Le Fonti di Siena

 

is the name of a beautiful old book I found mentioned in an article -  I would love to find it in real life, not just on the internet...

because the water supply and the fountains of Siena are really something very interesting. A 'Fonte' in Italian means more than a fountain of course, it means a proper source of water. I will nevertheless use the word fountain here, because these 'Fonti' of Siena are decorative and monumental as well as practical.  Most great cities have been built either on the sea or on a river- but Siena was built on a few arid hills without any obvious source of water. How on earth did  this city, which in its hey-day in the late 13th century had

50 000 inhabitants and was as populous as Paris, manage to provide water for that amount of people? 

Today I took part in my language school's visit to the fountains of Siena, conducted by  our enthusiastic teacher Andrea. I had in fact come across them all in my extensive peregrinations throughout the city, but did not know much about them. The  most important one according to Andrea and the guide books, is the Fonte Gaia which is found in the Piazza del Campo. It is not the oldest, by the way- but it is the highest; one that is fed by underground aqueducts which stretches for many hundred meters across the subterranean expanses of this territory made up of both porous soil, able to filter the rain water, and of layers of impermeable clay, which , each in its own way has made the sophisticated system of water passages possible. The sculptures surrounding the fountain of Gaia at the Campo were created by Jacopo della Quercia around 1410, and are considered among the most  important and representative works  of pre-Renaissance sculpture.

                                                               

Because the Gaia fountain  is the highest, it is also important because it feeds the others, and among those is the celebrated Fontebranda, at the foot of the impressive, and enormous, Basilica di San Domenico (below centre). Andrea, below, is explaining how the water was transported to reach the important dyeing works which took place at this fountain. It was the centre not only of dyeing, but of other important industries such as the tanneries; the slaughter houses;  and finally the waste water was used for the turning of the mills which produced the flour for the bread ( and the pasta!)

The Fontebranda is mentioned in Canto 30 of the Inferno. It is therefore commemorated by yet another of those Dante plaques which are dotted around Siena. This one describes the fate and punishment of the counterfeiters, who are placed by the waters of the Fontebranda but not allowed to quench their thirst...

Another glorious Siena fountain is the one found in the North East of the city, by the Contrada of the Lupa, the She- Wolf. It is the  Fonta d'Ovile, built in 1260. Below a picture of the Lupa setting up for a Contrada dinner in front of their famous fountain: 

   

And finally, the Fonte del Casato, in the Centre of Siena, in the Onda Contrada, has seemingly suffered from a bad reputation  throughout history . It  was considered a dangerous place, situated  in an area inhabited by prostitutes and disreputable characters during the middle ages, and shunned during the plague years as  a possible  source of the disease. Even today, it is, strangely, the one beautiful place that our guide decided not to visit- and it is in fact less well kept than the other fountains- rather full of pigeon droppings and seemingly neglected however old and beautiful is really is...