DEPARTURE FROM THE MUSEUM OF THE OPERA DELLA METROPOLITANA DEL DUOMO PIAZZA DUOMO, 8

This itinerary will focus exclusively on the theme of “comfort” food for new mothers and how this was served from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. We can trace this theme in various Sienese paintings in particular in episodes relating to the Birth of the Virgin.As is well known, the earliest images of this subject are of Greek-Byzantine origin and began to be widely diffused in European art in the late Medieval period and Renaissance. They are interesting from the point of view of the kind of sustenance given to new mothers who had just given birth. There are usually three maidservants, holding dishes who serve Saint Anne, normally with a cup containing something to drink, a bowel with a small egg or some meat and sometimes also an ornamental fan (flabellum), to give relief both to the new mother and to the child, all symbols of life and renewal. The opulence typical of the funrishings of Saint Anne’s bedroom frequently recur in Italian art and the choice of the interior decoration generally reflect the tastes and fashions of the period in which the work was produced.Sienese art offers the oppurtunity of observing the changes in local customs according to the kind of comfort food prepared following birth and the relative dishes used for the occasion. One can see a gradual transition from simple receptacles and bowels in terraotta to the use of straw baskets to hold all the dishes together; from simple wooden trays to deschi da parto, painted or inlaid wooden trays produced in the workshops of the most important painters of the period, on occasion of the happy event of the birth of a child, to more practical bed tables. The greatest care and attention was given to the new mother’s diet and famlies often spent alot of money buying the best quality products suitable for strengthening the mother during the lengthy breast-feeding period.

Places in the itineraryMUSEUM OF THE OPERA DELLA METROPOLITANA DEL DUOMO (Piazza Duomo, 8)THE PINACOTECA NAZIONALE DI SIENA (Via San Pietro, 29)THE ORATORY OF SAN BERNARDINO (Piazza San Francesco)

The itinerary necessarily starts at the Cathedral Museum and the most famous Birth of the Virgin in Siena, painted by Pietro Lorenzetti before 1342 for one of the altars of the Cathedral dedicated to the Patron saints of the city, to celebrate the great Maesta by Duccio di Buoninsegna at that time on the high altar.In the painting Saint Anne is reclining on a plaid blanket, like the ones produced in Siena at the beginning of the fourteenth century: the sargia, a light wool fabric of English origin. In the foreground the midwives are washing the little baby, while two maidservants bring in food in a straw basket covered with an elegant cloth in a fabric typical of Pienza, and a painted ceramic jug. One of the most common drinks offered to new mothers was a sweetened infusion of mallow and fennel, in the belief that this made the mother’s milk more easily digestible for the newborn child. Other works on this same theme can be seen nearby in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, An unusual example is the panel of the Birth of the Virgin (1385/90), from Colle di Val d’Elsa, stylistically similar to the hand of the Master of San Lucchese (or Cennino Cennini?), which is particularly interesting because of the minute attention that the artist gives the domestic environment. There is a precisely described washbasin with a drain and what looks like a tap, where there are dishes in pewter and copper; On a shelf above the basin, there is a still-life with elegant ceramics and the typicl local hand towels in white cotton embroidered with black yarn.Of a small scale but important from a documentary point of view is one of the predella panels of the Tryptich of the Coronation of the Virgin (1388) by Bartolo di Fredi, one of the most typical representatives of the Sienese school of the second half of the fourteenth century.

