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rotund: too many comfits and sweetmeats nibbled out of unhappiness. But this morning she had no time to think of her vanity. She ran her hands through her cropped greying hair. She was suddenly in too much of a hurry to call her waiting women and begin her lengthy dressing process, too impatient to wait for the placing and powdering of her heavy wig. Instead she grabbed the great black-and-white banner of the Palio, which had been brought to her room from the piazza where she had dropped it. She suspected her household did not really know what to do with it. Technically the Eagle contrada had won; even though their horse Berio had crossed the finish line with no rider, the victory still held. But she could understand
why the Eagles had neglected to collect their banner – there was no triumph to be had in such a win. Violante wrapped the heavy silk around herself like a robe. She put on a simple lace cap and tied it under her chin, took her oil lamp and crept barefoot down the stairs to the centre of Siena – the very heart of the palace and the city itself. She opened the heavy doors and reached her destination.
    The Hall of the Nine was built to celebrate the long-dead republican government, the nine Sienese men from the greatest families. It was the government that she had supposedly replaced, but it was also the government that still existed here in reality. She needed to look back to look forward, and in this place the very walls themselves would tell her what she must do. For here, adorning the walls, were the three wondrous frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti – the Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government , each depicting a view of Siena and its countryside.
    She had lived with these paintings for ten years, had held receptions, councils and colloquies here; she had looked at them ten thousand times but never truly seen . Now, in the faint dim of the dawn, she tracked her lamp around the walls, the flame throwing a warm disc of light upon the details. She examined every brushstroke at close quarters. She wanted to learn what she must do.
    Violante looked to her left. In the representation of good government, the prosperous townspeople were trading and dancing in the streets. Beyond the city walls a lush countryside could be seen in which abundant golden crops were harvested. In the allegory of bad government, crime was rampant and diseased citizens roamed a
crumbling city. The countryside without the walls was parched and bleak, suffering from the killing thirst of drought. Over all, a white-faced Devil with ivory horns presided, black-robed, with a dish of blood in his hands and a goat at his feet. His aquiline features reminded her of Faustino Caprimulgo. She shivered and could not meet the Devil’s yellow eyes.
    Violante took a few paces back to look at the two frescoes together and tried to think straight. The paintings showed the two faces of the city, the black and the white. Siena’s very flag, the Balzana, was a slab of white atop a slab of black, each half equal to the other. But now under her rule it was as if the flag seemed inverted, that the black was riding in triumph. How could she transform it, how could she make the white half win, how could she emulate the stable republican government of the Nine that she saw depicted here? Who could defeat the Devil in his own dance hall? She shuddered and drew the silk of the Palio closer round her shoulders.
    Violante shifted her lamp to the third painting. Here, flanked by the depictions of the black-and-white city, was a central panel. And here she found hope. Here, in the centre, where a grim-faced judge, like Christ, separated the saved from the damned, was inspiration. For here, Justice was depicted as a woman. She gestured to the scales of balance, held by the personification of Wisdom floating over her throne. It was the figure of Justice who decided whether to condemn or be merciful for, on her right, a convicted criminal was beheaded; on the left,