kybourbon

Wow. I can't believe you viewed my post as negative at all. It was a mere statement since KrisMom was asking about places to stay in Siena on another thread (I think she booked Alma Domus). I don't see anything negative about my providing info or questioning if your report was older. Many people don't get around to writing reports right away.

I've stayed at Alma Domus multiple times and the breakfast room, etc. was like you described a few years ago. I also stayed in September and it had totally changed. Much nicer, bigger breakfast room and much more extensive breakfast. No one assigning seats anymore, only asking your room number after you set down. Serve yourself coffee in urns, no longer poured by staff. I guess they could have gone back to their old breakfast room/set up if your visit is more recent than mine. I've also had rooms there with regular shower stalls and rooms with just a shower curtain and floor drain. I imagine you could request a room with stall.

Leely2

I was in Sicily (which you should check out, by the way) when you were posting so I am just seeing this now. I haven't visited Siena in nearly a decade, but I have found much to enjoy in your report, aborted though it is. Very, very amusing. I've been there with the showers. Your description of the rosemary scented pork almost has me making plane reservations.

I do understand about work commitments and the time-consuming nature of trip reports. This was a pleasure to read.

Happy travels!

margo_oz

I've been enjoying this report...and would love to see the rest!

KTtravel

I am thoroughly enjoying your report and am looking forward to the next installment. We also love Siena and can't wait to return.

irishface

I missed the first part of the report and really hope that you will continue. I am laughing at parts of your informative and interesting report.

I am sorry that you felt ignored.

irishface

I missed the first part of the report and really hope that you will continue. I am laughing at parts of your informative and interesting report.

I am sorry that you felt ignored.

caroline_edinburgh

Bookmarking to finish reading later - enjoying your writing very much so far !

zoecat

I am just now enjoying your report. I think I was on vacation when you originally posted it. Please continue the report!

<<….FOLLOWED BY – very LOUD and quite ENTHUSIASTIC sound of Italian voices raised in spirited song spilling into our hotel room a few hours later.

My first thought was that there was a soccer game at the nearby stadium and these were the sounds of victory songs floating the quiet night air to our area. My second thought as I emerged from sleep was that this was obviously not a drunken group of louts returning from a bar. This was a well-tuned, harmonious and melodic chorus with voices raised in song. And it was the SAME song….over…..and over…and over. The chorus, (repeated often), started with the words “Paperone, Paperone” (pappah-roh-nay, pappah-roh-nay) and continued on from there. Different groups would seem to carry the tune, and fade away, to be followed yet again by another group. First it seemed to be the guys. Next, it was an all-girls chorus. Followed by a quartet – and then the whole damn team. Strangely, despite waking me up, I went back to sleep with the tune echoing in my head.>>

Believe it or not, I had a similar experience when staying for a week in Siena. The next morning, I couldn't figure out if I had dreamed it or if it was real.

One morning, very early before the sun was up, I woke to a whooshing sound from outside. I couldn't figure out what the heck it was and then suddenly, as I laid in bed, there was the answer outside my window- several colorful hot air balloons floating over the city. They were beautiful against the dark blue/purple sky and rooftops below. I couldn't help but wish I was up there, floating quietly over this lovely city!

hazel1

Please continue Dave - I just caught your trip report yesterday, and I honestly thought it was one of the best I'd ever read. Your style of writing is wonderfully engaging and so evocative that I feel like I'm right there with you. Please come back and finish!

DreamOfItalia

I am also enjoying the report and appreciate you sharing your experiences with us.

Betsy

So glad you posted the lyrics, Dave, because the sound clip sounded like "pepperoni, pepperoni," so I would've thought they were singing about pizza. Really.

Connie

OH NO, DON'T STOP!

I've just found your report this morning. I'm totally wrapped up in it. It's one of the most enjoyable trip reports I've read. I only got to be in Siena a couple of nights and it's been fun reading about what all you did with more time.

Gwendolynn

I hope you'll find time to continue. Siena is one of my favorite places.... but due to circumstances beyond my control I doubt I'll see it again.... so your report is a great vicarious experience.

caroline_edinburgh

This is brilliant writing Dave - informative and very entertaining at the same time. It makes me want to follow exactly in your footsteps and experience all you experienced - the best type of trip report. I also think your style of travelling has much in common with ours, with days built around meal, ice creams & drinks

I have only been to Siena for a day, to see the Palio over 20 years ago, and this has very much reinforced my feeling I'd like to spend longer there. The convent hotel you chose sounds ideal and I see it is very reasonable.

On reaching your comments about having stopped your report feeling it was not appreciated, I was very saddened. I also think it is one of the best I've ever read and very much hope you will complete it, if you can find the time. There are just so many posts here, it's impossible for everyone to spot all those they'd be interested in. Also since I'm in Europe and the majority of posters are in North America, topics have often dropped below the level I ever have time to check before I come along. Don't be disheartened - I actually thought you'd had lots of interest early on, anyway, compared to many reports including mine ! I am very glad I found it, albeit a little belatedly.

