 |
PIAZZA
DEL CAMPO IN SIENA
The central area of
Siena, par excellence, is the very famous Piazza del
Campo, which is known above all for its Palio that for centuries has taken place
here.
Of all the
medieval Italian piazzas, it is certainly one of the most
unique, not only for its historical and cultural link with the Palio, the moment of clearest identity for the Siena people, but also for its urbanistic role that it expresses in the context of the historical center.
Piazza del Campo is the Siena
people's piazza for two reasons: firstly, because it is the civil piazza, distinct and separate from the religious piazza of the
cathedral, but also because the urbanistic structure of Siena seems to have formed itself around this fan-shaped piazza.
|
The roads of the center uncoil themselves like serpentines and meander through the empty spaces of the piazza, they become more curved and fold over themselves in order to follow the
perimeter.
In this way, continual rows of buildings have grown up along the roads and the urban tissue presents itself bursting with houses held one against the
other. The only open space is the Piazza, at which you can arrive through wide or narrow streets that
interrupt, for brief stretches, the continuous wing of buildings. Next to the regularity of the terraced
houses, that make up the wing, there is the dominant element of the piazza, the
'Palazzo Comunale', or Town Hall.
It is the dual concept of the Piazza-Palazzo that explains the meaning of the center of the Siena
people's identity: the Public Town Hall, as it is
known, is a building that opens onto the piazza with a profile that is slightly concave, as if to embrace the piazza,
which, in turn, becomes its origin.
The Town Hall is divided into three parts: the central one which is
higher, a sort of tower and the two, lower, lateral
ones. To one side another element is added which acts as a base for the Town Hall
tower. This element rises up above, very much like a bell
tower.
The Town Hall is, anyway a single building, where the distinction of the parts is almost eliminated by the homogeneity of the architectonic
composition, made up of lexical elements that are typical of a very refined gothic style.
On the ground floor, a stone basement is distinguished by a regular series of openings with ogival
architraves. The windows of the main floor open on the
thin, fine frame of the stone surface. These windows, positioned on the same vertical aces as the first
openings, repeat the ogival form.
The treatment of the surfaces of the Town Hall becomes more attentive to architectonic
detail: the three-mullioned windows include small stone
columns, whilst the entire wall surface, rich with
decoration, is brick.
Furthermore, lines at windowsill level and at the level of the impost of the window
arches, accentuate the horizontal development of the Town Hall.
Small pensile and battlement arches mark the area of
coping, which, together with the two small towers of the central body, form a type of cry back to political - military power.
The Town Hall of Siena is very different from the Palazzo della Signoria of
Florence, where the compact and ashlar volume indicate a power that is still strongly
military. Here in Siena, between 1297 and 1315, a Town Hall of
'graceful' characters was built, a Town Hall that dominates the piazza with dignity and
magnificence, which is imposing for its architectonic
grace.
The whole piazza is influenced by this, so much so that the overlooking buildings had to be
constructed, bearing in mind the rhythm of filled and empty areas that is given by the Public Town Hall.
|
