Ambrogio Lorenzetti, now
that’s an interesting name. For me, it flips through the folds of my tongue as
smoothly as mentioning ‘Antonio Banderas’ or saying, “Let’s eat pasta.” Ever
heard of Ambrogio? Italian yes, but what else? Well, he is known especially for
one particular accomplishment but not so well for what became of him. Ambrogio
(1285–1348) was a Sienese artist who basically anticipated Renaissance
painting, and in style and technique was subsequently emulated by fellow
artists. Only six documented works of Ambrogio, apparently covering a period of
merely 13 years, have survived. [1] Because so few of his creations remain,
he never attained the recognition he rightfully deserved. The most renowned of
his existing works, certainly the largest, remains almost intact in Siena.
Lying just about due south of Florence in picturesque Tuscany, Siena is thought to have originated as a pre-Roman-Etruscan settlement. Sometime, well before it became a republic in 1125, it began as a marketplace on a sloping site near the meeting point of three hillside communities that gradually merged. It is especially known for its easily recognized central plaza, Piazza del Campo, the site of that meeting place, and today one of Europe's greatest of medieval squares. Describing it as a square is misleading. This civic hub has all to do with being a large open space and nothing to do with being square in shape. It actually has a rather distinct scallop shell shape right down to its pattern of
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| Piazza del Campo Mimics Nature |
eight limestone radials that divide the piazza into nine pizza-wedge-shaped sections. These nine sectors are believed to be symbolic of the ruling Il Nove (The Council of Nine), an oligarchy of guild merchants and bankers who governed Siena for over 60 years. [2] It was they who had laid out this far from square piazza. It is interesting to note that these nine men remained in office for only a short period. Contrary to today’s general practice, fear of corruption limited their terms in office to two months. But then it may also have had something to do with their endurance, for to avoid external pressures from influential parties, they never left city hall during their terms of office.
At its beginning, Siena was inhabited by a single tribe called the Saina. Essentially that tribe has today been replaced by 17 medieval contrade (wards) each with its own heraldic flag, some only a few streets in size, that vie for bragging rights in a fierce race known the world over as the Palio. This no holds barred,
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| The Palio Horesrace in Piazza del Campo |
Eventually, we emerged from the arterial thread of crooked side streets we’d followed by the Fonte Gaia (Joyous Fountain) positioned at the outer top edge of the Piazza del Campo. It was built in 1419 as a replacement for an earlier fountain that featured a statue of the goddess Venus. That pagan statue was blamed for the 1348 outbreak of the scourge of their day, the Black Death. Much like the recent bent on “statue reformation” in the USA, it was destroyed and buried outside the city walls to avert its "evil influence." [3] In its place we found a rectangular fountain adorned on three sides in sculptural reliefs depicting the Madonna surrounded by
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| Present Day Fonte Gaia Fountain |
We hesitated and sat on the pavement for a while taking in the scope of this special place bordered by an arc of multi-storied buildings grounded in outdoor cafés. Before us, at the bottom of this gently sloping former field rose Palazzo Pubblico,
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| Mangia's Tower Majestically Rising above Palazzo Pubblico |
Laying our musings aside, we followed one of the
travertine radials down the inclined piazza to where it joined with the other
rays at a water drain at the base of the piazza in front of the Palazzo and
Mangia’s tower. There, looking back from where we had come from, up across the
brick-tiled expanse, the radials had all converged at our feet, seemingly like
an arrow pointing and leading us to this focal, the Palazzo Pubblico. To
this day when Maria Elena sees the Lorenzetti masterpiece that awaited us
inside, she reminds me how at first, I hesitated about entering the palazzo. My
normal first response to paying an entry fee is usually less than enthusiastic.
Thankfully, after seeing a poster of what to expect, I quickly relented, and we
went inside. We were soon in what once was a high-ceilinged hall but today is
essentially a museum. Unlike most museums, our destination was not jam-packed
with exhibits of rare and valuable objects. Here the room, empty as it is, is
the valued treasure.