Did you write a report on your trip to Florence ? We are spending a week there in September and I'm still slightly ambivalent about it - I spent 3 days there on my own, also about 20 years ago, and didn't much enjoy it - but DH really likes it and I expect I'll enjoy it more now. (Thinking back, that was my first experience of Italian city traffic and after 3 days I'd really had enough.) I'm sure reading a report from you would make me enthusiuastic !

elnap29

Frozen Dave, I was really enjoying your initial posts and was a bit disappointed when you stopped, as we were heading to Siena in May. I regret not letting you know I was reading them, and I do understand how difficult it is to write a TR not knowing if it even matters to anyone. (We loved our time in Siena - wish we'd planned to stay longer than 3 days).

Frozen_North_Dave

Okay, now I just feel sheepish. Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and comments. As usual, things are hectic (I wish I was on vacation) but I will blow the digital dust off the next installments and post as soon as I can.

Caroline - search "Florence in the Off-Season" or hit my Tag and you will see it at the top of my Contributions. In lieu of a trip report I wrote a "best of" post on FLorence, but there should be info for you.

Cheers. Dave

Gwendolynn

Welcome to the fold... baaahh.....

caroline_edinburgh

Great, thanks very much on both counts Dave !

Frozen_North_Dave

PART 4 – SUN SHINE - CATHEDRA ZEBRA STRIPES - DRIED BODY BITS IN HOLY CRYPTS - FORESKIN DETECTIVES ON VACATION!


We awoke, with the sun streaming into our room on the day that we were to ponder the mystery of Jesus Christ’s missing foreskin.

Yes, you read that right. Admittedly, the foreskin of the Big Guy is NOT the usual thing you expect to be thinking about while on vacation (or reading about on the Fodors Forum for that matter), but as events unfolded that day in Siena, that very particular body bit was exactly what David and Kathy discussed in hushed and reverent tones as the hordes of tourists scurried about the Siena Duomo. It was in the Crypt below Siena’s Duomo that I exclaimed “Holy Foreskin” and wondered if we had stumbled on the irreverent curiosity that had once been the discarded by-product of one very famous circumcision.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

With the fading sounds of the Goose Anthem echoing in our brains we were up, dressed and down to breakfast early, since we wanted to enjoy the good weather, see Siena under a bright blue sky for the first time, and beat the crowds to the opening of the Duomo. With some good strong jolts of Convent Coffee from the BBL to fortify us after the sleep interruptions from the pre-game Goose warm-up, we emerged into something entirely new and unusual in Siena – sunshine!

On the roster for today - we were heading to the Cathedral, the Baptistry and the Crypt, followed by a long leisurely lunch, and then the Museo dell‘Opera del Duomo, followed by a long leisurely dinner (with some Gelato and wine consumed SOMEWHERE along the way). It was to be a day crammed with Medieval and Renaissance art, architecture and strange body bits.

We took advantage of the weather to shed the coats and show off some of the clothes we’d brought along to Italy. As we stepped up onto the street from Alma Domus, Siena seemed to have come to life. The streets in and around San Domenica were bustling and tour groups were already arriving at the Church across from the Hotel. Our usual route to the Campo and environs always took us through a tunnel and around the Santa Catarina convent. As we turned the corner, there were two young fellows in the courtyard of the convent practicing the traditional intricacies of the medieval ceremony of flag tossing which each of the Contradas display during the Palio (and, as we were to learn, at special events). It was very quiet, and there were only a few onlookers watching the young men intently following through with the patterned ebb and flow of the Goose flags on the long poles. Their movements were precise and graceful and in perfect synchronicity, obviously following a carefully orchestrated set of moves. Although we’d seen this on T.V. and in movies, up close and personal, it was amazing how big (and heavy) the poles were and how very large the flags were. With a sudden burst of energy, the flags went flying up and over and each deftly caught the other’s pole. With only a brief rest, they started again.

We continued on to Piazza del Duomo. The Piazza and complex that make up Siena’s famous religious centre is unusual, due to the hilly topography on which it was constructed. The Bapistry is oddly tucked below the Cathedral, and so, as you approach the Piazza from the direction of the Campo, you pass the entrance to the Bapistry, above which towers the walls of the Cathedral, and climb a staircase to the small Piazza surrounding the Duomo. The Siena Duomo is well-known for its unfinished skeleton “add-on” which was begun when the city embarked on a very ambitious and expensive expansion of the cathedral to the east of the Church. It was to be a massive monument of Christiandom but unfortunately the Plague descended when only part of the walls had been completed. The city, and the coffers, never recovered and the walls of the future extension now remain forever incomplete. That morning we ascended the stairs passing through one of the arches that was to have been one of the spans along the aisle of the planned transept extension and which now forms one of the walls enclosing the Piazza.

