Lecture 9: Sienese Art in the 14th Century
Francis) at Assisi, which had become one of the most important pilgrimage
sites in Italy after St. Francis was buried there, in the town of his birth, in- Many of Italy’s ¿ nest artists worked in Assisi, including Giotto some
30 years earlier. Assisi consists of an upper church, where Giotto worked,
and a lower church. Pietro was given the task of overseeing the decoration of
the walls and vaults of the left transept of the lower church.
Our example shows the Lorenzetti Chapel in the lower church. The subject
of the fresco cycle is the Passion of Christ, beginning with The Entry into
Jerusalem. This scene is at the end of our view of the transept chapel and
not visible in our example. Pietro learned much from Giotto’s example,
but he remains an artist for whom detail, both decorative and narrative,
was irresistible. Entry into Jerusalem marks the beginning of Christ’s
Passion. Note the children climbing the trees for a better view and the
city architecture.The Palazzo Pubblico (1297–1342), or the Town Hall of Siena, is one of the
most elegant monuments of the Italian Gothic. Piazza del Campo has always
been the center of civic life in Siena. Siena is a hilly town, and the Campo
slopes with the shape of half a conch shell.In the Sala del Consiglio (Council Hall), Palazzo Pubblico, Simone Martini’s
Maestà (c. 1315, partially repainted in 1321) is on the end wall. Unlike
Duccio’s altarpiece, this work is a wall decoration—a fresco (much of it
secco and, therefore, damaged). It is painted as if it were a tapestry. The
Virgin and Child enthroned and a court of saints are covered by a canopy
supported by slender poles, perhaps a reÀ ection of an actual structure used
to protect secular rulers outdoors or to protect the Eucharist when carried in
procession. The sag of the canopy enhances the illusion that the painting is a
tapestry, because it recalls the sag of a tapestry hanging on a wall. The subject
is framed by the simulated architecture and tapestry border, containing
roundels with heads of the fathers of the Church and prophets.Simone’s Guidoriccio da Fogliano (c. 1328) is an equestrian portrait
of a Sienese captain painted to celebrate a major victory he had won that
year. This faces the Maestà from the other end of the room and covers the
whole upper part of that wall. No landscape of such ambition had yet been