Good government...

The Allegory of Good and Bad Government is a series of three fresco panels painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti between February 1338 and May 1339, for the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena where they are still to be seen-  here we see the fresco of Good Government- picturing a happy life in a prosperous Siena, ten years before the plague struck. 

 I have put a ring around a tower where people are pictured working- presumably mending the roof: this building was already a couple of hundred years old when the fresco was painted... It is one of the only two in the fresco which can be identified today with certainty.  (The other one being one on the Piazza del Campo, directly opposite the Palazzo Pubblico) Tomorrow I am going to see an apartment in this building, which is also today undergoing some building work- in fact the whole ancient structure is being overhauled and apartments are being sold  which can be modelled according to the wishes of the buyers: i.e: number of bathrooms, rooms etc. What is certain is that, should I buy this flat  I would have a little terrace overlooking the Torre de Mangia!

Should I buy it I would become a Civetta, a little owl- I quite like that idea.... The estate agent Luca is a fountain of knowledge about Siena, both historic and contemporary, and is second in command at the Civetta contrada.  He impressed me deeply by letting slip that he  is having dinner tonight with the famous Tittia, the jockey who won the Palio for Giraffa in July 2019 and went on to win the August one too, this time for  the Selva - it was the last Palio that was run before Covid struck.   I swooned when I heard that...  Below yesterday in interview for Corriere di Siena: 

More tomorrow when I have seen this thousand year old flat close by the Piazza de Tolomei...  I do feel excited about this one!

Next Day:

And here it is:  'my' little pensione-to-be ...? in the throes of being done up. But will it be too small? Could I have only four rooms? That is all he space could yield... It could be lovely of course: I could paint a replica of the fresco on the living room wall perhaps...

           

Some days later..alas! 

it is definitely going to be too small... what a pity. I tried to think how it could all work, but it would involve me sleeping in a space without natural light and even so it would only give us four rooms to let. 

Che peccato!