The line-up to the entrance of the zebra-striped Duomo had begun. Although we’d already spent some time examining the very beautiful sculptures and ornaments covering the façade of the church, we took advantage of the time to check out some of the interesting grotesque and magnificent figures that seemed to be leaping away from the wall of the Duomo. After a few pictures of each other taken against the unique black and cream patterned walls, bathed in sunlight, we emerged into the darkened Cathedral.

We absolutely loved the Siena Duomo, and Kathy and I agreed that of all the Italian Churches and cathedrals we had schlepped through to date, this was by far our favourite. From an architectural perspective we didn’t think that anything could top the Duomo in Florence, but we were wrong. Although the Siena Cathedral lacks the magnitude and enormity of space of the Florence cathedral and Brunelleschi’s amazing dome construction, we found that the architectural detail of the interior and the beautiful wealth of art, sculpture decorative work and detail made the Siena building far more beautiful. Although many portions of the intricate floor mosaics are covered, to preserve them, there are enough sections open for viewing to appreciate how beautiful the floor is. The intricate marble floor designs in stunning black, cream and rusty ochre colors add warmth and texture to the flooring.

The black and white stripes of marble are a stunning effect and the way the eye gets drawn up to the hexagonal gold dome interior and the beautiful blue roof dotted with gold starts gives a sense of airy height. It is when you strain your neck to look up to the lofty interior towards the roof, that you find the eerie and somewhat strange arraignment of Popes lined up, head to head, one Holy Head after another, in two rows along the entire length of the central nave - dozens of Peeking Popes looking down at the throngs of worshipers below. Maybe it was my imagination but the expressions on most of the old fellas staring down at me looked a lot less benevolent and warm and fuzzy than one might have expected from a Parade of Popes who led the holy church for centuries. Most of the busts seemed rather stern looking, and bug eyed as if to saying “We’ve got our eyes on you – yeah you there in the striped shirt, don’t think we’re not watching you!” (which I guess is exactly what the Pope’s job has always been). Maybe that was the effect they were going for at the time!

Pisano’s Pulpit is what I would call “intense” with its detail and noble lions. Trying to absorb all of the fine details of each panel on the massive pulpit was almost impossible, and it was easier to pick one or two panels and stare at them closely. I let my imagination get the better of me and wondered, if I had went to Mass one day in the 1300’s (assuming I hadn’t joined the daily pile-up on the cart rounding up the dead in the City) whether I would have been able to actually concentrate on the sermon delivered from the Priest in the Pulpit perched atop such much amazing art work, and framed by an eagle. There are also some gorgeous bronze angelic candle holders on the altar, depicting these lithe, graceful and feminine angels. As a good Catholic Boy I had flashbacks to my days as a kid at St. Patrick’s parish church – which was an ugly stone box with a fake steeple and a few faded paintings and faux-statues reproduced in the 60’s. I was usually bored silly in those youthful days waiting for the final signal from Father to exit. I wondered whether my devotional attention to Church might have been different if I had been able to attend church in a place such as the Siena Cathedral where some of the best art in the world literally envelopes you. On the other hand, who knows - maybe Sienese 7 year old boys are just as bored during the sermon when they get hauled to mass on Sundays with their Nonnas.

The Piccolomini Library is an explosion of coloured frescos covering the walls and ceilings. Donatello’s beautiful St. John the Baptist was absent from his Chapel – but we’d seen him up close, and personal, over at the Museum exhibition the day before, where he had been temporarily moved. A Michaelangelo sculpture is to be found (St. Peter) which we were not aware of. There is, of course, a statue of St. Catherine, the Patron saint of Siena, which is stunning. It always amazes me the way Renaissance sculptors create clothing drapery and folds so realistically out of a hunk of stone. There is also the famed Madonna del Voto painting surrounded in these beautiful azure blue panels in the Chigi Chapel, which is credited with miracles and the saving the City in more than one battle and from bombing by the Nazis in World War II.

All in all, we loved the Duomo and spent just over a couple of hours there. You can’t help but be amazed at what “might have been” if Siena had been able to complete the massive extension to the Cathedral had the Black Plague had not wiped out the local population in the middle of the 1300’s.

From the Cathedral, we headed back down the steps to the Baptistry “under” the Duomo. Our visit was sort of surreal. After just a few minutes had passed, we found ourselves all alone in this beautiful room, absorbing yet more beauty and especially the richly sculpted Baptismal Font by Donatello and Jacopo dell Quercia. Considering the crowds we had just left behind in the cathedral we considered it somewhat special that we were being treated to a private viewing. That is, until the strange lady entered the room and proceeded to conduct a full-voice, animated cell phone call while strolling around the room. It was bad enough that she felt the need to conduct her call in a rather large religious phone booth, (not exactly designed for the task), but because we were alone with her, it seemed all the more jarring and off-putting as her loud voice echoed around the cavernous room and bounced off the Renaissance masterpieces. It was even more absurd when she finished the call that she promptly left the room. We were baffled – this lady just HAD to come into the Siena Baptistry to place a call? I would expect Donatello would have been more than a bit miffed if he had considered that over five centuries later his beautiful ornate sculptures would have been playing second fiddle to the tiny modern day cell phone and were all but oblivious to the obtuse user of the phone.

