666 Siger of Brabant
Siena remained independent, however, until the mid-16th
century, when it was taken after a difficult and devastat-
ing siege by the Florentines and Spanish in 1555.
CULTURESiena also produced a fine artistic and architectural tradi-
tion as reflected in the artistic achievement of DUCCIO,
Simone MARTINI, the LORENZETTIbrothers, and SASSETTA.
It was a great center of Italian civic and Gothic art. Its
cathedral, begun in the 12th century, has maintained
much of its 14th-century adornment. The 13th-century
town hall and the paved piazza from the 14th century in
front of it have long been among the most famous in
Europe. Its rich religious culture also produced two of
the most popular saints of the later Middle Ages, CATHER-
INEand BERNARDINO.
Further reading:William M. Bowsky, A Medieval Ital-
ian Commune: Siena under the Nine, 1287–1355(Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1981); William Caferro,
Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena(Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Bruce Cole,
Sienese Painting, from Its Origins to the Fifteenth Century
(New York: Harper & Row, 1980); Edward D. English,
Enterprise and Liability in Sienese Banking, 1230–1350
(Cambridge: Medieval Academy of America, 1988);
Diana Norman, Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a
Late Medieval City State(New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1999); Daniel Waley, Siena and the Sienese in
the Thirteenth Century(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991).Siger of Brabant(ca. 1235/40–1284)philosopher who
sparked conflict through his use of Aristotelian ideas
Born in BRABANTbetween 1235 and 1240, Siger studied
at the arts faculty of the University of PARISjust as the
works of ARISTOTLEwere becoming available. Not a
cleric, he became a master there between 1260 and 1265.
His first work set out a version of Aristotelian psychol-
ogy that was inspired by IBN RUSHD (Averroës) and
incompatible with Christian doctrine. It presented the
SOULas a separate substance, eternal as one intellect for
the whole human race which completed the body but
was not its substantial form. Siger’s Averroism actually
derived from the interpretations of Ibn Rushd by such
theologians as Robert Kilwardby (d. 1279), BONAVEN-
TURE, and Thomas AQUINAS. Despite this Siger was iden-
tified as the leader of a rational approach or of “LatinSiena, Piazza del Campo, town hall (Palazzo Pubblico) (Courtesy Library of Congress)