Forever Two Wheels Siena

‘The Vanishing Point’ and Keeping Your Balance in an Old Town

“Jimmy Kowalski: Listen, I need some gas.

Vision Quest Indian: You need more than gas to get where you’re going.” – Vanishing Point, 1971

There are motorcycles and bicycles everywhere on the picturesque, medieval streets of Siena, Italy. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site, which means it has rules about preserving local history. Four-wheel vehicle parking lots are strategically located out of the way, and motorists that park there are expected to switch to two wheels or walk. Siena is the most intact medieval city in Europe, and like other Tuscan hill towns, was first settled in the time of the Etruscans (c. 900–400 BC) when it was inhabited by a tribe called the Saina (there are still traditional basement restaurants in Siena with Etruscan vaulted ceilings). A Roman town called Saena Julia was founded at the site in the time of the Emperor Augustus.  Siena acquired a Gothic appearance between the 12th and 15th centuries, which has remained its flavor through the centuries. The visual contrast between modern two-wheel transport and the narrow old streets with 700-year old buildings provides food for thought about the pros and cons of different eras.

Life changed dramatically in Siena during the Plague years (1340s) when the city lost half of its population. Some say the Plague forever handicapped Siena’s development, freezing it in time and enabling its nearby rival Florence to thrive during the Renaissance (1400-1600), where a critical mass of cultural, scientific and artistic innovation erupted via the minds and hands of daVinci, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi and others who re-wrote the script of Western engineering, art, scientific endeavor and thought.

That script is continually rewritten, and people who ride motorcycles share a common intelligence in their forward motion that harks back to Siena and Florence, the Renaissance and its cast of innovators. Riders have learned to focus, eyes ahead through the turns, pushing, almost floating within an undisturbed line of sight towards what is called the vanishing point. Without this critical awareness of perspective and movement through three-dimensional space, riders would lose their bearings and fall calamitously to the ground. It’s hard to believe but the way we perceive space today and how we maintain our balance is the byproduct of a long historical process[1].

Axial Perspective as it is known – the awareness of being integrated into an axis and line of sight towards the vanishing point – is not innate, it is a practiced, nuanced skill. An understanding of one’s surrounding space with a fore, middle and background was first pondered by the Egyptians, then pursued by Greeks and Romans, then suppressed by the Church in the Middle Ages [2], but was finally rediscovered by artists and architects in 14^th Century Renaissance, in Siena and Florence. It was almost as if people hadn’t noticed the dynamic of perspective, and hadn’t integrated it into their sense of self.  But this new way of seeing revolutionized how people oriented themselves, passed through space and experienced their world. With this novel and powerful spatial appreciation, a more sophisticated sense of balance followed [3]. Over time, encouraged by experimentation in individual transport, two-wheeled innovations developed because of lessons learned during the Renaissance – the act of balance required to control a bicycle or motorcycle would have been difficult without them.

A line can be drawn between people riding two-wheeled vehicles today, the balancing skills required, and the first 14^th century graphic examples of axial, vanishing point perspective.  At the beginning of the Renaissance a new perception about how objects fit into space, and the surrounding depth of that space, dawned. This insight was not a simple realization, but an evolutionary and revolutionary awareness.  The legendary art theorist John Berger explored the act of perception in his seminal book, “Ways of Seeing” (1972). He summarized that in reality, our perception of the world recedes and eventually vanishes because two parallel lines (like railroad tracks) appear to us to approach one another into the distance and then meet at a point – the vanishing point trick makes a picture recede into its surface in imitation of our perceptions of reality.[4]

Siena painter Duccio di Buoninsegna was active from at least 1278 until his death in Siena before August 3, 1319. He is considered a key figure in the early stages of the Renaissance but is not generally credited with using a true vanishing point in his paintings. The concept of linear perspective, including the vanishing point, was not widely developed until the early 15th century and is generally credited to the architect, Filippo Brunelleschi. His Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence, constructed from 1419 to 1459 is an instructional masterclass in axial perspective. Upon completion, people who first visited the basilica became dizzy and felt disoriented by the converging vanishing point sight lines that were in the floor, walls and ceiling [5]. A visit to the cathedral became a seductive, overwhelming and giddy learning experience. Something maybe close to the giddiness a person feels the first time they experiences riding a motorcycle.

