Siena, the story of a mediaeval commune . l palace:they employ the same materials of construction with afrank preference for brick; they exhibit the same Gothicornaments; but each one is so entirely free in its use ofwhat it borrows that the result never fails to be artisticand original. Concerning the Tolomei palace, andconcerning it alone, a doubt may reasonably be enter-tained touching the asserted derivation from the PalazzoPubblico. The residence of the Tolomei, perhapsthe most wonderful of all by reason of the union of greatsimplicity with fine proportions, is declared by an ancientchron
Siena, the story of a mediaeval commune . l palace:they employ the same materials of construction with afrank preference for brick; they exhibit the same Gothicornaments; but each one is so entirely free in its use ofwhat it borrows that the result never fails to be artisticand original. Concerning the Tolomei palace, andconcerning it alone, a doubt may reasonably be enter-tained touching the asserted derivation from the PalazzoPubblico. The residence of the Tolomei, perhapsthe most wonderful of all by reason of the union of greatsimplicity with fine proportions, is declared by an ancientchronicler to have been begun in the year 1208, thatis, several generations before the palace on the Campo.*The same chronicler speaks, too, of subsequent injuriessuffered through fire and political malice. The evi-dence still supplied to the eye would seem to show thatthere was an early Romanesque palace from which thepresent structure derives its general frame of stone, * Muratori, XV, Cronaca Sanese, ad annum. Fecesi el Palagio Wrought-iron Gate of the Chapel of the Palazzo Pubblico THE CIVIC SPIRIT 303 especially the tall first story and the fine lions of thelintels, but that it underwent important changes in thefourteenth century, when it received its Gothic im-print, noticeable, above all, in the windows with theirgraceful tracery. A bod} of courageous citizens, who had built throughgenerations and with many sacrifices a cathedral and amunicipal residence, were sure to address themselveswith proportionate energy to all minor public among them in a city situated like Siena were thefountains. They had received the care of the parishesand neighborhood associations long before there wasa commune, and, naturally, with the rise of the com-mune, their improvement became one of the chiefobjects of the new government. In fact, among theearliest notices we possess of Siena is a reference toFonte Branda. An inscription, still imbedded in thewall of this fountain,
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