The National Gallery, London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY have  organized an exhibition of Sienese art from the first 50 years of the 14th century to show that Siena is, with Florence, a city of the earliest evolution of the Italian Renaissance. 

 

The geo-political context of this development is that in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, both Florence and Siena were the main economic, political and cultural centers of Tuscany.

 

By 1300 Siena had had a period of peace and prosperity under the rule of a small band of its own oligarchy whose alliances with Naples and Sicily benefitted its markets. During this time, Siena’s commercial, civic and banking infrastructures expanded as did her population. 15,000 souls.

 

 

 

Enthroned Virgin and Child, 1260-80, elephant ivory with traces of paint and gilding. 

Unidentified French artist.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

During this time, Siena – which was brought under Tuscan (Medici) control only in 1557 – was one of the main commercial centers on the periphery of Eurasia.  She was a stopping point along the Via Francigena, the pilgrimage route that links Rome to Canterbury.

 

 

 

As above

 

 

Islamic textiles and French carvings in stone and alabaster and ivory, and the ecclesiastical learning of the late Middle Ages flowed in and out of the city.  Siena’s artists took full advantage of the styles and ideas and colours of this traffic and were quick to export their work to other parts of Italy and to France.

 

 

 

The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Aurea (ca. 1312 – 15). Duccio.  The National Gallery, London loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

It is in this materially and intellectually rich and politically stable environment that the two museums propose that Siena became the leading edge of the Italian Renaissance – equally with Florence – until, in the middle of the 14th century, bubonic plague killed its foremost artists and half the city. 

 

Artists of the period included:

 

Duccio di Buoninsegna (Duccio), 1255/60-1315/16

Simone Martini, Italian, 1315-1344. Believed to have been a pupil of Ducio.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Italian, active 1319-1347. Died of the plague. A pupil of Ducio.

Pietro Lorenzetti, Italian, active 1320-1348. Died of the plague. A pupil of Ducio.

 

Barna Da Siena, Italian, active second quarter of the 14th century. Close follower of Duccio

Lippo Memmi (Filippo di Memmo), Italian, active 1317-1356.  Close follower and brother-in-law of Simone Martini.

 

 

The fame of the Sienese artists spread.  Duccio was commissioned to paint an altarpiece at Santa Maria Novella in Florence.  Simone Martini left Siena at the height of his career to execute commissions at the papal court of Avignon in France.  He died there.

 

By the time Siena recovered from the plague, Florence, Venice, Rome were carrying all before them in the astonishments of the Italian Renaissance.  It was a generation before Sienese artists again took up their work.

 

The thesis is that between 1300 and 1350, the Sienese Duccio, Simone Martini, and the Lorenzetti brothers, adapted their artistic traditions – descended from the Byzantine – to new norms whose mature development is the high Renaissance. 

 

These new norms involved, at their heart, a break from the flat, rigid, highly prescriptive style of Byzantine painting

 

 

 

Virgin and Child (Madonna del Carmine), 1260-1270, tempera on wood with metal and bejeweled revetment.

Byzantine artist (Palaiologan).  Loaned by the Direzioni Centrali dei Culti dei Ministero del Interno to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2024

 

 

to the depiction of a more fluid, less approximate, more realistic human and natural world.  

 

Virgin and Child (The Stoclet Madonna), tempera and gold leaf on wood, c. 1290-1300. 

Duccio.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

Duccio, the leader of this band of Sienese artists, introduced  vivid narration, a focus on the distribution of space within a painting, human emotion, and a wider colour spectrum than had been seen in Byzantine painting. 

 

Here a recognizable family scene: father anxious and annoyed; mother conciliatory; and teenager, unapologetic and sullen.

 

 

Christ Discovered in the Temple,1342, tempera and gold leaf on wood panel

Simone Martini. National Museums, Liverpool loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

 

Following Duccio’s example, Sienese artists used rich colours and were unafraid of depicting human figures and their postures and expressions in the natural dispositions whose meaning we recognize. 

 

Some art professionals commenting on the art of Siena at this time have been, nevertheless, careful to point out that this period in Siena was a transitional time when many of the old conventions still held.  

 

 

 

The Crucifixion with Saints Nicholas and Gregory, and the Redeemer with Angels, c.1311-18, tempera with gold leaf on wood. 

Duccio.  Museum of Fine Arts Boston loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

For one thing, optical symmetry had not yet come into its own.  And narrative scenes of different periods all seem to coexist at the same time.

 

For another, Sienese artists used the same materials as their forbears: tempera on wood.  Oil on canvas was 100 years into the future.  The lavish use of gold and silver leaf was an inheritance from  Byzantine artists.

 

Also, while the looking-around of this comfortable and sated baby is something we recognize with pleasure, to some critics the breast of Mary and the torso and leg of Jesus look to have been as though snapped together.

 

 

 

Madonna Del Latte (Nursing Virgin), c. 1325; tempera and gold leaf on panel.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra ‘San Bernardino’, Siena loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2024

 

 

 

This said, the transitional nature of this art from a period – Byzantine – distant from us – to one with whose images we are more familiar did nothing to diminish our great pleasure with and appreciation of these golden works of our Western tradition and the renewed scholarship which has accompanied them.

