Description
Fontebranda is Siena's most imposing fountain and the richest in water, in the Terzo di Camollia, in the Vallechiara hollow, a few steps from the gate of the same name. Three big pointed Gothic arches topped with battlements are its calling card.
The front is adorned with four lion's-head spouts and, in the middle, the coat of arms of Siena. The structure you see is the one rebuilt in brick and travertine in 1246, but the spring is mentioned as early as 1081 and was enlarged by Bellamino in 1193.
Around it lived the craftsmen of the Arte della Lana, the wool guild, who needed a lot of water for their work. The fountain originally had three basins, one after the other: the first for drinking water, the second, now buried, for watering animals, the third as a washhouse.
Then the waste water went on further: the tanners used it, the Arte dei Tintori (the dyers' guild) and the millers, as motive power for the mills along its course. Nothing was wasted.
But the best part is below. Behind the basin, over 25 kilometers of pipes wind through the sandstone underground: the bottini, barrel-vaulted tunnels about 1.75 meters high and 90 centimeters wide. In a channel on the floor, the "gorello", rainwater flows with a drop of one meter per kilometer.
The oldest branch is the main one of Fontebranda, 7.5 kilometers long; the other, 15.7 kilometers and shallower, is the Fonte Gaia branch, which feeds the famous fountain in Piazza del Campo. They have been in use since the 12th century and quenched the city's thirst until the modern aqueduct of the early 20th century.
Today you can even walk those tunnels, and the pipes still supply the city's public fountains. This is hidden Siena, the one nobody sees from Piazza del Campo.
Fontebranda is also a question of fame. For a long time people thought Dante mentioned it in the Inferno, in Canto XXX, where Master Adam, the counterfeiter, longs for cool water. But historians now think the passage refers to a small spring near the castle of Romena, in the Casentino.
Saint Catherine of Siena was born and lived near the fountain, which is why she is called the saint of Fontebranda. This is the territory of the Contrada dell'Oca.
The front is adorned with four lion's-head spouts and, in the middle, the coat of arms of Siena. The structure you see is the one rebuilt in brick and travertine in 1246, but the spring is mentioned as early as 1081 and was enlarged by Bellamino in 1193.
Around it lived the craftsmen of the Arte della Lana, the wool guild, who needed a lot of water for their work. The fountain originally had three basins, one after the other: the first for drinking water, the second, now buried, for watering animals, the third as a washhouse.
Then the waste water went on further: the tanners used it, the Arte dei Tintori (the dyers' guild) and the millers, as motive power for the mills along its course. Nothing was wasted.
But the best part is below. Behind the basin, over 25 kilometers of pipes wind through the sandstone underground: the bottini, barrel-vaulted tunnels about 1.75 meters high and 90 centimeters wide. In a channel on the floor, the "gorello", rainwater flows with a drop of one meter per kilometer.
The oldest branch is the main one of Fontebranda, 7.5 kilometers long; the other, 15.7 kilometers and shallower, is the Fonte Gaia branch, which feeds the famous fountain in Piazza del Campo. They have been in use since the 12th century and quenched the city's thirst until the modern aqueduct of the early 20th century.
Today you can even walk those tunnels, and the pipes still supply the city's public fountains. This is hidden Siena, the one nobody sees from Piazza del Campo.
Fontebranda is also a question of fame. For a long time people thought Dante mentioned it in the Inferno, in Canto XXX, where Master Adam, the counterfeiter, longs for cool water. But historians now think the passage refers to a small spring near the castle of Romena, in the Casentino.
Saint Catherine of Siena was born and lived near the fountain, which is why she is called the saint of Fontebranda. This is the territory of the Contrada dell'Oca.