The final stop on the morning tour of the Duomo was the Crypt. My wife, quite rightly, can’t figure out how I can visit centuries-old works of beautiful elaborate art works and stunning architectural wonders and resort to my fall-back descriptive words of “neat” and “cool”. But those were the words I used (that and “just a little bit weird”) to describe the Crypt.

The Crypt is not actually a crypt – it was a frescoed lower section of the cathedral that served as a pilgrim’s entrance. It was essentially abandoned, covered up, and partly filled in, when the Duomo’s choir was built in the upper section of the Cathedral and the Baptistry was erected. They discovered it only in 1999 and after a beautiful restoration, it opened less than 8 years ago. The architecture itself is nothing to see – except you can view, from the vantage point of the excavated space, how the massive foundations were constructed to support the huge weight of the Duomo, including the pulpit, you’ve just visited. To discover an uncovered part of architectural history was – well, it was neat. Original frescos from the period, hidden away for seven hundred years beneath the feet of the faithful have been uncovered and restored and there for us to see. That’s just cool.

Within the crypt was a collection of various relics and reliquary pieces in display cases – and this was where we stopped and stared at all the little Body Bits ornately encapsulated and displayed in fine boxes, cages, armour, trophy-like cases, and every manner of weird container. Although this was not the only location of relics and reliquary in Siena, we seemed to have stumbled upon a small assembled trove of Saintly “parts” from hither and yon. Of interest was the nearby group of academic types with notepads and portfolios who were absorbed in quiet discussion and examination of the Body Bits. There was a part of an arm and hand skeleton which looked like something from Pirates of the Caribbean because it was encased in an armoured glove. There was a case where the entire deconstructed pile of bones of some saintly person was artfully and symmetrically arranged with metal and jeweled ornaments and colored ribbons. There was a shin bone, or maybe it was a femur. And there were also assorted other unidentifiable “little Body Bits”.

Which is when Kathy and I suddenly looked at one of the displays before us, read the labels, and wondered if perhaps we had stumbled on the infamous mystery of Jesus’s missing foreskin.

We recognize that it’s more than a little weird, (and some would say disturbing) for a married couple such as we, to devote such energies to planning and saving for the vacation of a lifetime for our 25th wedding anniversary - a time when we should be happy, joyous, carefree and in vacation-mode bliss – to find ourselves in the hushed depths of an underground crypt hunched over a case containing a box-like container with a little speck of human “something-or-other” Body Bit, wondering if we were looking at foreskin. I mean, who does that on their vacation?!

We did obviously, and for those of you that aren’t immediately familiar with the story, and so that you don’t consider my lovely wife and I to be two slightly demented, off-kilter wackadoodles (the kind you sometimes encounter on city buses, travelling antique shows, or the Jerry Springer show), let me explain.

I had stumbled on David Farley’s book, “An Irreverent Curiosity : In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town” in the month before leaving on our trip. If you’re interested, it’s a hoot of a story, regarding one of the Church’s most famous, and little known, relics – the Foreskin of Jesus. Farley’s book makes a great read if you are about to tour the churches of Europe, including Italy, because he provides a fascinating outline of the history of Relics in the Catholic Church and some great tidbits of fact and legend. It is also a bit of a travel book as he visits the odd characters who reside in the Town or Calcata, where the Relic was located.

According to Farley (and admittedly he points out, some of the information about the relic is unconfirmed and a little fanciful) religious relic lore has it that the foreskin of Jesus was, as logic would seem, the one and only Body Bit that would have remained behind on the planet after He ascended to the heavens – it having been separated long before His ascension. It begs the question as to who on earth would have had the foresight that day to nab the little tidbit and say “Gee, this thing might be worth something some day”. Such is the quirky mystery of most relics I guess.

Much of Farley’s book relates to his travels to track down the facts and solve the mystery, and it takes him to the hilltop village of Calcata Italy, which eventually had ownership and control of the holy relic for years. There was even a “Siena Connection” to the famous relic as St. Catherine of Siena purportedly once wore the foreskin around her finger as a ring for a while. (I’m sorry – but as my daughters would say: “Eeeyew, ever Gross!). In the early 1900’s the Vatican sent out an edict prohibiting the inclusion of the foreskin as an acknowledged holy Relic and threatening excommunication to those who would promote it.

The discarded “covering” somehow found its way into the care of a rather interesting Priest in Calcata, where, for differing reasons, it was reportedly stored in a shoebox. It disappeared from the shoe box in 1983 and has been AWOL and unaccounted for since that time. So remains the mystery of the whereabouts of arguably the most important piece of skin on the planet.

