Siena- Duomo

The streets of Siena have a certain charm to them. There is a bit of whimsy to the way things were done, such as the bright, funky street lights that were on a number of the streets:


They were everywhere!


It wasn't until we'd turned up a few of the streets with them that we noticed the turtle cast into them:

Aww, how cute! :)
Actually, I didn't notice until I put all these photos together- there was more than one cast used for these light fixtures, so they didn't all have turtles!

But they did a lot of things that were kind of interesting, with layers upon layers of history built upon each other.

Lots of reuse of building materials, even cool details inserted in there. This kind of thing only seems to happen when a place is there for so long, and the materials are precious, so the labor is secondary. It kind of reminds me of some of the things I saw in Split: modern infill of Venetian arches superimposed over Roman building blocks, etc.


Bricks built up to mimic a formal stone entryway. I didn't see any ghosting of stucco on here or anything, but maybe it washed away centuries ago...?


Trompe l'oeil on stucco of a much more formal building facade.

There were also some pretty nifty details on the buildings:
Door knockers...


Carvings on the doors themselves...

flagpole holders...

...and places to tie up your horse!


We stopped for lunch, and I ordered gnocchi. I'd never realized how light and fluffy they could be- they were sooo much better than I'd anticipated! (And I like gnocchi anyway, otherwise I wouldn't have ordered them!) AM explained that they are light and fluffy like this only when they are freshly made- the potato in them gets heavy after a while. That's why I'd only known them to be very doughy!

After lunch we continued down the street, which suddenly opened up onto the piazza with the Duomo! It was very cool to travel with AM, who already knew her way around Siena, just as she did Florence. (thanks, AM!)


This is the one with the grey and white striped campanile, or bell tower.


The front (west?) facade of the Siena Duomo is beautiful. Just like the one in Florence, photos just didn't do it justice.

...then again, it looks like they're doing some work on the side- maybe some cleaning? So maybe the building wasn't so bright when the textbook photos were taken!

It is gleaming white with such an incredible amount of detail;


...sculptures seem to leap so far out off the building!



It also has amazingly intricate detail work on the floors- even on the front steps outside: images made by drilling holes of varying depth and diameter into the white stone, that, especially with the darker color of the dirt they trap, were so clean and clear, and really pretty cool!


These drill-hole carvings only hinted at the detail of the intricate paving within the cathedral. Flash photography was not allowed inside; it is damaging to the paintings, but also, as a cathedral, they probably wanted to minimize the disturbance of all the throngs of tourists on those who actually wanted to pray.

However, unlike many others I'd been in, tripods are also strictly prohibited. The floors here are just as precious and they would be easily damaged by the constant scuffing of so many tripods! So clear photography inside was kind of difficult, but the Duomo was really beautiful to walk through.


Check it out- the columns on the inside are striped, too!

In a further effort to preserve the paving, the more precious works are covered with Masonite for the better part of the year, and are only visible from (August-October?). So we didn't get to see them, but the ones we did see were quite amazing!


In one of the bays along the (north?) side of the nave there is a plexiglass panel over a portion of the floor that was cut away. Its intersection with the pavers left something to be desired, but through this panel you could see all the way down to the undercroft!


It reminded me of one of the ideas that was tossed around for the Basilica - have a glass paver or two to be able to see the ductwork between the barrel vaults under the nave floor. In practice, though, I liked this iteration better. Looking down at a sheet metal duct is not nearly as cool as the concept behind it, unfortunately, but looking clear down to the undercroft gives you a broader sense of the volume of the space, and illustrates how much more massive a cathedral is than even what can be seen from the nave!

Next we made our way around to the back of the cathedral to see the baptistry. Typically at this period of time, the baptistry would have been found directly across from the front entrance of the church; you wouldn't have been allowed inside if you weren't already baptized, so this arrangement facilitated the process quite well.

In Siena, however, they had a different arrangement to resolve physical constraints of the site. Siena is quite hilly. A level site of the size required for this cathedral would have been difficult to come by, so they "created" enough by placing the baptistry one story down, below the apse.

Of course, at one point the residents of Siena found that this cathedral wasn't large enough, and so started constructing one that was even larger! The existing cathedral was to have served as the transept. Facing the entrance to the current one, the new nave was to have extended out to the right and the new apse was to have projected to the left. So this new cathedral was going to have been immense!



They had started construction on it, in fact, and had gotten quite far along.

Then the plague hit in the late 1340s.

It wiped out a large percentage of the population, and those who survived interpreted it as a sign from God that they were too arrogant in their desire for such a large cathedral. So they never resumed the project.

The remains of this undertaking can still be seen today. Some of the bays of the side aisle of the unbuilt nave have been enclosed in brick for use as a museum. Some of the footings for the unbuilt columns are still a part of the paving of this piazza.



The west wall had been constructed, and today you can go up on the upper levels of it, as the person in this photo is doing!


So we finally started making our way around to the back of the building. (enough pictures, already, Cor!)


But look how steep it is! Yes, it is a hilly city!



So one more thing about the Duomo before I continue on to other sights:
on our way down to the baptistry we were able to enter the crypt. When restoration was done here in 1999 they discovered 13th century frescoes that had been buried under rubble since the 1300s! The frescoes are now being restored, and they are a fantastic contribution to the understanding of the Sienese artwork of this time period.


With the way we reacted to discovering the murals in the dome drum of the Basilica, I can only imagine how they reacted here!

They apparently liked to put in "windows" during this recent restoration. Here is the view from the undercroft up to the main space through the glass we looked down through earlier...


...and here is a view from the undercroft down another level!

There was an explanation of this lower level on a plaque. In the interest of time I took a photo to read it later, but I underexposed the shot, and now I can't read it. Bummer. I guess that's what I get for trying to see and read and photograph everything! :)