"Per Ornato Della Citt[grave{a}]": Siena's Strada Romana and Fifteenth-Century Urban Renewal

About one and a half miles (two and a half kilometers) long, the Strada Romana is made up of the main city streets; from the north and south gates (Camollia and Romana; Fig. 3: nos. 1, 16), it leads to the city government and commercial center on the Gampo (Fig. 3: no. 12), following a natural course along the ridge of the lower part of the hills on which Siena is built. The street avoided the highest, and oldest, parts of the city the Castelvecchio and Duomo precincts (Fig. 3: nos. 9, 10). These were connected to the Campo from the Croce del Travaglio (Fig. 3: no. 7) by the Via di Citt[grave{a}], a natural extension of part of the Strada Romana, which terminates in the route-hub of the Piazza Postierla (Fig. 3: no. 9) [31] From the Groce, the Strada Romana skirts the edge of the Campo and continues south through the city to the Porta Romana. To this day, the street names of the central portion of the Strada Romana refer to the banking activities that distinguished them, the Banchi di Sopra north of the Cam po (Fig. 3: between nos. 5 and 7) and the Banchi di Sotto to the east (Fig. 3: between nos. 7 and 13).

In addition to routine maintenance of the Strada Romana, from the early fifteenth century the commune increasingly pursued a policy of urban regeneration and renewal principally focused around the street. In 1423, coinciding with the move of the ecclesiastical Council of Pavia to Siena, laws were passed, to be implemented by officials called the Petroni, that attempted to force owners of derelict houses to restore them "for the honor and order of the city." [32] Such plans were carried out under threat of confiscation of properties not restored within six months. [33] These early measures appear to have been ineffective, although following the reissue of the ruling in 1444, over two hundred properties pinpointed for restoration were repaired. [34] Eventually, in 1471, the commune offered direct subsidies for the restoration of confiscated derelict properties, which would subsequently be resold to fund the scheme. [35] Public funds were made available both because of the "great dishonor" that derelict buildin gs brought on the city and because of a growing need for housing. [36] That public funds supported such a project is in itself remarkable, since the costs for public works in Italian towns, such as street and fountain maintenance, were usually assigned to residents of a street or neighborhood groups. [37]

Part of the reason that the commune offered assistance for private construction must have been the practical desire to see policies implemented. As the Petroni's work on restoring derelict houses shows, the commune evidently felt that immediate action was needed to renew the city fabric; it seems that financial incentives were the only means of encouraging individuals to invest in modernizing their houses at considerable personal expense and inconvenience. Moreover, while the work of street maintenance and the restoration of derelict properties was entrusted to preexisting public offices, from the middle of the fifteenth century facade renewals and other government-subsidized aesthetic improvements to individual buildings were overseen by a newly founded office, the Ufficiali sopra all'Ornato. [38]