In the Siena episode of Journey by Moonlight, Mihály and Millicent “make the rounds of Siena’s gates, while Mihály drinks in the view and the narrow sweetness of the Tuscan landscape”:
“One of the gates bore the inscription Cor magis tibi Sena pandit — Siena opens your heart even more. Here even the gates speak wisely and truly: Siena opens your heart more, to fill it with life’s simple and light intoxication and desire, as befits the veiled beauty of the season.”
A traveler following in the footsteps of Mihály — and of Antal Szerb himself — can still find that very gate with its inscription today. It doesn’t take long to locate, for it is Siena’s most historically important northern entrance.
The gate’s name is Porta Camollia. Its origin goes back to the small settlement that, around the year 1000, grew from scattered farms into Siena’s suburb called Camollia, where a fortified gate was already mentioned in 1082. Yet Siena’s mythology attributes to it a far more noble beginning. It tells that Siena was founded by Senius and Aschius, the sons of Remus, one of the twin brothers suckled by the she-wolf of Rome. When Romulus’ soldiers killed their father — for mocking the newly built Roman walls by leaping over them — the two sons fled north. Fearing revenge, Romulus sent his captain Camulius to bring them back. But the boys not only talked him out of it; they convinced him to stay, and with his men he founded Siena’s Camulia quarter and fortified its gate.
Through this gate entered the road formed just a few miles earlier by the meeting of two ancient routes: the Via Francigena, the old pilgrimage road from Canterbury to the Holy Land, whose traffic made hundreds of towns flourish from the Alps down to Bari; and the Via Cassia, which ran from Florence, the Tuscan capital, through Siena on its way to Rome.
For centuries the gate looked upon these two roads with very different eyes. The Via Francigena brought wealth, merchants, generous pilgrims, and the elegance of French Gothic. The Via Cassia brought enemies — most notably Siena’s eternal rival, Florence, which had to be repelled again and again: first at Montaperti in 1260, then at Valdichiana in 1363. The third time, Siena was not so lucky. In 1555, Cosimo de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, conquered the city after a long siege and desperate defense. Most of the walls were destroyed, and Porta Camollia was reduced to rubble.
In the following years, Siena’s walls and gates were gradually rebuilt as the city was integrated into the Tuscan Grand Duchy. Porta Camollia was reconstructed in 1604, when Grand Duke Ferdinando de’ Medici made a ceremonial visit to the city. For the occasion, Siena had to rebuild its northern gate — now facing Florence not as an enemy, but as a benevolent lord. The city commissioned Alessandro Casolani to paint and Domenico Cafaggi to sculpt it. The new gate no longer regarded those coming from Florence as enemies, but rather as well-disposed visitors—just as Ferdinando himself proved to be. The gate’s façade was adorned with the Medici coat of arms, and beneath it was inscribed the greeting: Cor magis tibi Sena pandit.
The Latin motto can be translated in several ways — all of them grammatically correct. Antal Szerb links cor with tibi: Siena “opens your heart more.” More than what, exactly? Back in our university Latin classes, we were taught to shake a sentence until every piece of it made sense. Yet here, the comparison simply doesn’t. More than what does Siena opens your heart?
This phrase becomes clear only in its historical context. The artists designed the gate for a specific moment — the grand duke’s first entrance into the city. The message was for him: Cor Sena tibi — Siena opens its heart to you even more — that is, even wider than the gate itself standing open before him.
Siena opens its heart to you even more. Grand Duke Ferdinando is long gone, as is the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. No visitors from Florence need be flattered anymore. Yet we can still take the phrase personally — not merely in Szerb’s loose interpretation, but in spirit. Siena truly does open its heart to anyone who enters through any of its gates with curiosity and attention.
As Siena’s own great writer Federigo Tozzi once said: “A Siena ci sono vicoli e piazze da levarti il respiro e riempirti il cuore.” – “In Siena there are streets and squares that take your breath away and fill your heart.”
Siena seen from outside the Roman Gate, along the Via Francigena
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