee thus.”

 

But this was not all. This altarpiece, as I have said, was set up over the high altar of the Duomo, and in those days the high altar stood under the cupola. It had therefore to be seen from both sides; from the nave where the people worshipped and from the choir where the Chapter was gathered. The Madonna enthroned with the divine child and Angels and Saints, as I have described it, faced the people, and beneath this was a gradino of nine panels.  In all, with the gradini, the altarpiece consisted of forty-four small panels beside the Majesta, only thirty-five of which remain in Siena…. (119-120)

 

It is a pity that the Sienese authorities cannot find a better room in which to place this, perhaps the greatest work in their possession. It should be re-erected, if not in a church—that might seem to be impossible—then in a room by itself. The missing panels could be replaced by copies. As it hangs at present it is impossible to appreciate its true effect. What it once would have been in the Duomo we shall never know. (120-121)

 

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Edward Hutton, Siena and Southern Tuscany, 1910.

Siena: Pius II and the Piccolomini Library

 

Edward Hutton's, Siena and Southern Tuscany contains many brief biographies, especially of little known local saints. Today, I present his brief biography of the famed humanist Pope, Pius II, and the library built by his successor to house his works. 

The Library is, then, really a monument to the great humanist Pope who canonized S. Catherine of Siena. The bronze doors were made by Antoniolo Ormanni. Over them is a find fresco of the Coronation of Cardinal Francesco as Pius III. Within are the ten splendid frescoes of the life of Pius II by Pintoricchio.

 

Pius II was born in 1405. Je was an adventurer of fine character, but an adventurer. He had no great convictions, but, unlike so many who are without them, he was capable of learning from experience. And then, if he was without convictions, he was also without prejudices. He made the most of life in no vulgar way, but with a success that proves his superiority. He was not one to mould the world, but to use it and enjoy it nobly. His early life is said to have been disorderly. He wrote much sensuous and even licentious verse, and a novel that might have come from the hand of Boccaccio in a moment of ennui. At twenty-six he became secretary to the Bishop of Fermo at the Council of Basle. There he made his reputation, and in the years between 1432 and 1435 he was employed on missions to England, Scotland, and Germany. He then followed Frederic III, reformed his life, took Orders, reconciled himself to the Pope, and was created Bishop of Trieste, and returning to Italy in 1456, he became Cardinal of Siena. On the death of Calixtus III, two years later, he was elected Pope, and, in reference to his name of Aeneas, took the title of Pius II. His reign was disappointing; it revealed his want of conviction and his opportunism. Instead of forming that confederation of Europe against the Turks…he wasted himself, his eloquence—which was considerable—and his material power—which was small—in breaking the unruly barons of the Romagna and the Marche…  The effort to regain Constantinople, worthy of all his energy, came to nothing, and, as though in remorse for his failure, we see him at last, feeble and suffering, borne to Ancona on a litter to bless and encourage the half-hearted and belated Crusade. There he died in August 1464. Looking back on his life now, it is as a scholar and a humanist he chiefly appeals to us. His long Commentaries are full of human pages and a real love of Nature that in the men of his day was only to be found again in Lorenzo de’ Medici and Leon Alberti. He was a mixture more strange than rare, of weakness and strength, of a vanity and idealism truly Sienese. He erred, but he did not deceive himself; he did not try to make himself out nobler than he was; and for his sincerity and frankness we respect him, so that his very inconsistencies come at last to seem the most real things about him, and his thoughts about life, so plentifully recorded, really spontaneous impressions are valuable to us on that account. And last, but not least, he had the courage of his opinions—he canonized S. Catherine….

 

Pintoricchio: Frescoes of the Life of Pius II.

 

Full as these works are of the petty detail that Pintoricchio loved, they are redeemed even from their faults of composition, even from their feebleness of structure, even from their lack of life, by the spaciousness of their landscape and the charm of their thousand incidents. They are a complete decoration to the room, though not perhaps a really splendid one, and they remain the masterpiece of the artist, and one of the brightest and most harmonious works of the Renaissance. *

 

 

 

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Edward Hutton: Siena and Southern Tuscany, 1910, pp. 116-118.

*Image courtesy of David Orme.

Edward Hutton: Siena's Duomo

 Edward Hutton did not admire the facade of Siena's Duomo but he did find much to admire in the interior. Many thanks to my friend David Orme for the images.

