Visit to Santa Maria della Scala, a surprise behind the Piazza del Duomo
Santa Maria della Scala in Siena guided tour is the surprising discovery of an unknown dimension of the city, the ancient hospital of the city that played this function until 1994, a vast, unimaginable environment in which art and history intersect in the long corridors of the complex, where lights, shadows, smells, take you far back in time.
In our guided tour we cross the accommodation rooms, richly frescoed with the stories of the activity guaranteed by this institution; along the way we come across places where hospitality and care was materialised through the storage of basic necessities, in what were the deposits, dug into the chasms of the earth. We find preserved, under magnificent vaults, the Fonte Gaia, the original one, by Jacopo della Quercia.
We will go further in depth, to also discover how the assistance was carried out through the charitable institutions and the charitable activity of the Confraternities.
Finally reaching the bowels of the earth, tens of metres from where we entered, you will see the underground city of Siena, with its ancient hidden streets, an evocative environment which today houses the Archaeological Museum that we are going to visit, a context one of a kind.
The Church of the Annunziata and the illusionistic fresco
Our first step on our Santa Maria della Scala in Siena guided tour will be the entrance to the Pellegrinaio delle Donne, a large room that welcomes us into this world apart; we will enter the Cappella del Manto, one of the many places here dedicated to religious functions and veneration of sacred icons, as a ‘miraculous’ fifteenth-century fresco conserved here attests. Looking up we are able to appreciate one of the most refined examples of Sienese Renaissance painting: the Simbolo Apostolico (Apostolic Symbol) painted by Vecchietta. We will see the reasons why this ‘autochthonous’ Sienese iconography is among the most original in the history of art.
Through a hallway we will enter the large Annunziata Church, still today an important place in the Sienese religious tradition for a celebration that takes place in the month of March, where a majestic fresco by Sebastiano Conca is kept, in which, as we see, the theme has a particular relevance to the history of the hospital.
The large Pellegrinaio and the beautiful frescoes featuring the hospital activities
We continue our the Santa Maria della Scala in Siena guided tour by entering the the beds aisles, where a curious preserved pictorial decoration allows us to discover how the layout of the beds and related accessories was organised.
Entering the Pellegrinaio Grande you will be surprised by the magnificence of this space, so richly decorated with frescoes and starry vaults, a space you would never have imagined could be within walking distance of the much more renowned Duomo. Here the series of lunettes, all finely frescoed by artists such as Domenico di Bartolo, Vecchietta and Priamo della Quercia, represents a great manifesto of the activities the hospital had carried out over time. In addition to their aesthetic beauty, these frescoes let you discovering interesting passages of daily life through the figurative testimony of the objects, some of which are particularly curious and apparently indecipherable.
The fascinating Oratory of Santa Caterina della Notte
After the first level, already stupendous in itself due to the richness and beauty of the preserved images, we go downstairs, where a large and articulated complex will begin to appear before you which, when seen from outside the Piazza del Duomo, does not you never expected. With the environment of the Corticella and the road of the vetturini we come to understand how the arrival and storage of foodstuffs, essential for the needs of the hospital and coming from the Grance, was organised.
Continuing the Santa Maria della Scala tour in Siena, the rooms of the ancient oratories of the Confraternities, at times perhaps macabre and obscure, will take us back to a dimension of devotion that is undoubtedly very far from our modern sensitivity, nevertheless they represent an important testimony of the pious practices cared for by these welfare institutions.
In the Oratory of Santa Caterina della Notte you will discover the curious reason why this oratory is called this way, a place linked to the memory of Santa Caterina da Siena.
Finding the original Fonte Gaia
Under the rooms made of large stone vaults, we find the ancient pieces of the Fonte Gaia, a sculpture masterpiece by Jacopo della Quercia, a fountain formerly located in Piazza del Campo. Through an interesting set-up that reconstructs the events of the dismantling and creation of the current copy, now present in the square, it will be almost moving the way in which, approaching what remains of the original, you will be able to perceive the evocative power of these marbles, wrapped in a sort of ‘charm of the ruins’ of phidian memory.
Discovering the ancient city in the bowels of the earth
After the second level, in which your eyes will already be fully immersed in the art and history, you won’t be able to believe that the complex still has some surprises: we go even further down, literally entering the bowels of the earth and, contrary to what you might expect, a tall and majestic gallery will open up in front of you, where you will walk on the floor level of the Roman and early medieval city.
In this suggestive environment, we go to visit the Archaeological Museum, one of the most peculiar of all the European purview for the hypogean environment in which it is located. Set inside the tunnels used in medieval times as storage caverns for foodstuffs and wine, the galleries, dug out of the sandstone, offer an incredible opportunity to travel through time as you progress towards one gallery and then the other ; the archaeological collections present here will allow us to retrace the history of antiquarian collecting in which the noble Sienese families were protagonists from the sixteenth century onwards.
In addition to the stupendous section of urns, vases, banquet equipment, some located in the amazing “cellar” of the hospital, the last section of the museum includes a multimedia itinerary combined with the finds found in excavation contexts tracing the origin of Siena, from the time of the military putpost of Sena Iulia to the Middle Ages, when the city, thanks to the traffic on the Via Francigena, became the powerful republic capable of challenging the great Florence.
The doors and windows of the old houses
Some of the last rooms on this level hide something sensational: paying close attention, you will notice the ancient doors and windows of the houses still preserved; we discover together the reason why these environments have remained ‘buried’ by the levels above.
After this stupendous journey on the steps – and the metres – of history, you can be sure that a Santa Maria della Scala in Siena guided tour will have offered you an experience that will completely go beyond your expectations.