The goose coming from the habit to grow goose for alimentary use and for their feathers.
Golden badge with a goose standing on a green garden surmounted by a royal crown, at its neck a blue ribbon from which the silver Savoy cross with at its interior the red and silver cross of Umbert I, allowed during his trip of 1887.
White and green flag bordered in red.
Clangit ad arma (Call to arms).
Shrewdness.
Dyers
9
Saint Catherine from Siena, April 29 (celebrated on the second Sunday of May).
Camollia
"Trieste", Via Santa Caterina, 55
Vicolo del Tiratoio, 13
via Santa Caterina, 65
Built between 1464 and 1474 from the inhabitants of Fontebranda, inside the first floor of the house where Saint Catherine was born.
Already in 1462 Niccolò di Bartolomeo Borghesi left 200 florins for an "altar to be erected in the future oratory of Santa Caterina". Subsequent concessions to the companies of Sant'Antonio and San Pellegrino by the Municipality were destined for the erection of the oratory in the birthplace of Caterina; in 1470 it was half built and the Contrada asked for another grant of 400 florins.
A few years later the work was finished, also thanks to subscriptions among the "habitators", and it was, in addition to a place of worship towards "our Nina" as the goosemen say, also a meeting and assembly place for the Contradaioli.
Many high quality frescoes still exist and in good condition. "Sodoma" and Girolamo del Pacchia worked on it (frescoes on the wall behind the altar); Vincenzo Tamagni and Ventura Salimbeni.
On the altar, erected in 1679, the polychrome wooden statue specially sculpted by Neroccio di Bartolomeo in 1475 for 31 lire is preserved (and loved by goose goers... Another wooden statue of the Saint of the Goose is located in the adjacent sacristy ( o Chapel of the Madonna); it is attributed, by Michèl Flusin, to the Vecchietta school.
It has remained for centuries in the niche dug next to Fontebranda from where it was taken and, by the ocaioli, restored and transferred (after many vicissitudes) to its current location. Considered the iconography, different from the classic one (the Saint holds her heart in her left hand instead of the lily), it is thought that the fact may date the birth of the work in the mid-fifteenth century when a theological dispute arose, on this matter, between Dominicans and Franciscans.
The facade of the oratory is no longer the original one: in 1877 Giuseppe Partini and Leopoldo Maccari built "a faithful reproduction of the facade... which had come into a very bad being". The relief on the lunette, depicting the Saint, is attributed to Urbano da Cortona. At the top were the coats of arms of the Republic, the Municipality and the People of Siena as well as the coat of arms of the Contrada.
Previous oratories:
- Saint Anthony in Fontebranda (from the middle of the 15th century to 1475).
The Contrada baptism take place in the Fontebranda fountain (XII-XIII Century) situated in the same street.