This garden, adjacent to Senese Gate and the city walls, carries the memory of a man whose name is engraved in the town’s history: the notary Donato di Becco. Born around 1280, Donato lived in a time overshadowed by the dark specter of the plague. Despite the terror the epidemic spread, Donato did not hesitate to stand by the afflicted, offering his professional skills and his heart to draft the last wills of those nearing death.

In 1348, exhausted and weakened, Donato himself fell victim to the plague. His final writing, a touching and unfinished document, tells with simple yet powerful trembling handwriting the moment when the disease took over. The last word, left incomplete, is a silent testimony of a man who fought until his very last breath.

Among the documents he left us is a poem, which is at once a prayer and a cry of despair. His verses, addressed to Saint Mary, reflect the deep anguish of an entire community struck by such a cruel and relentless death. His words, filled with pain and hope:

“Beautiful Saint Mary,
who gave birth without pain,
look upon us in this death
that comes from such affliction,
that from the evil of this plague
may no more people die.”