Four Cantons 10. Headquarter of the Choir Bellini

13. Dante’s Epigraph

Our attention is immediately captured by a marble plaque inscribed with a verse from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. The verses are from the 13th Canto of Purgatory and tell the story of Sapia Salvani. She was a Sienese noblewoman, who witnessed from Arnolfo’s tower the famous Battle of Colle that took place on 17th June 1296. It was just one of a series of battles fought between the Sienese Ghibellines and the Florentine Guelphs for the hegemony in the province. In this battle the Guelph Colle sided with Florence against Siena hoping to defeat the latter to expand territorially in the province. Dante’s verses express Sapia’s happiness for the defeat of her fellow Ghibellines, led by her nephew Provenzano Salvani just because she was jealous of him. As a matter of fact Dante places Sapia in Purgatory because of her envy. In the Tower, there are frescoes by the partisan painter Terreni which represent some scenes of this crucial battle.

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Bastion of Sapia

Sapia Salvani

Sapia Salvani was a Sienese nobelwoman. In Dante’s Divine Comedy she is placed among the envious souls of Purgatory for having rejoiced when her fellow townspeople, led by her nephew Provenzano Salvani, lost to the Florentine Guelphs at the battle of Colle in 1269. Despite this, Sapia was also a charitable woman, as demonstrated by her founding in 1274 a hospice for pilgrims, known as the Santa Maria hospice; located at the foot of Castiglioncello, along the Via Francigena, it was later given to the Republic of Siena, for the benefit of the city’s largest hospital. A legend says that Sapìa was murdered in Colle Val d’Elsa in Via delle Volte, behind Palazzo Luci. This tower is traditionally identified as the birthplace of Arnolfo di Cambio (C. 1245 - 1302), one of the most famous architects and sculptors of the 13th century. The entrance is marked by a plaque: ARNOLFO’S HOUSE - edited by Accademia Letteraria dei Curiosi della Natura in 1851. It was walled into the pointed arch of the door, disfiguring it, and later on moved to the side. In the weekly magazine ‘La Martinella’ in 1891 it was published an article where the author imagined Arnolfo di Cambio complaining about this damage done to his house and writing this epigram: ‘Mi han l’arco rotto e medicato poi con un cerotto’ (‘They broke my arch and medicated it with a plaster’).

In piazza Canonica (Canonica square) there is a bronze bust of Arnolfo di Cambio (made out of the 1865’s chalk bust by the Florentine sculptor Reginaldo Bilancini, which is now in San Pietro Museum) and the Romanesque church of “Santa Maria in Canonica”, dating back to 1183. The interior has a single nave with wooden beam roof and a 15th century altarpiece with the “Madonna and Saints” by Pier Francesco Fiorentino. The gabled façade

14. Arnolfo’s Tower

The tower can be accessed from Via del Castello opposite the Torre dei Pasci. The simple structure of the building in stone and brick is typical of a ‘casatorre’ towerhouse, the stately home of the local notables in the 12th century. The mansion was distributed in height - with the entrance on the ground floor giving access to the storage room and the living quarters on the upper floors. In the Tower, there are frescoes by the partisan painter Gino Terreni which represent some scenes of this crucial battle that took place on 17th June 1296. A legend says that the Sienese noblewoman, Sapia Salvani, witnessed the Battle of Colle precisely from the tower.

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15. Santa Maria In Canonica

has an original wagon-wheel rose window and, like the rest of the structure, bears witness to the fact that the building was constructed at different times, as can be seen by different materials used: sandstone for the lower part and travertine and brick for the upper part. Finally, the bell tower houses the renowned “Martinella”, a trophy taken away from the Sienese war wagon in 1351.

16. Teatro dei Varii

Teatro dei Varii was first a hospice and then a refuge of Saints Faustino and Giovita, who were persecuted in the second century AD. In the course of time, it would later become a hospital along the Via Francigena and later, a place for musical, theatrical and literary works by the Varii theatre company, which had bought the building in the mid-1700s. The interior has three orders of boxes and the foyer upstairs, while the exterior is the result of the work of the multitalented artist Antonio Salvetti from Colle.

18. Palazzo dei Priori

The palace is the current seat of the tourist office. Its structure dates to the 13th-14th centuries and it has two floors connected by an external staircase. The late 15thcentury decoration on the façade is interesting, with the graffiti representation of the Municipality’s coat of arms, held up by putti, and the Medici’s emblem on the corner.

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17. Palazzo dei Priori’s Alley

This alley leads to the suggestive Via di Mezzo (Middle Street) and, further down, Via delle Romite (Hermits’ Street). On the bishop’s palace wall overlooking the alley there is an aedicule with the fresco of La Madonna del Latte attributed to the painter Cennino Cennini. This illustrious citizen of Colle was active between the end of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries and was author of a famous handbook for the apprentice painter in vernacular - Il Libro dell’arte - which illustrated medieval painting techniques. Below the niche there is another epigraph with Dante’s verses dedicated to the

Virgin Mary (Paradise, XXXII Canto).

19. The Smile’s fountain

In the same alley under the arch which supports the staircase of Priori Palace, there is an ancient fourteenth-century fountain known as “Smile’s fountain” for the particular slot that looks like a smiling mouth and for the elliptical openings similar to two eyes. The source was connected to the medieval aqueduct and was used to bring water to the palace through a hydraulic pump activated by a device - a rocking machine - working in the slot.

On the right side of the cathedral, there is the entrance to the Crypt or Confraternity of Mercy, which is accessed by going down a very steep staircase. This leads to an area where it is possible to see the ‘buffa’ and the ‘cappa’, the robes of the Brothers of Mercy. Past this vestibule there is the Oratory of Jesus, Joseph and Mary also known as the Crypt of Mercy. The crypt has a single nave with three altars, the main one was commissioned by Lorenzo Lepri. The walls of the entrance are decorated with frescoes representing architectural scenes attributed to Pietro Anderlini and landscape scenes where parts of Colle are recognizable, like the city gate Porta Nuova. The frescoes of the ceiling, by an unknown artist, depict Hell, Purgatory and Paradise and represent the journey of the soul

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20. The Crypt Of Mercy

through these realms. These subjects are linked to the activities of the Confraternity of Mercy, one of the oldest forms of volunteering,which included the burial of the dead and prayers for their souls.

The recurrent theme of the end of mortal life is also found represented in the paintings on the walls of the presbytery. The one on the left shows a skeleton trampling a royal crown, a cardinal’s hat and a papal tiara. The frescoes on the right show a skeleton trampling a helmet, a musical score and money. Both served as a reminder of the transitory nature of life and earthly honors. On the high altar, finally, there is a painting by Annibale Mazzuoli representing the Madonna with the Saints Rocco, Lucia, Giuseppe and Alberto.