We were in the Sala dei Nove (Room of Nine). This was where Siena’s council of nine magistrates, conveniently called Il Nove (The Nine), met. The images adorning the chamber walls were a secular message designed to remind the Nine just how much was at stake with each decision they made. This room was where deliberation and pronouncements were made affecting the city-state of
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| The Room of the Nine or Room of Peace |
Siena. [6] Lorenzetti’s masterpiece actually consists of six scenes. In its entirety, I like to think of it as a giant triptych art piece. My imagined triptych’s three pieces consume three massive walls, two on the order of tennis courts in size connected in the corners to a shorter center mural that anchors Ambrogio’s message. Just as Michelangelo years later would take months, sometimes years, to settle on a theme in advance to his first brushstroke or hammer blow, it’s clear that Lorenzetti put a great deal of thought into the allegorical messages, scenes that stand for ideas, they symbolize.
To this point, medieval art had focused on
biblical themes. Artists worked for patrons for a commission and were entirely
engrossed with religious compositions. In the Room of Nine, Lorenzetti’s
exclusive political focus that included images of everyday human activity, city
planning, architecture, and worldly views of pastoral landscape beyond the
city’s walls represented unconventional thinking and a total break from the
norm. Each of Ambrogio’s scenes served as a political reminder to the
republic’s rulers designed to elicit a behavioral response to be just and do
only good. Scenes are duplicated to contrast honest rule from tyrannical rule.
One series depicts the utopian potential of good government while the same
image is reproduced, this time to portray the dystopic decay and ruin as a
consequence of bad government. The choice was in the hands of Il Nove.
If all went well, their careful governing could craft a paradise on Earth.
The chamber’s murals that convey this appeal
consist of six different scenes. It is doubtful the magistrates referred to
them by particular names but over time they acquired these titles:
Allegory
of Good Government
Allegory of Bad Government
Effects of Good Government in the City
Effects of Bad Government in the City
Effects of Good Government in the Country
Effects of Bad Government in the Country
Taken together this complex of scenes is known as the "Allegory
and Effects of Good and Bad Government.” With so much to take in, what to
center on was a challenge. We stood just about in the center of the room — the
divisiveness of Bad to our left and the prosperity of Good to the right of us.
With a head turn it was easy to compare one scene with its duplicate. Before
us, on the short wall, ascended the Allegory of Good Government that
symbolically provides a recipe for how to foster good government. Follow this
center fresco’s advice and the good portrayed to our right ensues, disregard
its council and risk the civic calamity depicted to our left.
Almost directly over the door through which The Nine would enter is the figure Justice. She is easy to identify by the scales she oversees for balance. Above her, she looks up at Wisdom for guidance; Wisdom who steadies the scale’s vertical staff. From these two essentials, Wisdom and
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| The Virtue Peace in White, Reclining and Relaxed in The Allegory of Good Government |
Justice, the ability to reach intelligent decisions appears to flow. Threads extend from Justice’s scales of down to Concordance, another word for agreement, directly below her. There the threads are fittingly transformed by Concordance into a “cord” symbolic of social equity that is passed through the broad spectrum of citizens. The cord then turns up to the largest of the representative figures, Common Good, symbolic of Siena. Crowned Siena holds the end of the cord like a staff. His other hand holds a shield — one, the nicer approach, the other a more forceful
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| Peace Reclined on Her Tarnished Armor |
Symbolic Siena sits bracketed on either side by
a procession of virtues. One in particular stood out, either because she is
just about dead center on the wall or possibly due to the white robe I’d
immediately noticed, perhaps both. She easily caught my eye, and in a way
became the mural’s spokesperson. This was Peace holding an olive branch. She is
presented reclining against a large, oversized cushion and rather relaxed.
