Sienese school

“ Apostles and the Baptist hold the poles of the canopy, Virgin Martyrs and Angels stand in attendance, while two kneeling Angels offer flowers on behalf of Siena’s four sainted patrons—Ansanus, Savinus, Crescentius and Victor. All the faces have the winning sweetness and spiritual loveliness that we find throughout the works of the Sienese school. ”

“ While foreign sculptors, such as Donatello and Ghiberti, were welcomed and employed in Siena, foreign painters were practically excluded until the last two decades of the century. Great spiritual beauty in faces, accuracy of drawing within certain limits, with a profusion and a lavishness in the use of gold and the most brilliant colours (this the Sienese particularly demanded of their painters) , characterise the school at this epoch. ”

“ Deprived of liberty and independence, without even the showy compensation of the presence of a Court, Siena became a kind of glorified provincial city. The energies of nobles and people alike manifested themselves in the numerous academies for which the Sienese were always famous, in the wild sports of the contrade, in the social and literary gatherings, veglie and trattenimenti, which became proverbial throughout Italy. ”

“ This part of Siena is rich in charitable institutions. On either side of the street is a great institute for the Deaf and Dumb, and in the refectory of an old convent of the Poor Clares (now the female side of the Institute) the Sisters of Charity show you a beautiful fresco of the Last Supper with scenes from the Passion above. It appears to be the work of some Sienese master of the latter part of the Quattrocento, who had, perhaps, seen Andrea del Castagno’s rendering of the same theme in Santa Appollonia at Florence. ”

“ Yet the life at Siena, serene and charming as it may have been for the pupil, was, if we may judge by his expressions in other connections, more or less a bore to the master. He liked to think of himself as an authority on the art of teaching, but he seems always to have regarded teaching as being, for himself, an interruption to the higher interests of his life. After a few weeks he was restless again, and begged permission of his pupil to go on alone to Rome. ”

“ But school is the main thing."
"Thou knowest that I like to study, but duty before all. Unless my father and mother send Hania to Warsaw with me."
"They won't even dream of it."
"While I am in the classes, surely not; but when I am in the University they will. Well, dost thou not know what a student means?"
"Yes, yes! That may happen. Thou wilt be her guardian, and thou wilt marry her."
I sat up in bed.
"Selim, art thou mad?"
"Why shouldst thou not marry her? In school one is not free to marry; but a student may not only have a wife, he may have even children," said Selim. ”

“ There are no Spendthrift Clubs in Siena now, nor any gay Lanos like him Dante met in the Inferno. But there are still laughter and song loving Sienese who in their own simple fashion go through life gathering rosebuds while they may. It seemed to me a very pretty fashion when I saw them holiday-making on Sunday afternoon, peasants, priests, officers, townspeople, all out in their Sunday best, and when on the Via Cavour, near the Loggia, we met two wandering minstrels singing love-songs through the town. ”

“ Our student world and the rest of society are entirely separate. People here neither like nor receive us, and we quarrel with all persons, even with one another. Oh, life here is difficult! If thou fall ill, no man, who is not a student, will reach a hand to thee. This is the fate of us poor fellows; moreover people are angry because we play no comedies, we call things by their names."
"Thou seest objects in black," remarked Yosef.
"Black or not black," answered Gustav, with bitterness, "thou wilt see. But I tell thee that thou wilt not rest on roses. Youth has both rights and demands. ”

“ So the University was a body entirely confined to itself, living a life of books in the day, and leading a club life at night. For many reasons there was more good in this than evil, for though young men went into the world without polish, they had energy and were capable of action. Wearied and worn-out individuals were not found among them.
Our acquaintances passed through the street quickly, and turned toward the gleaming windows of a restaurant. Under the light of the moon it was possible to distinguish the broad, strong figure of Yosef near the bent shoulders and large head of Gustav. ”

“ Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation, which he repeated three times, each time{130} raising his voice higher. And when the sermon was finished, they brought back the Madonna to the Duomo with all the People.” [71]
No less characteristic of Siena than her faction fights and her preachers of peace are the wild games that the Sienese played, the mad races that they ran and still run round the Campo. ”

“ Movement, uproar, activity dominated immensely.
The University was like a general ovarium where brains were to be propagated. It opened every year, giving forth ripe fruits, and taking in straightway new nurslings. Men were born there a second time. It was beautiful to see how youth, like waves of water, rolled forth to the world yearly, bearing light to the ignorant, as it were provisions to the human field. To such a sea the boat of life brought Yosef. ”

“ Pani Krzycki looked with pride first upon her son, then upon Pani Otocka; and, though a feeling of disappointment lingered in her heart, said:
"Well, let there be a peasants' school, if only our Jastrzeb peasants will be permitted to send their sons to it."
"That does not admit of any doubt," explained Gronski. "There will be as many pupils as accommodations can be provided for. They may come from all parts, though preference is to be given to Rzeslewo peasants." ”

“ Siena claims him for her own; and if a charming whole, suavity of tint combined with force of chiaroscuro, be the principal characteristic of that school, no native has expressed it with equal evidence and felicity. This gaiety of tone and manner some have traced to the jovial turn of the man himself; as careless as gay, ever in pursuit of youth and beauty, though with an indiscretion that brands him with the stain tacked to his name, from a character so volatile and dissipated, that inequality of execution might be expected which marks his happiest effusions. ”

