A [Brief] History of Siena

So since I've been waking up at weird hours (I went to bed at 10:30 local time, and it's 5:30 now. Yesterday I woke up at 2 and before that 4:30 - both times managed to fall back to sleep eventually), I figured I'd write a bit about Siena and why it's an awesome old city. If this doesn't sound interesting, tough luck, why are you my friend since I adore history, but you can just skip to the bottom. I'll mention my host Nonna down there.

In the beginning - a long-ass time ago, Siena was an Etruscan city-thing. I say city-thing because I am unfamiliar with the Etruscans as of yet, and so I'm not really sure how city-like it was compared to just place-people-live-like. The Etruscans were the dudes who lived 'round here before the Romans came and converted (to Roman-ness! not necessarily a religion...) them. The impression I got was that the Etruscans didn't really mind too much being converted, but that might just be Italian prejudice. 

Anyway, after that Siena was super popular for a fairly long time because it was on the Roman-Super-Highway that went all over Europe and the best city North of Rome. Apparently Germany was barbaric and uncivilized by Roman standards at this point, so besides some cities in France, Siena was the place to be. So haha, Siena has always been a tourist stop. The Sienese were clever, and tried to attract the pilgrims going to Rome (durr, this is after the Roman Empire collapses, maybe like a flan in a cupboard, maybe not [bonus points if you get that reference], and now we've got the Pope and the seat of Christianity in Rome). 

Then they did something super clever - they built a hospital. Apparently in the Middle Ages, people were having a hard time with the contagious part of sick, and thought, 'Whelp, Bob's arm is falling off 'cause he picked his nose at dinner and God is smiting him.' But Siena apparently built the first modern type hospital (they also claim the first modern bank, but I believe that was years and years later) to keep the sickies away from the healthy people. So that was awesome. 

Of course, if you know anything about Italy in the Middle ages, you will remember that there's this period of warring city states. Everybody has a wall, and everything within the wall is very self-sufficient, and it was every man for himself (and his city...). Siena even has green areas that used to be emergency farms. But they seemed to do pretty well. For a while, Siena had a bunch of rich families who had their own mini-fortresses within the larger city walls and they fought each other regularly - like boiling-oil-down-your-neck fighting.

Medieval cities tend to look like this. Siena is particularly hilly. See the emergency farm on the left?

But then they got this Council of 9, who are sort of elected - I say sort of because it's only the rich people doing the voting, but apparently if you study democracy you look at Siena for sure because they each represented a portion of the population like the merchants and the metal workers and blah blah. So I'm told. Anyway, they're the ones who actually built the Campo and the Palazzo Pubblico (that's where the horse races are today). And they manage to keep everyone happy by throwing a big party every year and doing gruesome things like bear-baiting. One game involved dropping a block of wood and having the best knights try to get it (killing each other in the processes, if need be, and you know it needed to be) and take it out of the Campo. 

The most popular though, and this eventually developed into the horse race, so see if you can find the steps, was that these huge dudes would carry huge candles (like the size of smaller dudes) from one of the big gates into the city up to the church and whoever lit the candle first won. I know, you are thinking 'What the heck, how do we get to horse races from here?!' Well. It starts with a big long line for a race being inefficient for the watchers - you can't see the whole race, you have to pick a place to stand and you only get to see a little bit. Remember it's not necessarily important who wins, but the fun, brutal stuff that happens before that. So in no particular order, because I can't remember if one came first and if so what, they made some changes. They tried having bulls pull the candles, but that went badly because they smashed into things like the audience. They tried having horses race pulling smaller candles, but horses don't know why they're racing. So they put a dude on top, and eventually lost the candle. Then they thought they'd do it in the Campo, because it would be in a circle, and they'd have the people stand in the middle, everyone would be happy. Ta da!

This is the Elephant Contrada.

I suppose it's worth mentioning that the way the Contrade developed (the 17 areas of the city) was that the Council of 9 divided the city into 50 some odd parts a long time ago and gave each part a section of the city wall to defend. It ended up working really well, except that it sort of divided the city into little microcosms. But then the plague hit in 1342 (I think my date is right, don't be mad if it isn't) and only one in every 3 people lived, so they shrunk the areas down since the city was way smaller. And then at some point, the Contrade started racing instead of just rich dudes. So there you go. The origins of the Palio.

Anyway, the last bit of Sienese history is that at some point, Florence and various other kings and countries and so forth took over. And by 'took over' I mean 'extracted taxes', but Siena stayed mostly the same, since the overlord dudes just wanted money and could care less if the Sienese wanted to do weird festivals where they raced around carrying or not carrying shit and killing each other a little bit. 

Thus ends the History of Siena lesson. I hope you were all taking notes, there will be a test. The following is a brief explanation of my host Nonna and some pictures. 

My host family, as I believe I mentioned before is one little old lady. Her name is Maura - she has a son (grown up) named Andrea (not pronounced like the English girl's name, but ahn-DREh-ah), a daughter who's name I don't know but who has a son named Matteo and a husband named Massimo. Very Italian names. Maura makes me breakfast every morning - so far it's mostly just cereal and a bit of fruit. I also get an adorable packed lunch - un panino (which is just a sandwich, not grilled or whatever) and a piece or two of fruit. It's all wrapped up in paper towel and tinfoil and in a little bag. It is the most adorable.

I also get dinner between 7 and 8 every day. Yesterday was the best so far - pasta with pesto (I am going to guess homemade, because I had to help her open the jar and it was not a store jar) and pizza. Just with tomato sauce and some cheese and some onions. I don't know if she made it herself - it was the shape of her pan, and it was in the oven, but I suppose that means nothing. It's not strange that I don't know, because class gets out fairly late, and yesterday I went to see St. Catherine's shrivelled head after class before going home. Either way, it was the best. 

In addition, Maura seems to really like me. She calls me 'tresore' and 'cara' or 'carina' which means 'treasure', 'sweet', and 'little sweetie' respectively (and somewhat roughly). So that's good. I'm supposed to tell the family that she's taking good care of me, and not to worry about me. Which is true. My Italian is appalling but we seem to communicate pretty well. Somehow, we managed to have a conversation about Afghanistan yesterday - the Italians are also there. 

Anyway, I think that's about all I've got to say for now. You guys are lucky, all these posts coming your way. I suppose in theory they'll drop off once my 3 weeks of Intensive Italian starts for real - 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. Yelch. Buuut at the end we get to go skiing in the Alps for a few days. NO BIG DEAL. 

Seriously, if anyone wants to drop me an email, I would not say no to some good old fashioned American gossip, or just a friendly hello from Canada or the States. It's strange, because the days are amazing, but it gets a little lonely at night. I am simultaneously super excited, super nervous, and super missing everyone back home. 

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