2‘COMFORT’ FOODBANQUETS, FOOD AND COMMERCE IN SIENESE ART

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The composition is similar to the better know fresco by the same artist in the church of Sant’Agostino in San Gimignano with scenes from the Life of the Virgin, inspired by the lost frescoes by the Lorenzetti brothers, that were painted on the facade of the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. In the background a maidservant is bringingi in a drink in a terracotta jug and some meat for the new mother. The meat was always rigorously white considered less heavy than pork or veal. In Sienese painting one can often see baby chickens, roosters, and small birds, and it seems that one can sometimes even make out lamb and rabbit. Meat was mostly boiled and sometimes even roast meat was boiled before being put on the spit.Continuing our tour inside the Pinacoteca, there is the splend Tryptich by Paolo di Giovanni Fei of 1391/99. A seated Saint Anne is drying her hands with an embroidered cloth, typical of Siena and the same as the one covering the food in the straw basket being carried in by a young woman, echoing the iconography in the altar panel by Pietro Lorenzetti for the Duomo. A second woman is holding two jugs, probably one with water and one with wine: in these circumstances they would prepare a herbal wine, based on a Hippocratic tradition which was believed to be a tonic for new mothers and for the sick, because, as asserted by the Medieval scholar, Aldobrando da Siena, if drunk with moderation it would produce “good blood and good colour and all the virtues of a strong body”.To conclude our visit, there is a painting dating to the early sixteenth century by an artist from the workshop of the Sienese painter Girolamo di Benvenuto. A maidservant is holding a washbasin and a jug while another is carrying a bowel with some hot broth and a third a plate bearing a small boiled bird. This episode emphasizes the importance of chicken or capon broth as one of the first dishes considered suitable for a new mother. Sometimes a nourishing beaten egg would be added to the broth and bread might be soaked in the broth at which point the result would be referred to as pappa, and was thought to help the arrival of the mother’s milk. These same properties were attributed to what was called a farinata, which was made from sieved white flour or chestnut flour with the addition of milk and some cubes of dry bread.Ending our itinerary with a pleasant walk, we will continue to the Oratory of San Bernardino, where Girolamo del Pacchia, one of the most popular artists in Siena at the time, painted his Birth of the Virgin in 1517. This fresco is part of an important decorative cycle in the Oratory of San Bernardino painted by the major ariists active in Siena in the first few decdaes of the sixteenth century: Girolamo del Pacchia, Domenico Beccafumi, and Sodoma. The new mother’s bedroom is typical of the sixteenth century with its luxurious wooden bed, and the chests for belongings, and the high bedhead inlaid with mother of pearl, and decorated with grottesques and candelabra which were very fashionable during this period. In the background a young woman is bringing in a hot drink and another a flask and flattened bread on a desco da parto. Bread wafers or flatbread accompanied by milk and honey were often given to people who were bedridden for long periods of time. The milk could be goatsmilk, sheepsmilk, cowsmilk or almond milk. For a long time honey was the only sweetener used given that sugar, which was referred to as sale arabo (Arabian salt) was initally a costly and luxury product.

Museum of the Opera della metropolitana del DuomoPiazza Duomo, 8 – SienaInformation: tel. 0577 286300Info & tickets:www.operaduomo.siena.it

Pinacoteca NazionaleVia di San Pietro, 29 – SienaReservations and information: 0577 286143Opening hours:Mondays: 9.00 – 13.00From Tuesdays to Saturdays: 8.15 – 19.15Sundays and holidays: 9.00 – 13.00Closed: January 1, May 1, December 25On July 2 and August 16: 9.00 – 13.00Tickets: € 4.00 Reduced: € 2.00

For Italian and European Community citizens from 18 to 25 years of age, students and teachers from university faculties that are not Humanities, partial opening of the Museum.Free entrance:For Italian and European Community citizens under 18; students with Carta dello Studente (Student Card); journalists, groups of students and teachers from Italian and European Community schools; tour guides and interpreters; members of I.C.O.M.; disabled people with respective companions; Erasmus Students

Oratory of San BernardinoPiazza San Francesco, 7 - SienaInformation: tel. 0577 286300Info & tickets:www.operaduomo.siena.it

by Lucia Simona Pacchierotti and Beatrice Pulcinelli - Art historians, Comune di Siena

Tourist Board of SienaPalazzo Pubblico, Piazza Il Campo, 1 - 53100 Siena - Tel. 0577 292128 – 178 turismo@comune.siena.it Tourist Information Office Santa Maria della Scala, piazza Duomo 1, tel. 0577 280551, siena@terresiena.it

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