ancient cities

18 Almshouses
are also safe to travel in the countryside without
fear. Communes like Siena often controlled large
areas of the contado, which they depended on for
agriculture, trade, and access to wider markets. All
these functions are shown taking place in
Lorenzetti’s rural landscape. An actual window on
the south wall looks out onto the cultivated fields
beyond, linking the painted and the real.
Bad Government and Its Effects
If peace and justice are the operative conditions
of the good city, violence and fear are the conditions
in its opposite. In the fresco of Bad Government
and Its Effects on the west wall, evil Tyranny presides
over a collection of Vices (antipodes of the
Virtues) and Fear, who are behind the disarray and
decay of the buildings, the violence in the streets
and incessant war in the countryside. Justice is
bound at the feet of Tyranny; there is no figure of
Concordia. Buildings decay or display wanton
regard for the planning restrictions Siena had
enacted. Swords and daggers are drawn, and disorderly
mercenaries roam the streets and countryside,
meaning no work is done in either. In these centuries
of constant warfare, the images depicted here
would have been familiar to the people of Siena.
See also Florence, Italy; Medieval Town Design;
Rome, Italy
Further Readings
David Mayernik
Cunningham, Dolin. 1995. “For the Honour and Beauty
of the City: The Design of Town Halls.” Pp. 29–54 in
Siena, Florence, and Padua: Art, Society and Religion
1280-1400, edited by D. Norman. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.
Frugoni, Chiara. 1991. A Distant City: Images of Urban
Experience in the Medieval World. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Mayernik, David. 2003. Timeless Cities: An Architect’s
Reflections on Renaissance Italy. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Nevola, Fabrizio. 2008. Siena: Constructing the Renaissance
City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Norman, Diana. 1995. “‘Love Justice, You Who Judge
the Earth’: The Paintings of the Sala dei Nove in the
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.” Pp. 145–68 in Siena,
Florence, and Padua: Art, Society and Religion
1280-1400, edited by D. Norman. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.
Syson, Luke, ed. 2008. Renaissance Siena: Art for a City.
London: National Gallery.
White, John. 1987. Art and Architecture in Italy:
1250–1400. New York: Penguin Books.
Al m s H o u s e s
Boston (ca. 1685), Philadelphia, and New York
(the 1730s) were the first cities in the United States
to establish almshouses (also called poorhouses).
Almshouses were initially supported with a combination
of poor taxes and private donations and
originally intended to temporarily house community
members who were of good character but who
were “unfortunate” and who had no family to support
them: the poor, the elderly, abandoned or
illegitimate children, the injured, or the insane or
mentally defective. Almshouses supplemented, and
occasionally replaced, the older “outdoor” relief
system of payments in cash or goods to relatives of
the afflicted or to community members who offered
to take responsibility for paupers’ support. In some
areas (e.g., New York City’s outlying counties, and
in parts of New Jersey), overseers alternated
between outdoor relief and housing the poor in
rented or purchased residences, depending on how
many folk were in need of care and how much
money the town had to spend. Private aid from
religious organizations or charitable organizations
existed alongside institution-based aid, but focused
on particular categories of need (e.g., their own
congregations, widows, orphans, prostitutes).
Almshouses played a range of important roles
in the social, economic, and political lives of both
urban and rural communities. In addition to aiding
the poor, poorhouses provided jobs for many of
the working poor who would otherwise have been
dependent on poor relief. The institutions worked
to lower their operating costs by selling manufactured
goods and by exchanging goods and produce
with local residents. As public institutions, almshouses
served as foci for debates over the use of
public funds, the conduct of local elections,
responses to crises such as epidemics, and other
issues of concern to the public.