The most important representative of the Sienese Renaissance organ-making school, certainly amongst the most significant in Tuscany, was Giovanni di Antonio alias Piffaro. Born around 1481, he was started off on the profession of “Piffaro” of Palazzo Pubblico (hence the nickname), or rather, the player of a wind instrument, regularly paid and inserted in that group of musicians who, according to a glorious and century-old tradition were engaged in enlivening public ceremonies of the civic community in the city. Just over twenty years old, however, Giovanni became so interested in the world of organ-making that, in 1512, he asked, and was granted, to be exempt from work to be able to learn the art of organ-making from the great Domenico di Lorenzo from Lucca who was, at that time, working upon the grand organ of the Duomo of Siena. ‘Piffaro’ enjoyed fame also out of the confines of his city: amongst the remaining testimonies the organ at Monte San Savino is very significant, where a 1506 wind chest is still kept, deemed to be the oldest example of a wind chest in the world. In any way, the only instruments which have reached us whole by Piffaro are all in Siena: in the church of Our Lady of the Assumption (1514 – ’21) and in St. Augustine (1522 – ’38). The last work by Piffaro, the organ in St. Augustine’s church, was also the most tormented: started in November 1522 with a first contract drawn up between the Augustinian hermit friars, the construction could not be completed "sì per li tempi contrarii occorsi alla pestilentia et guerre , sì ancora per altre cause lecite et ragionevoli " (both due to the averse times because of the plague and wars, also due to other causes, legitimate and reasonable). In 1526, a new agreement was reached, but after a while the organ died, leaving the instrument “imperfect”, that is, made with the estimated part of 230 scudi as against the 400 agreed upon. A contract in 1538 committed Onofrio di Paolo Bacci from Castelfiorentino to “fix the organ of the said Convent” Originally placed on the wall on the left of the aisle near the corner of the transept, in 1611 the organ was moved (following earth tremors, it seems) over the entrance of the Piccolomini Chapel. Between 1752 and 1755, it was transferred over the entrance door, in a new choir made upon a plan by Antonio Galli Bibiena. Amongst other things, the choir had to be judged as having a too-exuberant style by the friars who, in 1770, had the present rostrum constructed upon a plan by Bernardino Vittorio Rossi. Amongst the works carried out on the instrument, the still-existing 18th-century sound box is of importance. It was constructed without keeping in mind the measurements of the front pipes (especially in width) which it had to hold. During the 18th century, moreover, the original "choir man" was altered being too high according to the Tuscan tradition, and lowered by the Francesco Zanin Company; in 1986 the pipes were moved back with respect to the wooden part and those added were taken away considered a nuisance for the moving back of the instrument's body, as well as incompatible with the recovered original "choir man", dangerous because of the volume of air for which the organ had been projected as well as an obstacle for the volumes and the walls of the sonorous reverberations.

Cesare Mancini