I’m not doing justice to the quirky, fun, and rather interesting story that Farley tells, and I would highly recommend the book as an enjoyable read before a trip to Italy, particularly if you are to include a visit to see some relics (which is hard to avoid anywhere in France, Italy, Spain and much of Europe once ruled by Catholicism.

But here’s the thing that brings us to that sunny day in Siena where David and Kathy are peering intently at the little case containing the unidentifiable skin-like relic. I unfortunately had not finished Mr. Farley’s book before leaving, and so I had not pinpointed the suspected whereabouts of the missing piece of Relic-Lore, if indeed there was a trail to continue to follow. Explaining the story as best I could to Kathy, our imagination then got the best of us as we tried to figure out what we were looking at mounted on this display “thingy” in the Crypt.

Our analysis involved a checklist of sorts:

1. It was obviously a Relic of some type. – CHECK!

2. It had been described by observers as “small, dense and fuzzy”. – CHECK! It was very small, dense, and if you looked closely enough – it seemed fuzzy to us!

3. It was reputedly the size of a red chickpea. – CHECK! – it was flattened but even the least bit of imaginative sleuthing could lead one to conclude that it was definitely chickpea in size (not that we’re experts on sizing chickpeas)

4. From what I had read, the foreskin had gone missing and most likely located in some obscure, non-high profile place. – CHECK! – this little exhibition of Body Bits and reliquary artifacts in the Crypt was tucked away in a quiet forgotten corner of Siena filled with odds and ends, and if this was what we thought it was – it was indeed truly an “odd little end”

5. And, my dear Watson….most important - there were labels for the items, and we deduced that the wording seemed highly relevant to the suspected subject matter. It was unclear what items in the case the two labels were paired with, but one was: “Reliquiaro del perizoma di Cristo” and the other was “Reliquiaro a pisside”

Hmmmm we said. The fact that our Italian was abysmal only served to fuel the controversy. “di Cristo” was obviously “of Christ”. So this had some connection to the one and only JC! Could the words “perizoma” or “pisside” be Italian or Latin for foreskin? We looked around. There didn’t seem to be a live guide or help desk around to ask, and the Crypt hadn’t yet caught up with technology so there was no “Audio Guide to Body Bits” available at the door. We weren’t going to ask the nearby group of academics for help either – for fear that they would have justifiably reported us to the nearest Carabinieri. At Kathy’s suggestion, I copied the Italian labels in my Travel Journal (in the section entitled “Misc. Odds and Ends” (appropriate) – in between the sections “Things to Buy In Siena”, and “Good Places to Eat”)

And so the suspicious dried Body Bit from the crypt was to temporarily remain our Siena mystery for the time being and our curiosity remained unsatisfied.

All this amateur Reliquary brainstorming had caused us to work up an appetite and so, with that…..

…… we went off to lunch!


**** With due recognition to David Farley, “An Irreverent Curiosity”, Published by Gotham, July 2009. Check it out!

Next Installment….

PART 5 – A Satisfying Lunch with Madame and “Her” Book – Good Wine and The Warm Stones of the Campo – A Date at the Opera and Dizzying Heights – (And of course, Gelato and More Feasting).

Frozen_North_Dave

PART 4 – SUN SHINE - CATHEDRA ZEBRA STRIPES - DRIED BODY BITS IN HOLY CRYPTS - FORESKIN DETECTIVES ON VACATION!


We awoke, with the sun streaming into our room on the day that we were to ponder the mystery of Jesus Christ’s missing foreskin.

Yes, you read that right. Admittedly, the foreskin of the Big Guy is NOT the usual thing you expect to be thinking about while on vacation (or reading about on the Fodors Forum for that matter), but as events unfolded that day in Siena, that very particular body bit was exactly what David and Kathy discussed in hushed and reverent tones as the hordes of tourists scurried about the Siena Duomo. It was in the Crypt below Siena’s Duomo that I exclaimed “Holy Foreskin” and wondered if we had stumbled on the irreverent curiosity that had once been the discarded by-product of one very famous circumcision.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

With the fading sounds of the Goose Anthem echoing in our brains we were up, dressed and down to breakfast early, since we wanted to enjoy the good weather, see Siena under a bright blue sky for the first time, and beat the crowds to the opening of the Duomo. With some good strong jolts of Convent Coffee from the BBL to fortify us after the sleep interruptions from the pre-game Goose warm-up, we emerged into something entirely new and unusual in Siena – sunshine!

On the roster for today - we were heading to the Cathedral, the Baptistry and the Crypt, followed by a long leisurely lunch, and then the Museo dell‘Opera del Duomo, followed by a long leisurely dinner (with some Gelato and wine consumed SOMEWHERE along the way). It was to be a day crammed with Medieval and Renaissance art, architecture and strange body bits.

