scene and an upper tier of pinnacles. Duccio’s Maestà
coincided with Siena’s hope of achieving economic and
political hegemony in Tuscany, and it was an expression
of civic ambition and pride as much as of sacred devo-
tion. This is underscored by Duccio’s signature at the
base of the Virgin’s throne, which invokes the special
protection of the Virgin for her city: Mater Sancta DeiSis
Causa Senis Requiei-Sis Ducio Vita-Te Quia Pinxit Ita
(“Holy Mother of God, bring peace to Siena, and life
to Duccio, as he painted you this way”).
The Madonna is shown enthroned in a gold em-
pyrean as queen of heaven, surrounded by a court of
saints and angels; Siena’s four patron saints, Ansanus,
Savinus, Crescentius, and Victor kneel prominently in
the foreground, in supplication for their city. Despite
the glittering opulence of this celestial panorama, a
new degree of realism pervades the scene, derived from
a knowledge of Giotto and Giovanni Pisano. The Ma-
donna is fi rmly described in terms of full round volumes,
and her throne is not the spindly wooden design of the
Rucellai panel but a solidly anchored marble structure
with arms opening outward as in Giotto’s Ognissanti
Madonna (1306–1310, Florence, Uffi zi). The narrative
scenes framing the enthroned Virgin and covering the
back of the altarpiece contain some the most remark-
able pictorial advances of the Trecento. Beginning with
seven scenes of the life of Mary in the front predella, the
narrative continued with nine scenes of Christ’s earthly
ministry in the rear predella, moving on to twenty-six
scenes of Christ’s passion and resurrection, topped by
eight scenes of Christ’s life after the resurrection, and,
returning to the front, completed by eight episodes from
the last events of Mary’s life. In their delicacy of line
and subtle harmonies of color, these scenes are utterly
different from Giotto’s narratives in the Arena Chapel;
nevertheless, they parallel Giotto’s work in their unprec-
edented exploration of spatial and psychological realism.
For example, the Entry into Jerusalem, which initiates
the cycle of Christ’s passion, describes four carefully
defi ned zones of space moving sequentially back into
the distance. The skyline of Jerusalem at the top is the
most convincing cityscape up to its time (specifi cally,
Siena, with a recognizable cathedral), and it must have
provoked Giotto to create his complex cityscapes in
the Peruzzi Chapel. Different episodes having the same
location in the gospels, such as the events surrounding
the Last Supper, or the agony in the garden and the
betrayal, are pointedly given the same setting from one
scene to the next in Duccio’s depictions, establishing a
logical continuity which makes the complex structure
of the polyptych astonishingly easy to follow. Certain
architectural constructions, such as the Temptation of
Christ in the Temple or the Feast at Cana, hint at intricate
perspective vistas anticipating the sense of space that
would be developed by the Lorenzetti brothers.
On 9 June 1311, after thirty-two months of work on
the panel (though there is some speculation that such
a large polyptych must have taken longer and thus was
begun earlier), the Maestà was ready for installation.
The day of its transport was declared a civil and reli-
gious holiday; all shops were closed, and contemporary
documents describe a magnifi cent procession, amid the
ringing of all the bells in the city, of church, dignitaries,
government magistrates, drummers and trumpeters, and
the general populace of Siena, leading the altarpiece
from Duccio’s studio down to and around the town
square, and up the hill to the cathedral. Nowhere else
can the medieval fusion of the civic and the sacred be
observed so clearly.
Until 1506 the Maestà remained on the high altar
of the cathedral; from 1506 onward, it stood in a side
chapel, remaining a continuous sourcebook of inspira-
tion for Sienese artists through the sixteenth century.
In 1771, it was removed to the small church of Sant’
Ansano. Shortly thereafter the polyptych was sawn
apart: the front and back were separated, and small
panels were removed; these have since been dispersed
to various collections, but the bulk of the polyptych
has been reassembled and has been exhibited in Museo
dell’Opera del Duomo since 1878.
Little is known for certain about Duccio’s activity
after the completion of the Maestà until his death (by
1319). The main work attributed to him during this
period is a polyptych of the Madonna and Saints (num-
ber 47, after 131, Siena, Pinacoteca). Other important
works attributed to Duccio include a glass oculus of
the Dormition, Assumption, and Coronation of the
Virgin and Saints in the choir wall of the cathedral
of Siena (1288); a Maestà (1288–1300, now in the
Kunstmuseum, Bern); a tiny panel of the Madonna
and Child with Three Kneeling Franciscans (c. 1300,
Siena, Pinacoteca); a Madonna and Child (c. 1300,
Stoclet Collection, Brussels); a portable triptych of
the Madonna and Saints (c. 1305, London, National
Gallery); a Madonna and Child with Six Angels (c.
1305, Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria); and
a dossal of the Madonna Flanked by Four Saints (c.
1305, Siena, Pinacoteca). A fresco discovered in 1980
in the Sala del Mappamondo in the Palazzo Pubblico
of Siena, Submission of a Castle to Siena, has also been
attributed to Duccio (c. 1314).
Immediate followers of Duccio included his nephew,
Segna da Bonaventura, the Badia a Isola Master, and
Ugolino da Siena; and it seems extremely likely that
major Trecento Sienese artists such as Simone Martini
and Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti were also Duccio’s
apprentices.See also Cimabue; Giotta; Lorenzetti;
Martini, Simone; Pisano, GiovanniDUCCIO DI BUONINSEGNA