10/02/2025
To continue last week's theme of the massive depopulation caused by the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth-century, this is a sketch I made of Siena from the top of the unfinished cathedral. In 1339 plans were made for an ambitious expansion of the current Cathedral, and works were started in 1340, just eight years before the plague would visit the city and lay waste to any plans. Today all that remains is the tall wall that would have been the new end of the nave, and some columns embedded in the next door Palazzo.
Visit the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo to climb this tall section of wall and see the city from above, with Piazza del Campo laid out below in a clear signal of the primacy of the church over the state. The museum itself is fabulous, with works by Duccio, Giovanni Pisano, Donatello, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti and many more. Highly recommended.
