Church San Cristoforo - Siena

Chiesa San Cristoforo is a Roman Catholic church, located in Piazza Tolomei. Across the square is Palazzo Tolomei, one of the city's oldest buildings. The Tolomei were associated with the church for many years.

The original Romanesque church with a Latin cross was originally built in the 11th-12th centuries. Traces of Romanesque columns remain in the adjacent small cloister.

In the 13th century, the cloister was where the council of the nascent Republic of Siena was held. It is said that in 1260 a meeting between the Council of 24 and Florentine ambassadors took place here. The latter demanded that Siena break through its walls and allow Florentine fortresses in each Terzo. These heavy demands forced the former to decide that war with Florence was inevitable, and they fired the ambassadors, preparing for war. They recognized the need to hire German mercenaries from Count Giordano d'Anglano, Vicar to King Manfred, but he lacked the resources. Hearing this, Salimbene Salimbeni, banker and founder of an early branch of the future Monte dei Paschi, walked only to his nearby house, and returned to this monastery with the wheelbarrow full of 118,000 florins. The mercenaries proved essential to the Sienese victory at the Battle of Montaperti.

Also in this church, Saint Catherine of Siena is said to have been able to force a reconciliation of a bitter feud between the Maconi and Tolomei/Rimaldini families in 1376. In the presence of the warring factions, she entered a trance-like ecstasy while praying at an altar.

The church underwent a number of changes, most prominently after the earthquake of 1798. In 1800, a brick neoclassical temple facade with four columns and tympanum, designed by Tommaso and Francesco Paccagnini, was added. In the niches flanking the entrance are statues (1802) of Saint Bernardo Tolomei and Blessed Nera Tolomei, works by Giuseppe Silini.

Inside the church are a Madonna and Child with Saints Luke and Romuald (circa 1508) by Girolamo del Pacchia, a fresco of the Pietà and the instruments of the Passion by Martino di Bartolomeo, and a marble group of statues depicting the Glory of the Saint Christoffel (1693) by Giovanni Antonio Mazzuoli.

Glory of Saint Christopher
In the room are a Madonna and Child from the fifteenth-century school of Della Robbia, a Saint George and the Dragon and a Saint Christopher, attributed to either the master of the Osservanza triptych, believed to be the same person. is like Sano di Pietro; and a tondo of the Madonna and Child by the master of San Pietro a Ovile.

Willem Vandenameele