We took advantage of the weather to shed the coats and show off some of the clothes we’d brought along to Italy. As we stepped up onto the street from Alma Domus, Siena seemed to have come to life. The streets in and around San Domenica were bustling and tour groups were already arriving at the Church across from the Hotel. Our usual route to the Campo and environs always took us through a tunnel and around the Santa Catarina convent. As we turned the corner, there were two young fellows in the courtyard of the convent practicing the traditional intricacies of the medieval ceremony of flag tossing which each of the Contradas display during the Palio (and, as we were to learn, at special events). It was very quiet, and there were only a few onlookers watching the young men intently following through with the patterned ebb and flow of the Goose flags on the long poles. Their movements were precise and graceful and in perfect synchronicity, obviously following a carefully orchestrated set of moves. Although we’d seen this on T.V. and in movies, up close and personal, it was amazing how big (and heavy) the poles were and how very large the flags were. With a sudden burst of energy, the flags went flying up and over and each deftly caught the other’s pole. With only a brief rest, they started again.

We continued on to Piazza del Duomo. The Piazza and complex that make up Siena’s famous religious centre is unusual, due to the hilly topography on which it was constructed. The Bapistry is oddly tucked below the Cathedral, and so, as you approach the Piazza from the direction of the Campo, you pass the entrance to the Bapistry, above which towers the walls of the Cathedral, and climb a staircase to the small Piazza surrounding the Duomo. The Siena Duomo is well-known for its unfinished skeleton “add-on” which was begun when the city embarked on a very ambitious and expensive expansion of the cathedral to the east of the Church. It was to be a massive monument of Christiandom but unfortunately the Plague descended when only part of the walls had been completed. The city, and the coffers, never recovered and the walls of the future extension now remain forever incomplete. That morning we ascended the stairs passing through one of the arches that was to have been one of the spans along the aisle of the planned transept extension and which now forms one of the walls enclosing the Piazza.

The line-up to the entrance of the zebra-striped Duomo had begun. Although we’d already spent some time examining the very beautiful sculptures and ornaments covering the façade of the church, we took advantage of the time to check out some of the interesting grotesque and magnificent figures that seemed to be leaping away from the wall of the Duomo. After a few pictures of each other taken against the unique black and cream patterned walls, bathed in sunlight, we emerged into the darkened Cathedral.

We absolutely loved the Siena Duomo, and Kathy and I agreed that of all the Italian Churches and cathedrals we had schlepped through to date, this was by far our favourite. From an architectural perspective we didn’t think that anything could top the Duomo in Florence, but we were wrong. Although the Siena Cathedral lacks the magnitude and enormity of space of the Florence cathedral and Brunelleschi’s amazing dome construction, we found that the architectural detail of the interior and the beautiful wealth of art, sculpture decorative work and detail made the Siena building far more beautiful. Although many portions of the intricate floor mosaics are covered, to preserve them, there are enough sections open for viewing to appreciate how beautiful the floor is. The intricate marble floor designs in stunning black, cream and rusty ochre colors add warmth and texture to the flooring.

The black and white stripes of marble are a stunning effect and the way the eye gets drawn up to the hexagonal gold dome interior and the beautiful blue roof dotted with gold starts gives a sense of airy height. It is when you strain your neck to look up to the lofty interior towards the roof, that you find the eerie and somewhat strange arraignment of Popes lined up, head to head, one Holy Head after another, in two rows along the entire length of the central nave - dozens of Peeking Popes looking down at the throngs of worshipers below. Maybe it was my imagination but the expressions on most of the old fellas staring down at me looked a lot less benevolent and warm and fuzzy than one might have expected from a Parade of Popes who led the holy church for centuries. Most of the busts seemed rather stern looking, and bug eyed as if to saying “We’ve got our eyes on you – yeah you there in the striped shirt, don’t think we’re not watching you!” (which I guess is exactly what the Pope’s job has always been). Maybe that was the effect they were going for at the time!

Pisano’s Pulpit is what I would call “intense” with its detail and noble lions. Trying to absorb all of the fine details of each panel on the massive pulpit was almost impossible, and it was easier to pick one or two panels and stare at them closely. I let my imagination get the better of me and wondered, if I had went to Mass one day in the 1300’s (assuming I hadn’t joined the daily pile-up on the cart rounding up the dead in the City) whether I would have been able to actually concentrate on the sermon delivered from the Priest in the Pulpit perched atop such much amazing art work, and framed by an eagle. There are also some gorgeous bronze angelic candle holders on the altar, depicting these lithe, graceful and feminine angels. As a good Catholic Boy I had flashbacks to my days as a kid at St. Patrick’s parish church – which was an ugly stone box with a fake steeple and a few faded paintings and faux-statues reproduced in the 60’s. I was usually bored silly in those youthful days waiting for the final signal from Father to exit. I wondered whether my devotional attention to Church might have been different if I had been able to attend church in a place such as the Siena Cathedral where some of the best art in the world literally envelopes you. On the other hand, who knows - maybe Sienese 7 year old boys are just as bored during the sermon when they get hauled to mass on Sundays with their Nonnas.