“ Canst thou realize what sickly natures must grow up in such conditions,—natures out of joint, inclined to the wildest manias, crooked, wilful? Dost thou understand how we are filling cemeteries with our children, and why the most monstrous ideas find supporters? Ah, at present they are limiting the hours of labor in factories even for grown people, but touching children at school philanthropy is silent. Oh, but that is a field! that is a service to be rendered; that is a coming glory and sainthood. Do not torture thy children with learning, I beg thee—and I beg Marynia ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Two of the Angels are holding a scroll with a poem, thus blending painting and poetry together in the characteristic early Sienese way: “This blessed glorious Virgin pure, Daughter of her Son and Spouse and Mother—because the Eternal Father found her more humble than any other person, He giveth her here the crown of the Universe. Virgin Mother of the Eternal God, by whose holy hands thou art crowned, to thee be recommended the devout and faithful city of Siena, as it hopeth in thee; hail, full of grace.” The San Bernardino on the right is also by Sano. ”

“ No preoccupation with scientific researches, no problems of movement or anatomy, disturbed the calm of the Sienese painters; we meet with hardly any portraiture in their work, and even less mythology. These most turbulent of Italian people who, in De Commines’ famous phrase, “are ever in division, and govern their commonwealth more fondly than any other town in Italy,” chose that their painters should give them art that was exclusively the handmaid{109} of religion. ”

“ At that time in Kieff there were restaurants where students assembled. Circumstances were such that it was not possible to live with the city society. Those various city circles were unwilling to receive young persons whom the future alone was to form into people. On the student side lack of steadiness, violence of speech, insolence, and other native traits usual to youth were not very willing to bend themselves to social requirements ”

“ And for my part I love it, because the Sienese are still so mediaeval at heart. And that is why there is no city in Italy more fitted to be illumined by the torch of the Middle Ages than Siena. For Siena, notwithstanding the fact that she bred some of the greatest Renaissance popes, was comparatively untouched by the wave of paganism which swept over Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She still has whole streets of Gothic palaces; her saints are still reverenced with the almost child-like simplicity of the Middle Ages ”

“ We each lighted one, then lay down and smoked in silence, spitting out of the bed in secret from each other.
"Knowest thou what, Henryk?" said Selim after a while. "How I envy thee! Thou art really grown up now."
"I hope so."
"For thou art a guardian already. Oh, if some one would leave me such a ward to care for!"
"That is not so easy, and, besides, where could another Hania be found in the world? But knowest what?" continued I, in the tone of a mature wise man. "I hope that soon I shall not go to school. A man who has such obligations at home cannot go to school." ”

“ The young-lady-like maestro di campo, Don Franzese, shed tears when he found Messer Ottavio Sozzini and a number of young Sienese gentlemen waiting in the Prato di Camollia to bid him farewell. “You brave Sienese,” he said, “have made a most beautiful stroke; but for the future be wise, for you have offended too great a man.”
Lansac, the French representative, at once entered the Citadel and summoned the Signoria. ”

“ But if the potent oppress the weak, harassing them with shames and harms, your prayers are not for these, nor for whoso deceives my city.”
Such being the ideal basis of Siena’s policy, we are now given a series of her victories. On the opposite wall, painted by Simone in 1328, is a mediaeval warrior, Guidoriccio, riding alone, fully armed save for the head, his baton of command in his hand, his steed gorgeously caparisoned. The face is an admirable piece of portraiture. Behind him lie the camp of the Sienese and the captured castle from which the banner of the Commune floats. ”

“ Schools were abandoned, colleges gave up their charters, and people were content to allow their children to grow up in ignorance. Indeed, it was not to be expected that, in the midst of their poverty and sorrow, parents should care for education. And yet, some most important and wise school laws were enacted and put into force, which form the basis of the present German school system, as well as the school systems of many other countries. In 1619 the Duke of Weimar decreed that all children, girls as well as boys, should be kept in school for at least six years,—from six to twelve. ”

“ The Child in its unidealised humanity is the first nude infant in Sienese art; all Sano’s babes, for instance, are more or less clothed, already dreaming divine dreams. Domenico was a native of Asciano who came to Siena, and is said to have become the pupil of Taddeo di Bartolo; all his{110} work, however, is a kind of protest against the mystical Sienese tradition in painting. Certain great frescoes of his, which we shall see later in the Spedale, stand alone in the story of the art of Siena. ”

“ A GUIDE TO SIENA: HISTORY AND ART. By William Heywood and Lucy Olcott. Enrico Torrini, Siena, 1903. Certainly it never rains but it pours. Siena, so long without any adequate guide to her intensely interesting history and art, has suddenly broken out into quite a literature to herself. Scarcely has the controversy over the respective merits, or the reverse, of Professor Langton Douglas’s ‘History’ and Mr. Gardner’s ‘Story’ ceased to rouse our interest before a third guide appears in the field, which to our mind is infinitely the best of the three. ”

“ While the chief purpose of the Gymnasium is to prepare for the learned professions, that of the Real-school is to prepare for practical life. The relation of these two institutions to each other and to the university led to the Berlin Conference in 1890, at which it clearly appeared that the younger is outstripping the older and more conservative institution. ”

“ I cannot understand; nevertheless, that is the case. The landless, in particular, are wrought up and say that if the fortune is divided among them, they, themselves, will contribute for a school. In reality, they have no conception of the kind of school Zarnowski wanted, nor of the cost of establishing it."
"In view of this, what do you intend to do?" asked Gronski.
"I do not know. I will see. In the meantime I will try to convince them. I also begged the rector to explain the matter to them and spoke with a few of the older husbandmen. ”