In so many of the cathedrals of Italy, the façade has little or no relation to the church which lies behind it; and here in Siena it might seem we have the most flagrant example of this fault. The façade of the Duomo of Orvieto, it is true. Errs in the same way, though not so manifestly, for there at least the noble central door, so much larger than its fellows on either side, emphasizes the importance of the nave over the aisles, while here the three doors are of equal height. But this is by no means the only cause of Siena’s inferiority. As a façade pure and simple, that of Orvieto is noble and lovely in design, in decoration, and in colour. That of Siena is feeble in design, it suffers from too much decoration, and this is of a mean sort, and who but a fanatic can admire its colour? It fails everywhere in comparison with the work of Orvieto—it fails in order and in beauty. And if in its completeness it may not be compared with its sister at Orvieto, it fails, too, in its detail. At Orvieto sculpture has, with very happy effect, been more sparingly used, but what there is, is of a better and nobler kind. … (105)

If one is always disappointed with the façade of the Cathedral, what is one’s final impression of the interior? At first certainly you are bewildered and confused by those bands of black and white marble which so unfortunately diminish the spaciousness of what is, after all, a very spacious building; they halve its height and breadth and rob it of its dignity. But when, if ever, you have become accustomed to this oddity, you recognize that what charms you in a building full of contradictions is that in it which carries out the idea of all Latin building, an effect, yes, in spite of every sort of handicap, an effect of light and space, not so splendid certainly as you will find in such masterpieces as the Cathedrals of Pisa and Lucca or in the church of S. Croce in Florence, but light and space nevertheless, here where the fundamental feeling is rather Romanesque than Gothic, the predominating lines horizontal rather than perpendicular; and the decorations of the church, mainly of the Renaissance as they are, confirm the impression we receive from the building itself. … (111)

 But the finest and most interesting work of art in the Cathedral is the pulpit by Niccolo Pisano.… The plan is the same as that for the pulpit in the Baptistry of Pisa, but the work is richer and more clairvoyant. Octagonal in form, it possesses two more bas-reliefs than the pulpit of the Pisan baptistry, namely, the Massacre of the Innocents and a second scene of the Last Judgment. But in every relief, we find a more dramatic life and an art more naturalistic than in the earlier work. It is a masterpiece a little uncertain of itself, perhaps, but full of a new promise of joy.… (115)

 

 

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Edward Hutton: Siena and Southern Tuscany, New York, 1910.  

Siena: Piazza and Palazzo Pubblico

 

Siena was one of Edward Hutton's favorite cities despite its often tragic history that he spent many pages recounting. But it was the city and its people that most impressed him as well as the spectacular views both within and without. Below find his descriptions of the famous Piazza and Palazzo Pubblico, as well as his impression of the view from the Torre.

What the Piazza Signoria is to Florence, that, and something more, the Piazza del Campo is to Siena: it is at once the most beautiful and the most characteristic thing in the city. However one approaches it—and since it is set at the junction of the three hills on which Siena lies there are many ways to approach—it is always suddenly, with surprise that one looks across that vast and beautiful space shaped like an open fan, enclosed on all sides by palaces, and radiating as it were from what one is often tempted, there at least, to proclaim the most beautiful palace in Tuscany, the Palazzo Pubblico, with its marvellous bell-tower soaring so adventurously, so confidently into the blue sky.

 

This piazza so spacious in form, so strange in its colour and loveliness, is, as it always has been, the heart of Siena. For work or for play, for council or for pleasure, in time of foreign war or civil riot, here the Sienese have always assembled. It was the market-place, the true piazza, the universal meeting-place of the city. But to-day it is almost deserted. One by one it has lost its uses till now but one remains to it; it is still a playground when, in August, on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, the Palio is run there over the smooth bricks round the central space enclosed by its great pavement…. (93)

 

A quietness but seldom broken now fills the Piazza with an exquisite peace. It is the only silent place, I think, in a city full of little noises beyond any other in Tuscany: the clang of metal on metal, the hammers of the coppersmiths that wake you so early, the plaintive cries high up among the old houses of innumerable swallows, the shouts of the hawkers, the shrill voices of children, the songs and laughter and endless loud, free talk of a Latin people not yet dominated by the stupefying thunder of machines…. (95)

 

There is something in the Torre del Mangia that is peculiarly Sienese. Whereas in looking at Giotto’s tower in Florence, like a tall lily beside the Duomo, we do in fact “consider the lilies of the field,” their candid beauty and humility, here we are reminded of something fearless, daring, and adventurous, as though into this one perfectly expressive thing the very soul of Siena had passed—that soul which, mystical as it was beyond any other Tuscan city, was so often boastful too and unstable, a little hysterical in its strange spiritual loveliness, so that it too easily came to naught. Something of all this we find almost everywhere in the city, and especially perhaps in the great unfulfilled boast of the Duomo, but nowhere so subtilely and completely expressed as in this rose-coloured tower soaring over the roofs of Siena…. (96)

 

Hence we climb to the top floor of the Palace, where after all the best of all awaits us… the very world itself, the vast contado of Siena, hill and valley and desert stretching away to where, in the evening mist, maybe, the pure, serene outline of Mont’ Amiata rises into the sky on the verge of the Patrimony, on the confines of Umbria, on the road to Rome. He who has once seen that majesty will never forget it. It seems to seal every one of the days one spends in Siena, or in the little cities of the south that were once her vassals. From here you may count them all: only you will not. You will look only on that mountain whose crest, shaped like the crescent moon, bears as of right the symbol of Mary, and in silence you will await the sunset. And as the bells once more, as of old, ring the Angelus, you will remind yourself, perhaps after many days of forgetfulness, of those things which alone have any reality—

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Edward Hutton: Siena and Southern Tuscany, 1910.