The Tranquility of a Post-Palio Siena

If you are looking for noise, excitement, pageantry and crowds –lots of crowds – then visit Siena during the Palio weekend as some of my classmates did. But if you prefer quiet reflection and serene beauty, then I suggest that you visit the weekend after the Palio as I did on Saturday.

My travelling companions and I arrived on Friday evening so that we could get an early start, hitting the streets by 8 am before the day trippers from Rome and other locations had arrived. Based on the quiet, almost deserted streets, it appeared that the local residents were getting a little extra sleep this Saturday after the excitement of the past weekend. The first stop was the Basilica Cateriniana di San Domenico, the 13^th century Dominican church where Catherine of Siena spent a good part of her life and where reliquaries of some of her remains are found. The church was open but completely empty. Astonishingly, my traveling companions and I had the whole church to ourselves for at least 15 minutes! It was so quiet that we could hear the birds singing outside. Eventually, two or three other visitors arrived, but the mood of silent reverence in this beautiful church remained. Like the other churches that we visited in Siena, no photography is allowed in the basilica. I think this helps to make it more of a place of prayer and reflection than a spot to check off your European travel list as you add photos to your Instagram account. The basilica’s bookshop sells reasonably priced postcards of all its artwork and relics so that you can still have visual mementos of your visit. (In fact, the basilica’s interior shots in this blog are photos of postcards.)

After the basilica we headed to Il Campo, Siena’s large central piazza, to have a leisurely breakfast on the patio of one of the many restaurants that line its perimeter. While there were a few people out enjoying breakfast or a walk in the piazza, it was much quieter than I suspect it usually is and certainly nothing like the crowds that were there the previous weekend to watch the town’s famed horse race. As we sipped our coffees, we enjoyed watching the mixture of local families and small groups of tourists strolling by in this medieval square.

We ended our morning with a visit to Saint Catherine’s home, where, again, there were only a few visitors other than us. We were able to take our time reflecting, praying and studying the artwork on the interior walls that told the story of this remarkable saint. All in all, my peaceful Saturday in Siena is one that I will long remember with gratitude and fondness.

by Rosemary Boissonneau

Comments

The Catacombs of Domitilla

The story of Christianity is awe-inspiring. This is true whether you are a believer or not. Within 50 years of the physical death of Christ, 12 believers had directly and indirectly converted thousands to the new faith. Within 300 years, they had converted an empire. This tour begins at the walls of Rome within sight of St. John Lateran where we get our ride to the countryside of Rome. Making our way outside the walls, the city changes to country quickly. The Roman countryside is quite beautiful. The hills begin to roll and the gated villas extend to farms of vegetables, rose hips, or barley. The air cleaner and the sound clearer. Flavia Domitilla was the granddaughter of the emperor Vespasian. As daughter of Domitilla "the Younger", Flavia was also the niece of the emperors Titus and Domitian. These catacombs were founded on her property in about the year 120 A.D. Flavia and her husband, Flavius Clemens, were likely ...

The Villa Borghese: Tainted Beauty

In the 17 th century it was common for the pope to place a nephew in a key administrative role, for self-preservation. Thus in 1605, at the age of 28, Scipione Borghese was made cardinal and papal secretary, head of the Roman Curia, by his uncle Pope Paul V, making Scipione the second most powerful person in the country. Cardinal Scipione purchased a property in the north of Rome and began acquiring ancient Roman and contemporary Italian art. The villa and its beautiful grounds were never a residence, only ever a gallery and conservatory. Cardinal Scipione became the patron of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, providing Bernini with the opportunity to cement his legacy as perhaps the best sculptor to have ever lived. Though several pieces of furniture and adornment were sold off by the Borghese family in the 19 th century to address fiscal problems, those have been replaced with copies, and the most famous and significant pieces of the original collec...

A Trini - Canadian walks into a Mosque, a Synagogue and Several Churches

During my last week in Rome, I had the honour of entering both a synagogue and a mosque for the first time in my life. After visiting what seemed like a million churches in Rome and, (as a Roman Catholic), loving every one of them, it was a nice way to end off the interreligious dialogue component of our course. The synagogue is located in the old Jewish ghetto of Rome. It is in this area that Jews were forced to live and had many restrictions put upon them in the past. Our visit included the museum under the synagogue where we saw a copy of the declaration that announced forming the State of Israel. The Great Synagogue of Rome A picture I took of the beautiful square dome inside the Synagogue Declaration of the State of Israel Our friend and classmate Oded, who was born and grew up in Tel Aviv, Israel, drew my attention to an extraordinary black and white photo of crowds of Jews in Rome celebrating this d...

Rome Ecumenism Course 2023

Search This Blog