Tuscany - Italy - page 176

telling visual history of the hospital in the 1440s, giving insights into Sienese life
at the time and extolling the good works of the hospital itself. The left wall shows
the founding of the hospital, with divine intervention, city officials monitoring
construction, and a Pope's blessing. Note the busy Siena street scenes with Middle
Eastern merchants, arguing workers, and posturing politicians. The far wall's fres-
coes are late-16th-century additions that illustrate the role of wet nurses at the
hospital—as they took in many orphans, women were needed to feed them. The
right wall has a portrait of workers tending to the sick and distributing charity.
Note the unappealing conditions of the hospital, with cats and dogs fighting on
the floor, scary-looking instruments, and general chaos (in the next panel, don't
miss the helpful baby in his mother's arms who kindly aims her breast at the beg-
gar children). The next-to-last panel shows the hospital as a school at which the
orphans were raised and educated—a somewhat grim process from the looks of
the menacing teacher with a switch in his hand.
The on-site Cappella del Sacro Chiodo is worthwhile for Vecchietta's frescoes
of the Last Judgment. The chapel once held a nail said to be from Jesus' crucifix-
ion, purchased at great cost by the city of Siena in the 1300s. Hallways continue
in mazelike fashion to the Fienile, which displays the original panels of the foun-
tain in Piazza del Campo. From the Fienile level, another stairway leads to the
occasionally interesting Museo Archeologico and rotating modern exhibits.
Around the back side of the Duomo is the Battistero ( Baptistery; Piazza San
Giovanni; % 0577-238048; € 3), which is often overlooked by tourists, but has a
baptismal font worth seeing, surrounded by elaborately frescoed vaulted ceilings.
The early-15th-century hexagonal font allows you to play art critic as you walk
around the panels designed by competing artists. For your scorecard, Jacopo della
Quercia sculpted the Annunciation panel facing the altar. The Birth and Preaching
of the Baptist panels were done by Giovanni di Turino. Florence Baptistery veteran
Ghiberti is responsible for the panels of the Baptism of Christ and the Arrest of St.
John. For my money, the best of the bunch is Donatello's Feast of Herod, which
uses new and improved perspective techniques in a dramatic scene with natural
figures. But you make your own call.
The Pinacoteca Nazionale (National Picture Gallery)

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(Via San Pietro,
29; % 0577-281161; € 4) has nearly 40 rooms jam-packed with over 500 paint-
ings covering 400 years of art history. You could easily spend a full day here. The
Sienese school obviously represents itself well, with rooms full of Duccio and
Simone Martini on the second floor —go to this floor first if you're short on time.
And be sure to check out Martini's entertaining Il Beato Agostino Novello in Room
5: St. Augustine appears to be the patron saint of clumsy people as he flies from
scene to scene saving babies and fallen horsemen. Room 30 has large-scale “car-
toon” (charcoal and ink on paper) drawings made by Beccafumi as diagrams for
the marble flooring in Siena's Duomo. From the Sala di Scultura (Room 26), you
get a lovely view of the city. The third floor has a surprisingly good selection of
Flemish works, including those by Dürer, and a Bruegel-esque Tower of Babel.
It's worth the trek to see the interior of San Domenico Church

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(Piazza San
Domenico; free admission; Apr-Oct 7am-1pm and 3-6:30pm, Nov-Mar 9am-1pm
and 3-6pm), at the northern edge of the city--the exterior is less memorable. The
church celebrates Siena's St. Catherine with a 1414 portrait (in the raised chapel