#25 Siena Cathedral, Siena, ITALY

History Siena's Duomo was built between 1215 and 1263 and designed in part by Gothic master Nicola Pisano. His son, Giovanni, drew up the plans for the lower half of the facade, begun in 1285. The facade's upper half was added in the 14th century.

The 14th century was a time of great wealth and power for Siena, and plans were made to expand the cathedral into a great church that would dwarf even St. Peter's in Rome. The already-large Duomo would form just the transept of this huge cathedral.

Expansion got underway in 1339 with construction on a new nave off the Duomo's right transept. But in 1348, the Black Death swept through the city and killed 4/5 of Siena's population. The giant cathedral was never completed, and the half-finished walls of the Duomo Nuovo (New Cathedral) survive as a monument to Siena's ambition and one-time wealth.

In the 19th century, the cathedral was extensively restored, including the addition of golden mosaics on the facade.

What to See

Large in scale and ornately decorated inside and out, Siena's cathedral is one of the finest examples of Italian Gothic architecture.

The Duomo's unique black-and-white striped campanile dates from 1313, but reflects the Romanesque style. The tall, square belltower has increasing numbers of round-headed arcades with each level and culminates in a pyramid-shaped roof.

The south transept has an entrance known as the Porto del Perdono (Door of Forgiveness), which is topped with a medallion bust of the Virgin and Child by Donatello (original in the Museo dell'Opera). On the north side of the cathedral, a stone set into the wall is inscribed with the mysterious Sator Square.

The west facade was begun in 1285 with Giovanni Pisano as the master architect. He completed the lower level by 1297, at which time he abruptly left Siena over creative differences with the Opera del Duomo. Camaino di Crescentino took over from 1299 until 1317, when the Opera ordered all work to focus on the east end of the cathedral. Attention finally returned to the facade in 1376, with a new design inspired by the newly built facade of Orvieto Cathedral.

Parts of the facade were restored and reorganized in 1866-69 by Giuseppe Partini and again after World War II. All the statues on the facade, many of them designed by Giovanni Pisano, were replaced with replicas in the 1960s; the originals are displayed in the Museo dell'Opera. Pisano's statues depict Greek philosophers, Jewish prophets and pagan Sibyls, each accompanied by an inscription, as well as animals including lions and griffins.

Giovanni Pisano is also believed to have contributed the frieze over the central portal, which depicts the stories of the Virgin Mary and her parents Anne and Joachim. The columns between the portals are richly carved with foliage, putti and animals. The central bronze door, depicting the Glorification of the Virgin, was made in 1958 by Enrico Manfrini.

The golden mosaics in the upper gables were made by Venetian artists based on drawings of 1878 by the Sienese painters Luigi Mussini and Alessandro Franchi. They depict the Presentation of Mary at the Temple, the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Nativity. The large round window is surrounded by busts of 36 patriarchs and a statue of the Madonna and Child.

Extending south from the cathedral is the "Facciatone," a great facade built as part of a major expansion to Siena Duomo in the 14th century. The existing cathedral was to become merely the transept of a huge structure that would surpass even St. Peter's Basilica. But due to the arrival of the Black Death and political conflict, it was never completed. The unfinished right aisle has been partially filled in to house the Museo dell'Opera, from which one can climb to the facade for fine views.

The interior of Siena's Duomo is a rather dizzying sight, with its black-and-white striped pillars and ornate decoration on every surface. There is much to see throughout, including a number of important art masterpieces.

The nave arcades, with rest on pillars with engaged columns of black and white marble, are very tall with round arches. There is no triforium. The walls of the clerestory have black-and-white stripes to match the pillars. Some of the nave capitals, which feature phytomorphic sculptures, are though to have been sculpted by Giovanni Pisano while he worked on the pulpit in the 1260s.

The cornice that runs the length of the nave is decorated with busts of popes made in the workshop of Giovanni di Stefano beginning in 1495. Only four or five terracotta molds were used to make the busts, so many of them are identical. Below are 36 busts of Roman and Byzantine emperors from Constantine to Theodosius.

 

The north transept is home to a bronze statue by Donatello of an emaciated St. John the Baptist, a companion piece to his Mary Magdalene in Florence. In the south transept is the Chigi Chapel, outside of which are paintings of St. Jeromeand St. Mary Magdalene by Bernini. The Renaissance high altar is flanked by angels by Beccafumi.

On the Duomo Square, opposite the old hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, rises the huge majestic Cattedrale dell'Assunta (the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption), a splendid example of the Italian Gothic.

The building, begun in 1230, replaced a previous cathedral of the IX century, entitled Santa Maria. The cupola (or Dome) was added in 1264, but in the 1300s the church was completely transformed: the central nave was raised and illuminated by trifora (three-arched) windows, the façade was worked on by, amongst others, Giovanni Pisano, the chorus was changed, and above all, the transept was widened, in the ambitious attempt to transform the cathedral into the biggest temple of Christianity.

 

 Of this last insane widening, begun in the first half of the 1300s and interrupted by the terrible plague of 1348 (as well as by the collapse of some of the structures), there remain traces of the structures effectively built on the left side of the current Duomo: the so-called 'facciatona', the columns of the three naves and a part of the left side, where you can see what is certainly the most brilliant door of the Sienese Gothic. The door opens onto the staircase that leads to the lower Baptistry of San Giovanni.

After the failure of the plan for the New Duomo, work, from then on, concerned the old building. The façade was finished in a gothic style at the end of the 1300s, integrating the part by Giovanni Pisano. The originals of the marble statues (some of which are the work of Pisano), that enrich the façade with depictions of Saints, Prophets, and allegorical Sybils and Animals, are assembled on the ground floor of the Museo dell'Opera.

The dominant theme on the inside of the Cathedral, apart from the wideness of the naves and of the transept (in imitation of the Romanesque Duomo di Pisa), is the colour: the two colour print of the covering, in horizontal strips (the recurring theme of the Sienese 'Balzana') covers the whole of the structure, including the pillars, unifying the richness of the architecture into a homogenous togetherness. The space seems to have been built entirely from colour and light, more than from the solidity of the mass masonry.

The huge masterpiece, not only of Sienese art, on which worked the greatest Sienese artists of the 1400s and 1500s, is the spectacular multi-coloured marble flooring, that covers the whole of the inside of the Duomo like an enormous carpet. Divided into 52 squares, there are depictions of biblical scenes in prevalence, the most famous of which is the Massacre of the Innocents, carried out according to the design by Matteo di Giovanni, in 1482.