INEXHAUSTIBLE ITALY 



3^Q 



valed for two solid weeks in joyous aban- 

 don, and named their new treasure the 

 Fonte Caia ! 



It was a typical celebration of this 

 kindly, simple, provincial folk whom 

 Dante patronizes a little sorrowfully as 

 "frivolous gentry." With the natural 

 gaiety and mercurial temperament of 

 impulsive youngsters, gaily they began, 

 and as gaily forsook an object. 



Their very cathedral, unfinished and bi- 

 zarre, is one of their most characteristic 

 records, incomplete as the men who 

 stopped building at it when adverse cir- 

 cumstances damped their juvenescent en- 

 thusiasm. It is a building of contradic- 

 tions and excesses, neither Romanesque 

 nor Gothic, but of both schools, tinctured 

 with Lombard and Pisan peculiarities ; a 

 tremendous pile of black and white mar- 

 bles, mostly wrong in its fundamentals, 

 and yet, in some intangible way despite 

 all its shortcomings, it makes as distinct 

 an impression as a Roman triumphal 

 arch, for it is incongruous with genius, 

 not with stupidity (see page 332). 



Xot all Siena's children merited the 

 great Florentine's epithet ; certainly neith- 

 er Pope Pius II nor St. Bernardino could 

 be accused of frivolity, and the mystic 

 Ste. Catharine, greatest, perhaps, of them 

 all, despite her humble origin in a dyer's 

 family, lived a short, beautiful, tremend- 

 ously effective life, and left her impress 

 upon both her Church and her city for 

 ages to come. 



SIENA AN ART CENTER 



With its many beautiful palaces and 

 churches, loggias and fountains, Siena 

 ranks immediately after Rome, Florence, 

 and Venice in the importance of its art 

 during the thirteenth to the sixteenth cen- 

 turies. The whole city is instinct with 

 character — a maze of fascinating streets 

 winding and twisting about behind stout 

 stone walls that rise and plunge down 

 over the rough and broken hillsides. It 

 is the Aliddle Ages personified, its palaces 

 of a later date merely adding a touch of 

 Renaissance meringue to the solid medie- 

 valism that finds its most vivid expres- 

 sion in the Piazza del Campo, that unique, 

 almost semi-circular, square in a pocket 

 at the juncture of Siena's three hill-spurs. 



Here the hot-headed Sienese used to 

 revel in bloody, joyous, free-for-all 

 fights, first with staves and stones, later — 

 because of too numerous casualties — with 

 their bare fists. Today the citizens con- 

 tent themselves with a pageant and horse- 

 races, in which for the moment the campo 

 is gay with reminiscent glories. 



Siena makes rather a pathetic figure in 

 history. While the Florentines possessed 

 enough imagination, initiative, and deter- 

 mination to accomplish whatever they set 

 their hands to do, the Sienese, lacking 

 their mental discipline, developed to a 

 certain medieval standard and stopped 

 growing. Even during the Renaissance, 

 when all the rest of Italy was striking 

 boldly out under the inspiration of Flor- 

 ence, Siena contented herself with out- 

 worn traditions and a fierce, passionate 

 jealousy of her mighty neighbor that 

 ended with her own eclipse ; and once the 

 Florentine supremacy was established, 

 Siena became what she is today, merely 

 a fine old provincial town full of glorious 

 art and memories. 



It is of interest to note that the under- 

 lying cause of all the jealousy and the 

 bloody wars between Siena and Florence 

 was pure commercial rivalry. 



THE FIRST OE THE MARITIME REPUBLICS 



The first of the north Italian States to 

 be mistress of the seas was Pisa, a river 

 town, then only two miles from the sea 

 upon which she so gloriously proved her 

 strength in the troublous days of the 

 eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth cen- 

 turies. Her m o n u mental buildings, 

 though they are within the circuit of her 

 ancient walls, stand clear of the city 

 proper, happy in their isolation ; and no 

 one who is drawn to Pisa today by the 

 fame of their dazzling splendors can fail 

 to read in each and every one — cathedral, 

 campanile, baptistery, and Campo Santo — 

 the record of her maritime successes. 



The cathedral was founded in a burst 

 of popular enthusiasm after the great 

 naval victory over the Saracens at Pa- 

 lermo, Sicily, in the eleventh century, and 

 the Pisans brought home no less than six 

 whole shiploads of loot — bronzes, col- 

 umns, gold, and marbles and precious 

 stones — for its decoration. Inside and 

 out it rises in lavers of black and white 