The Piccolomini Library is an explosion of coloured frescos covering the walls and ceilings. Donatello’s beautiful St. John the Baptist was absent from his Chapel – but we’d seen him up close, and personal, over at the Museum exhibition the day before, where he had been temporarily moved. A Michaelangelo sculpture is to be found (St. Peter) which we were not aware of. There is, of course, a statue of St. Catherine, the Patron saint of Siena, which is stunning. It always amazes me the way Renaissance sculptors create clothing drapery and folds so realistically out of a hunk of stone. There is also the famed Madonna del Voto painting surrounded in these beautiful azure blue panels in the Chigi Chapel, which is credited with miracles and the saving the City in more than one battle and from bombing by the Nazis in World War II.

All in all, we loved the Duomo and spent just over a couple of hours there. You can’t help but be amazed at what “might have been” if Siena had been able to complete the massive extension to the Cathedral had the Black Plague had not wiped out the local population in the middle of the 1300’s.

From the Cathedral, we headed back down the steps to the Baptistry “under” the Duomo. Our visit was sort of surreal. After just a few minutes had passed, we found ourselves all alone in this beautiful room, absorbing yet more beauty and especially the richly sculpted Baptismal Font by Donatello and Jacopo dell Quercia. Considering the crowds we had just left behind in the cathedral we considered it somewhat special that we were being treated to a private viewing. That is, until the strange lady entered the room and proceeded to conduct a full-voice, animated cell phone call while strolling around the room. It was bad enough that she felt the need to conduct her call in a rather large religious phone booth, (not exactly designed for the task), but because we were alone with her, it seemed all the more jarring and off-putting as her loud voice echoed around the cavernous room and bounced off the Renaissance masterpieces. It was even more absurd when she finished the call that she promptly left the room. We were baffled – this lady just HAD to come into the Siena Baptistry to place a call? I would expect Donatello would have been more than a bit miffed if he had considered that over five centuries later his beautiful ornate sculptures would have been playing second fiddle to the tiny modern day cell phone and were all but oblivious to the obtuse user of the phone.

The final stop on the morning tour of the Duomo was the Crypt. My wife, quite rightly, can’t figure out how I can visit centuries-old works of beautiful elaborate art works and stunning architectural wonders and resort to my fall-back descriptive words of “neat” and “cool”. But those were the words I used (that and “just a little bit weird”) to describe the Crypt.

The Crypt is not actually a crypt – it was a frescoed lower section of the cathedral that served as a pilgrim’s entrance. It was essentially abandoned, covered up, and partly filled in, when the Duomo’s choir was built in the upper section of the Cathedral and the Baptistry was erected. They discovered it only in 1999 and after a beautiful restoration, it opened less than 8 years ago. The architecture itself is nothing to see – except you can view, from the vantage point of the excavated space, how the massive foundations were constructed to support the huge weight of the Duomo, including the pulpit, you’ve just visited. To discover an uncovered part of architectural history was – well, it was neat. Original frescos from the period, hidden away for seven hundred years beneath the feet of the faithful have been uncovered and restored and there for us to see. That’s just cool.

Within the crypt was a collection of various relics and reliquary pieces in display cases – and this was where we stopped and stared at all the little Body Bits ornately encapsulated and displayed in fine boxes, cages, armour, trophy-like cases, and every manner of weird container. Although this was not the only location of relics and reliquary in Siena, we seemed to have stumbled upon a small assembled trove of Saintly “parts” from hither and yon. Of interest was the nearby group of academic types with notepads and portfolios who were absorbed in quiet discussion and examination of the Body Bits. There was a part of an arm and hand skeleton which looked like something from Pirates of the Caribbean because it was encased in an armoured glove. There was a case where the entire deconstructed pile of bones of some saintly person was artfully and symmetrically arranged with metal and jeweled ornaments and colored ribbons. There was a shin bone, or maybe it was a femur. And there were also assorted other unidentifiable “little Body Bits”.

Which is when Kathy and I suddenly looked at one of the displays before us, read the labels, and wondered if perhaps we had stumbled on the infamous mystery of Jesus’s missing foreskin.

We recognize that it’s more than a little weird, (and some would say disturbing) for a married couple such as we, to devote such energies to planning and saving for the vacation of a lifetime for our 25th wedding anniversary - a time when we should be happy, joyous, carefree and in vacation-mode bliss – to find ourselves in the hushed depths of an underground crypt hunched over a case containing a box-like container with a little speck of human “something-or-other” Body Bit, wondering if we were looking at foreskin. I mean, who does that on their vacation?!

We did obviously, and for those of you that aren’t immediately familiar with the story, and so that you don’t consider my lovely wife and I to be two slightly demented, off-kilter wackadoodles (the kind you sometimes encounter on city buses, travelling antique shows, or the Jerry Springer show), let me explain.