Apparently, if government functions properly, she has little to do. Why not
relax? Close examination reveals her preparedness, however. Beneath her
cushion, her armor lies at the ready. History notes that it once glimmered
silver, but over time, tarnish transformed it to black. To have witnessed this
mural when her armor flared silver and her dress was shiny-new would have left
no doubt that Peace indeed was the intended focus of good government. It helps
explain why this room is sometimes referred to as the Room of Peace. We were so
impressed with what we’d seen, that on leaving we bought a gift shop copy of
the fresco Effects of Good Government in the City and Our "Lorenzetti Corner"
Countryside. Today
it hangs on the wall by my desk. It does not serve to influence any legislative
decision I might have to make beyond voting, but as a traveler’s reminder of
Lorenzetti, Il Nove, its thematic impact on medieval art, and certainly
of Siena’s creed. Being the mercantile and banking center in its day, Siena saw
both merchants and travelers like us pass through its gates each day. However,
in 1347 it experienced the arrival of something unusual, far more impactful
than the everyday visitor to its walls, something unanticipated by Il Nove.
With its arrival, everything changed.
In his “Effects of Good Government in the Country,” Lorenzetti included a representation of the seasons in the countryside outside Siena’s walls. Some insist it is the actual terrain we see today. Sitting at my desk, looking at the scene, he apparently took artistic license and deviated from fact by combining spring planting with summer harvesting without concern that they do not occur simultaneously. Mother Nature’s cycles are more conscious of timing. They stretch beyond the annual sequence of Spring to Winter and back round again. Her realm harbors more than blue skies, sunny days, and falling leaves soon replaced
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| Effects of Good Government in the Country |
by wisps of snow. Now as then, she also harbors a miniscule world that even today can’t be easily seen and hardly comprehended. For the Sienese, this world went no farther than the natural yeast on the grapes they harvested or the mold that gradually coated the salami aging in their grottos. It is a nano-world, home to quantum particles, bacteria, and the counterfeit lives of viruses, another kind of miniscule particle. Lacking cells and a metabolism these inert virus bad guys aren’t even alive. Study and explore as we do, it seems the more we learn, the more emerges that we clearly don’t understand. Oftentimes, it follows the one step forward and two back adage. The one step ahead means you’ve made progress but then more questions arise, and you are further behind than you were when you advanced, way behind. Siena, the entire world, was unprepared for the catastrophic pandemic that entered its gates.
It is a staggering realization to learn that
there are more viruses on Earth than stars in the universe. The number of stars
alone is a whopping big number, something on the other side of a quadrillion
quadrillion [7] or to make it more comprehensible, 1000 trillion
times 1000 trillion. Feel outnumbered
yet? Thankfully, most can’t hop, skip, or jump on us but those that do get
inside us can raise havoc as one virulent virus has vigorously demonstrated
these last few years. Unfortunately, when Bubonic Plague (descriptively called
the Black Death when bleeding under the skin caused visible dark patches)
struck, society lacked the benefits of modern science. A pestilence like that
was something the people of Siena and broader Europe had no understanding of
and certainly no defense against. There were no known steps, forward or
backward, it could take.
As opposed to our experience with COVID-19, the Black Death was bacterial in origin, not viral. However, as opposed to COVID, it did not pass directly from person to person but was spread through bites from infected fleas and animals. Isolating the sick, quarantining possible carriers, and restricting travel from affected regions were not effective when bug spray or DDT would have done a far better job. [8] It, however, had a much higher rate of infection and mortality than COVID. [9] In Siena it accounted for the loss of about 40% of the population and nearly collapsed their society. As entire
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| The Chaos of The Black Plague |
families perished, whole neighborhoods disappeared. Imagine corpses littering the streets, piled like stacks of wood. While COVID gave us a hint of what “the end” might be like, we’ve really no idea of the horror and ravages of an uncontrolled infection on the brink of extinguishing humankind. The Black Death did as social fabric and moral controls collapsed. Chaos reigned as the specter of death filled the streets and the routines of daily life, what we call “the norm”, disintegrated. Christian Europe attributed the pestilence primarily to the will of God. Thus, to do anything about it but pray and do penance as an appeal to God to lift the plague, was going counter to His will. As with the present-day COVID pandemic, the Black Death came from the East, originating somewhere in the vicinity of Mongolia, and moved westward along the Silk Road with amazing speed. This was its conduit to the West. Muslim regions along this path held an opinion like that of Christians. Yes, it was God’s will, but they held the added view that the plague offered a special gift. Its victims were considered martyrs and would be instantly transported to paradise. Like a famine or flood, they also saw it simply as another trial to be endured. [10] Unaware of how the plague was spread, Siena’s Nine, too late, sought to quarantine the infected while Church leaders promoted prayer in the hope of influencing God to lift his punishing scourge.