The 53,000 citizens of Siena continue to live in their spatial history. Every day after dinner, like clockwork, people emerge from their homes into the streets for La Passeggiata, or evening stroll. They walk through their neighborhoods, talk with neighbors and touch base about the day. The ritual of La Passeggiata is literally thousands of years old and dates to the Renaissance. Ritual and movement have always been a part of life in Siena. Important historic events have shaped life in the city.  The Via Francogena or Great Pilgrim Route is the oldest pilgrimage route that crosses Europe. Originating in 1000AD, Christian devotees walked from Canterbury England to Rome and the route passed through the center of Siena. This route acted to transit cross-cultural information from different European areas through the city.

Movement in the form of horse racing on Siena city streets has a long history. Best known to foreigners is the Palio of Siena, the racing dates from 1232. The Palio was first held in 1482 as a civic celebration. The current course was formally established in 1659 and has been held semiannually on July 2 and on August 16 since 1701, except during wartime. The 17 city neighborhoods known as contrade compete today just as vigorously as the 1400s. Each neighborhood identifies with an animal like the eagle, caterpillar, dragon or snail, and flies a historic identifying flag.

Since the early 20^th Century, Siena has distinguished itself with moto-history. The Mille Miglia is an annual vintage car race that blows through the city’s streets every June. It is a re-enactment of a race that took place from 1927 to 1957 and is considered one of the most important time trial races in the world for vintage car enthusiasts. The race starts and ends in Brescia, Lombardy, and spans over four days to cross the North and center of Italy. Eligible cars must date from 1927-1957 and the route courses through Siena and its Piazza del Campo (said to be the most beautiful piazza in Italy). Race participants arrive in the piazza where town people and guests get to review the beauty and pedigree of the cars. The vintage competition is a celebration of motoring heritage, and the focus is on the parade of unique racing cars. Drivers want to win the race but there is also congeniality where drivers and onlookers hope every car rolls safely across the finish line.

In Italy today, the Benelli TRK 502 is the most popular motorcycle. If the 2023 numbers by Statista Research Department are correct, motorcycle registration in the Tuscany region jumped from 14,759 in 2013 to 21,814 in 2018. These numbers have certainly continued on this upward trajectory: many factors contribute to the rise, including a cooperative climate, affordability, an increased youth demographic, affordability, and ease of use.

The motorcycles and bicycles of Siena, whether parked against medieval buildings or riding the ancient cobblestoned streets, are not a simple thing. They represent an ongoing living history that integrates the past and present into a diverse story.

[1] he history of spatial perspective traces back to ancient civilizations like Greece and Egypt, where early attempts at cartography and land surveying laid the foundation for understanding spatial relationships through measurement and mapping, with key developments occurring during the Renaissance when artists like Filippo Brunelleschi formalized the mathematical laws of perspective in painting, including the concept of the vanishing point.

[2] During the Middle Ages in Europe; 500-1400AD, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire church controlled (subdued) artistic and scientific expression. Art was not supposed to explore observable reality but instead reflect the cannons of the church.

[3] Berger believed a spatial relationship is the arrangement or connection between objects or elements in a physical space. It can also refer to how an object is located in space in relation to another objects.

[4] Berger believed- The convention of perspective, which is unique to European art and which was first established in the early Renaissance, centers everything on the eye of the beholder. It is like a beam from a lighthouse – only instead of light travelling outwards, appearances travel in. Perspective makes the single eye the center of the visible world. Everything converges on to the eye as to the vanishing point of infinity. The visible world is arranged for the spectator as the universe was once thought to be arranged for God. Berger argues that the vanishing point is not just a technical aspect of perspective but also reflects societal power structures, as it positions the viewer as the central point of observation, often at the expense of the depicted subjects

[5] The dizziness and disorientation experienced by people who worshiped at the basilica were attributed to metaphysical religious powers.