I had stumbled on David Farley’s book, “An Irreverent Curiosity : In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town” in the month before leaving on our trip. If you’re interested, it’s a hoot of a story, regarding one of the Church’s most famous, and little known, relics – the Foreskin of Jesus. Farley’s book makes a great read if you are about to tour the churches of Europe, including Italy, because he provides a fascinating outline of the history of Relics in the Catholic Church and some great tidbits of fact and legend. It is also a bit of a travel book as he visits the odd characters who reside in the Town or Calcata, where the Relic was located.

According to Farley (and admittedly he points out, some of the information about the relic is unconfirmed and a little fanciful) religious relic lore has it that the foreskin of Jesus was, as logic would seem, the one and only Body Bit that would have remained behind on the planet after He ascended to the heavens – it having been separated long before His ascension. It begs the question as to who on earth would have had the foresight that day to nab the little tidbit and say “Gee, this thing might be worth something some day”. Such is the quirky mystery of most relics I guess.

Much of Farley’s book relates to his travels to track down the facts and solve the mystery, and it takes him to the hilltop village of Calcata Italy, which eventually had ownership and control of the holy relic for years. There was even a “Siena Connection” to the famous relic as St. Catherine of Siena purportedly once wore the foreskin around her finger as a ring for a while. (I’m sorry – but as my daughters would say: “Eeeyew, ever Gross!). In the early 1900’s the Vatican sent out an edict prohibiting the inclusion of the foreskin as an acknowledged holy Relic and threatening excommunication to those who would promote it.

The discarded “covering” somehow found its way into the care of a rather interesting Priest in Calcata, where, for differing reasons, it was reportedly stored in a shoebox. It disappeared from the shoe box in 1983 and has been AWOL and unaccounted for since that time. So remains the mystery of the whereabouts of arguably the most important piece of skin on the planet.

I’m not doing justice to the quirky, fun, and rather interesting story that Farley tells, and I would highly recommend the book as an enjoyable read before a trip to Italy, particularly if you are to include a visit to see some relics (which is hard to avoid anywhere in France, Italy, Spain and much of Europe once ruled by Catholicism.

But here’s the thing that brings us to that sunny day in Siena where David and Kathy are peering intently at the little case containing the unidentifiable skin-like relic. I unfortunately had not finished Mr. Farley’s book before leaving, and so I had not pinpointed the suspected whereabouts of the missing piece of Relic-Lore, if indeed there was a trail to continue to follow. Explaining the story as best I could to Kathy, our imagination then got the best of us as we tried to figure out what we were looking at mounted on this display “thingy” in the Crypt.

Our analysis involved a checklist of sorts:

1. It was obviously a Relic of some type. – CHECK!

2. It had been described by observers as “small, dense and fuzzy”. – CHECK! It was very small, dense, and if you looked closely enough – it seemed fuzzy to us!

3. It was reputedly the size of a red chickpea. – CHECK! – it was flattened but even the least bit of imaginative sleuthing could lead one to conclude that it was definitely chickpea in size (not that we’re experts on sizing chickpeas)

4. From what I had read, the foreskin had gone missing and most likely located in some obscure, non-high profile place. – CHECK! – this little exhibition of Body Bits and reliquary artifacts in the Crypt was tucked away in a quiet forgotten corner of Siena filled with odds and ends, and if this was what we thought it was – it was indeed truly an “odd little end”

5. And, my dear Watson….most important - there were labels for the items, and we deduced that the wording seemed highly relevant to the suspected subject matter. It was unclear what items in the case the two labels were paired with, but one was: “Reliquiaro del perizoma di Cristo” and the other was “Reliquiaro a pisside”

Hmmmm we said. The fact that our Italian was abysmal only served to fuel the controversy. “di Cristo” was obviously “of Christ”. So this had some connection to the one and only JC! Could the words “perizoma” or “pisside” be Italian or Latin for foreskin? We looked around. There didn’t seem to be a live guide or help desk around to ask, and the Crypt hadn’t yet caught up with technology so there was no “Audio Guide to Body Bits” available at the door. We weren’t going to ask the nearby group of academics for help either – for fear that they would have justifiably reported us to the nearest Carabinieri. At Kathy’s suggestion, I copied the Italian labels in my Travel Journal (in the section entitled “Misc. Odds and Ends” (appropriate) – in between the sections “Things to Buy In Siena”, and “Good Places to Eat”)

And so the suspicious dried Body Bit from the crypt was to temporarily remain our Siena mystery for the time being and our curiosity remained unsatisfied.

All this amateur Reliquary brainstorming had caused us to work up an appetite and so, with that…..

…… we went off to lunch!


**** With due recognition to David Farley, “An Irreverent Curiosity”, Published by Gotham, July 2009. Check it out!

Next Installment….

PART 5 – A Satisfying Lunch with Madame and “Her” Book – Good Wine and The Warm Stones of the Campo – A Date at the Opera and Dizzying Heights – (And of course, Gelato and More Feasting).