Reminiscing Siena
Especially in the early hours of the day, Siena is truly a bit of gold in the Tuscan hills.
When I think of Siena, I picture rolling hills. At an altitude of over a thousand feet, the city crowns a peak amongst the rolling Tuscan green, a walled nucleus of civilisation amongst the vast expanse of countryside. Siena’s magic begins to take effect before one is even granted entrance; one glance at the sweeping views of the hills from the city-summit and the spell is cast.
Within the fortifications, humble buildings of earth-coloured stucco and brick are clustered along steep, narrow pathways, surrounding piazze where tourists flock to photograph postcard-worthy churches and palazzi. Though well-known for its Gothic architecture and rich history, Siena equally owes its charm to its locals: the elderly men telling stories and making extravagant hand gestures over morning espresso, the women taking down the clotheslines and buying groceries from market stalls, the characters who keep this Italian city alive.
Exploring in the early morning is the key to experiencing what a city is like when no one is watching; in Siena, mist spilling between the hills below and the streets nearly empty, this entails being truly transported to another time. Devoid of tourists, the city seems almost uninterrupted since its golden age in the 13th-14th centuries, only subject to the weathering of time. Beneath the overpowering semblance of the Medieval period and Renaissance, however, is its more distant past: a city considered old even to the Romans, and named as such, ‘Siena’ either referring to the Latin senex or to the founding Etruscan Saina family. Beginning to prosper as a secure post for Lombardian trade only in the later Byzantine period, the town’s undistinguished ancient past is eclipsed by the Medieval visage that Siena is known for today.
Still famed for its reputation as a cultural Republic during the height of the Italian Renaissance, Siena was at that time filled with scholars, artists, musicians and aristocrats, all of whom have left behind illustrations of their presence. With awareness of the painted altars, marble floors, sculptures, frescoes, manuscripts, accredited to the likes of Donatello and Michelangelo, that remain preserved behind fading facades, one can begin to imagine walking these same streets alongside them. It is even more jarring to then liken the vacancy experienced by us early-risers to the emptiness of a city stricken with plague. The peace and quiet becomes suddenly eerie upon remembering that its cultural excellence did not spare Siena from being knocked from its prime by Black Death, which killed 75% of the city’s inhabitants.
A Sienese Instagram Diary
But despite its small size, Siena did not crumble. It preserved the art and architectural treasures of its prosperous past, retained its seventeen-district organisation, and continued its tradition of the Palio, the biannual horserace of Medieval origins famously still held in Siena’s central piazza to this day. I am a firm believer that these factors played a significant role in strengthening the city’s immune system, if you will. In other words, holding onto community and cultural custom can see us through hardship, and allow the best of the past to carry on in spite of it.
It’s in these contexts, wandering a new city in off-season or off-peak hours, that its history can truly animate the streets unrolling before one’s eyes and beneath one’s feet. Beyond knowledge of its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, dipping even a little bit into the story of Siena’s past will inspire your imagination to envision the city, in its most grave and glorious moments, vivid and complete.
To get acquainted with Siena’s heritage:
• Watch: David Rocco’s vibrant experience of the Palio in Siena by NatGeo People.
• Listen: to the myth of the city’s founding by the sons of Remus, or (even better) ask a local to tell you what they know.
• Browse: Sienese manuscripts in the World Digital Library. My favourites are the expert architectural drawings within the 15th-century Sienese sketchbook of Giuliano da Sangallo and the colourfully illustrated late-13th-century Sienese illumination, the Treatise of the World’s Creation.
• Taste: a panino with local capicollo and pecorino, Tuscan wild boar ragu and a glass of Chianti.
Solitary amidst the acres of sunflowers and cypress, Siena is, in its way, a time capsule. The rough cobblestones and seemingly unbreakable architectural scheme of red brick and terracotta impressed me with the sense of a place long forgotten. A glimpse down the sloping alleyways can, in an instant, distort the visitor’s sense of date: has the Medieval city really remained virtually uninterrupted by the centuries since? Or have I tripped into a moment long gone?