 

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Maestà (Majesty)

 

Duccio’s masterpiece for the altar of Siena’s cathedral was commissioned in 1308 and completed in 1311.  It was the largest altar painting of its time and remained for many artists an important reference point.

 

An image of the Enthroned Madonna – Mary, the patron of Siena – is in the center. 

 

A band of seven narratives scroll above and several more were on the predella below her.

 

On the back were 40 narratives from the life of Christ.

In 1506, the Maestà was partially dismantled; and eventually dismembered.  What remained was put on display in 1876 in the cathedral’s museum where the greater part remains to this day.

 

Duccio attached this to his work: “Holy Mother of God, be thou the cause of peace for Siena and life to Duccio because he painted thee thus.”

 

Images which remain of the back predella were exhibited at this exhibition. 

 

This work is thought to manifest the didactic piety of the late Middle Ages with the interest in human experience associated with Renaissance art.

 

 

Representation of the Maestà created for the Siena Cathedral

 

 

 

The Annunciation, c. 1308-11, tempera and gold leaf on wood. 

Duccio.  From the front of the predella of the Maestà. 

In the center on the floor, Madonna lilies:  emblem of the Virgin’s purity.

 

 

 

Eight images from the back predella of the Maestà

 

 

The Temptation of Christ on the Temple.

Loan from the Opera della Metropolitana di Siena to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2024

 

 

Temptation of Christ on the Mountain. 

Loaned by the Frick Collection, NY to the Metropolitan Museum, NY in 2024

 

 

The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew.

  Loan by the National Gallery, Washington, DC to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

The Wedding at Cana.

Loan from the Opera della Metropolitana di Siena to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2024

 

 

Christ and the Samaritan Woman.

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

The Healing of the Man Born Blind. 

National Gallery, London loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

The Transfiguration. 

The National Gallery, London loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

The Raising of Lazarus.

Kimball Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2024.  Photo from the net.

 

 

 

 

The Pieve Altarpiece

was a commission of the ruler of Arezzo for the baptismal church of the Pieve and it still stands on the high altar.  

 

 

 

The Pieve Altarpiece, c.1320, tempera on panel.

Pietro Lorenzetti. Chiesa di Santa Maria della Pieve, Arezzo loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

 

 

Croce Sagomata ( Cut-out Crucifix), c. 1320, tempera on panel.

Pietro Lorenzetti. Museo Diocesano, Cort0na loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024. This photo is from Foto Studio Lensini Siena

 

 

 

The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine

 

This image the museum notes is unusual in that this mystic marriage is between the saint and Christ as an adult and not as a baby. 

 

The depiction of St. Ann, Mary and Christ together is one of the earliest known. 

 

Along the bottom, three scenes: on the left Margaret of Antioch is hammering Beelzebub.  On the right is the Archangel Michael slaying the dragon.  In the middle two knights exchange the kiss of peace. 

 

Rich patterns in textiles and in the surrounds of this image recall the textiles both Italian and imported from the East which were available in Siena.

 

 

 

 

The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, c. 1340. tempera with gold and silver leaf on panel.

Barna Da Siena.  Loaned by the Boston Fine Arts Museum to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

 

 

 

Saint John the Evangelist, 1320, tempera and gold leaf on wood.

Simone Martini. Loan from the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham University to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christ Before Pilate, 1340, tempera and gold leaf on panel.

Pietro Lorenzetti. Musei Vaticani, Citta del Vaticano loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

The Crucifixion, 1340, tempera and gold leaf on panel.

Pietro Lorenzetti. Musei Vaticani, Citta del Vaticano loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

 

 

Virgin and Child;   Man of Sorrows, tempera and gold leaf on panel, c. 1340-45 

Pietro Lorenzetti.  Loan from the Lindenau Museum, Altenburg, Germany to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

 

The Orsini Polyptych

 

was commissioned by Napoleone Orsini, a cardinal and archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  It is a devotional object of four double-sided images. 

In 1310, Orsini moved to Avignon.  He was followed by Simone Martini at the height of his fame. 

This object is believed to have remained in France after the death of Orsini before its components were scattered.

 

Images from the front of the Orsini Polyptych

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 front panels of the Orsini Polyptych, tempera and gold leaf on panel, c. 1335-40.

Simone Martini. Loaned by the Musee de Louvre, Paris; Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp-Flemish Community; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2023

 

 

The reverse of two of the panels of the Orsini Polyptych

 

Simone Martini as above

 

 

 

 

 

The Annunciation, 1344, tempera and gold leaf on panel. 

Ambroglio Lorenzetti. Loan by the Pinacoteca Nazionale da Siena to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2024

 

 

 

 

Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels, c. 1350, tempera and gold leaf on wood panel.

Lippo Memmi. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

The header photo depict panels from the rear of Duccio’s Maestà.

From left, The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, The Wedding at Cana, Christ and the Woman of Samaria, The Healing of the Man Born Blind (obscured by a viewer’s head), and The Transfiguration.

Credit…George Etheredge for The New York Times