Italy Travel And Hotel Guide

Monasteries were essentially rural until the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the intent of an exclusively meditative retreat was displaced by the preaching orders of friars. Suddenly, in the space of a few decades, orders began to found monasteries on the periphery of the major Italian cities. In Siena the two greatest orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans, located themselves respectively to the west and east. San Domenico , a vast brick church west of Piazza Matteotti (daily: April-Oct 7am-1pm & 3-6.30pm; Nov-March 9am-1pm & 3-6pm; www.essentia.org/basilicacateriniana ), was founded in 1125 and is closely identified with St Catherine of Siena . Inside on the right is a raised chapel with a contemporary portrait of the fear by her friend Andrea Vanni. Her own chapel, on the south side of the enormous, airy nave has frescoes by Sodoma of her swooning (to the left of the altar) and in ecstasy (to the right), as well as a reliquary containing her head. The Casa Santuario di Santa Caterina - St Catherine’s family house, where she lived as a Dominican nun - is just south of the church, down the hill on Via Santa Caterina (daily: summer 9am-12.30pm & 2.30-6pm; winter 9am-12.30pm & 3.30-6pm; free). The building has been much adapted, with a Renaissance loggia and a series of oratories - one on the site of her cell. At the bottom of the hill, through the Oca (Goose) contrada , is the Fonte Branda , the best-preserved of Siena’s medieval fountains and, according to Sienese folklore, the haunt of werewolves, who would throw themselves into the water at dawn to return in human form.

Tags: brick church, decades, dominicans, franciscans, friars, italian cities, meditative retreat, monasteries, periphery, piazza matteotti, siena, thirteenth century