Prevailing medical advice of the time suggested
that “healthy air” could decrease the chances of catching the deadly disease. We
have friends in Calitri who to this day insist on changing the “bad air” in our
home before we arrive. They believe that bad air along with breezes and deathly
drafts account for countless ailments. It helps explain why Italians wear neck
scarfs late into May each year. Just imagine a ceiling fan. It, like air
conditioning, is loathed by them. I’m totally simpatico. It’s all part of their
culture brought on by events like the Black Death. Distancing themselves
through isolation from large populations centers like Siena or Florence seemed
a logical way to escape infection. Free of crowds, along with its offer of
better air, those with socio-economic means took flight and sought refuge in
the country. Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) would later compose
a collection of 100 short stories entitled, “The
Decameron.” [11 ] In it, three well-to-do men and seven women
shelter in a deserted villa just outside Florence for two weeks to avoid the
contagion. From the fictional tales they relate, one per person each
storytelling evening, we have insight into medieval life during the plague. For
most people, practices like sharing their living space with their animals and
the presence of rodents were part of everyday life. Such routines, however,
were a gateway to flea bites in many cases carried by a pervasive rat
population.
Everyone was at risk, even if distancing was
practiced. With the stroke of a pen, the fictional Decameron troop could easily
survive. For Ambrogio Lorenzetti, who stayed within the city walls for
protection, and who could depict a just society but not make it so, the Black
Death was the end of his race. Like the Polio, he no longer would scurry across
Piazza del Campo to and from Palazzo Pubblico. Unlike the Palio,
his race to the finish ended in tranquility, a close relation in virtuous form
to his frescoed Peace. Peaceful tranquility came to him in a fleshy veil of
black like the tarnished armor of the virtue Peace. At the height of his
prowess when he disappeared along with his entire family, he is presumed to
have been another casualty of the Black Death, perhaps one of the collapsed
souls in the streets that now approached his vision of chaos and discord under
Bad Government. He’d moved away from tradition and was a true visionary in his
field, and with visionary foresight gifted us with a formula for peace and
harmony, all we need do is make the choice to follow it.
Paolo
[1] Ambrogio-Lorenzetti,
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ambrogio-Lorenzetti
[2] History of Siena, https://www.invitationtotuscany.com/guide/italy/tuscany/siena/history-of-siena
[3] Jacopo della
Quercia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacopo_della_Quercia
[4] Piazza del Campo,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_del_Campo
[5] Torre del
Mangia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre del Mangia
[6] The Square and
the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook. Ferguson,
Niall (2017). Penguin Press. pp. 425–431.
[7] There Are More
Viruses Than Stars in the Universe. Why Do Only Some Infect Us?, National
Geographic Science,
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/factors-allow-viruses-infect-humans-coronavirus
[8] How One 17th
Century Italian City Fended off the Plague,
https://www.history.com/news/plague-italy-public-health-ferrara
[9] Analyzing the
Past in the Present: The Black Death, COVID-19, and the Ursinus Quest, https://www.ursinus.edu/live/news/4682-analyzing-the-past-in-the-present-the-black-death
[10] Religious
Responses to the Black Death, https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1541/religious-responses-to-the-black-death/
[11] The Decameron,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decameron
