A History of Siena provides a concise and up-to-date biography of the city, from its ancient and medieval development up to the present day, and makes Siena's history, culture, and traditions accessible to anyone studying or visiting the city.
Well informed by archival research and recent scholarship on medieval Siena and the Italian city-states, this book places Siena's development in its larger context, both temporally and geographically. In the process, this book offers new interpretations of Siena's artistic, political, and economic development, highlighting in particular the role of pilgrimage, banking, and class conflict. The second half of the book provides an important analysis of the historical development of Siena's nobility, its unique system of neighborhood associations (contrade) and the race of the Palio, as well as an overview of the rise and fall of Siena's troubled bank, the Monte dei Paschi.
This book is accessible to undergraduates and tourists, while also offering plenty of new insights for graduate students and scholars of all periods of Sienese history
Author(s): Mario Ascheri; Brad Franco
Series: Cities of the Ancient World
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: xii+160
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Bibliography
Part I From the origins of Siena to the fall of the Sienese Republic
1 The origins of Siena
From the Etruscans to the Romans
Lombard and Carolingian Siena
Notes
Bibliography
2 Urban development and the formation of the Sienese state (1000–1260)
The rise of Siena
The economic boom of the early thirteenth century
The growth of the Sienese state
Notes
Bibliography
3 Siena’s golden age: Montaperti and Good Government (1260–1355)
Montaperti and its aftermath
Santa Maria della Scala and Siena’s principal institutions
The government of the Nine (1287–1355)
The artistic legacy of the Nine
The fall of the Nine
Notes
Bibliography
4 Renaissance Siena and the fall of the Republic (1355–1555)
A fifty-year crisis: 1355–1404
Siena in the 1400s: consensus and stability
Siena’s political system in the fifteenth century
The Renaissance in Siena: culture and the arts, society and the contrade
From Pandolfo Petrucci to the war for Siena (1487–1555)
Notes
Bibliography
Part II From the age of the Medici to the present day
5 The age of the Medici (1557–1737)
An intelligent compromise
The new, broad Sienese nobility
Beside a changing nobility: Monte dei Paschi and the surroundings
The contrade and the Palio in early modern Siena
Festivals and culture from Prince Mattias to Violante of Bavaria
The twilight of the Medici age
Notes
Bibliography
6 From the Enlightenment to the World Wars (1723–1945)
Hard times? The reforms of the Lorena family
The co-management of the Monte dei Paschi and the modern commune (1787): among nobles and the contrade
French lights and shadows: Viva Maria!
The Lorena family in the age of restoration (1814–1859)
Social and economic concerns in nineteenth-century Siena
Unification strengthens the civic dream
Substantial developments in the new century
From the “Red Biennium” to the triumph of Fascism
Notes
Bibliography
7 Siena from World War II to the present day
The postwar economic boom
The magnificent 1990s: synthesis of a civilization
The fall of Monte dei Paschi
Siena today
Notes
Bibliography
Index
