The Jesuit art-historian Lanzi characterised the Sienese school of painters as lieta scuola fra lieto popolo, “a blithe school among a blithe people,” and added that their principal works were to be found in the churches of the city. Needless to say that the latter remark no longer holds, and we shall do best to begin our consideration of the painters in the well-arranged picture gallery of the Reale Istituto Provinciale di Belle Arti.
The first great epoch in Sienese painting, as in sculpture, is contemporaneous with the government of the Nine and ends with the outbreak of the pestilence of 1348. The moving spirit of this period, the true founder of the Sienese school, is Duccio di Buoninsegna. Recent researches have shown that he was born shortly before the battle of Montaperti, and that his artistic activity extends from 1278 to 1313.[62] It will be better to speak more fully of his work when we stand before his masterpiece in the Opera del Duomo, that picture which, in Ghiberti’s words, “was made right excellently and learnedly, and is a magnificent thing.” Bringing the Byzantine manner to its utmost perfection for the purpose of religious illustration, Duccio gave imperishable form to what had been more or less traditional through the previous centuries of Christian art. He is to the Middle Ages what Raphael was to be to the Renaissance. Segna di Tura di Buoninsegna, who was working in the early years of the fourteenth century, was Duccio’s pupil, perhaps his nephew; he imitated the manner of his master, but somewhat ineffectually. Simone Martini, on the other hand, followed worthily in Duccio’s footsteps; with an exquisite sense of beauty and a love of splendid decorative effects in colour, he is perhaps the most typical master of “soft Siena,” doing for her in line and colour what Folgore had done in rhyme. He died in 1344. With him as assistant worked his brother-in-law, Lippo Memmi; “they were gentle masters,” wrote Ghiberti, “and their pictures were done with the greatest diligence, right delicately finished.” This epoch culminates in the two Lorenzetti—Pietro and his younger brother Ambrogio—both of whom appear to have been among the victims of the pestilence. Ambrogio especially, famosissimo e singularissimo maestro, as Ghiberti calls him, nobilissimo componitore, is the greatest and most imaginative painter that Siena has produced. In the splendid allegorical frescoes with which he adorned the palace chamber of the Signori Nove and in his glowing altarpieces, in material beauty and spiritual significance, he reaches a height unattained by any other Italian painter of his century—save only the mighty Florentine, Andrea Orcagna.
In the Stanza Prima—dei Primitivi—we have first a number of pictures of the Pre-Duccian epoch. The altarpiece (1), partly in stucco in half relief and in the Byzantine style, is peculiarly interesting from its date, 1215, as showing us the state of art in Tuscany in the very year of the traditional outbreak of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in Florence. The very curious paintings (4 and 5), belonging to the thirteenth century, may be taken as next-to-contemporary representations of the scenes from the lives of St Francis and St Clare and Blessed Andrea Gallerani which they include (besides St Bartholomew, St Catherine of Alexandria, and St Dominic); St Clare repulsing Manfred’s Saracens
from her convent by the Sacred Host is unique in so early a picture. We may here mention that Andrea Gallerani, a frequently recurring figure in Sienese art, was a nobleman of Siena, who died in 1251. He had killed a man for blaspheming and was exiled, but afterwards returned and devoted himself to works of mercy and charity, founding the Spedale della Misericordia, which was later united to the great Spedale di Sta. Maria della Scala. Next comes a series of paintings in the Byzantine manner: two somewhat imposing altarpieces to the honour of the Baptist and the Prince of the Apostles respectively (14 and 15); smaller scenes (8 to 13), showing the sort of thing that Duccio glorified and perfected a little later. Duccio himself is represented by six authentic pictures; an early work on a small scale (20), the Madonna and Child with Angels and Franciscan friars; three Saints (22, 23); an important and characteristic picture of the Madonna and Child with St Peter and St Dominic, St Paul and St Augustine, Christ blessing from above and Angels bearing sceptres that end in threefold lilies in token of the Trinity (28); a triptych (35), including scenes from the lives of Christ and His Mother that anticipate in some sort the illustrative power of his masterpiece in the Opera del Duomo; a large altarpiece in many divisions (47), in which the Blessed Virgin is honoured under two of the titles assigned to her in the Litany of Loreto—“Queen of Patriarchs,” “Queen of Prophets.” By Segna di Tura are several pictures of no great importance; part of an altar-piece (40); a Madonna (44); St Ansanus (42); and St Galganus (43). It may be well to mention that St Ansanus, according to the legend, was the first Apostle of Siena, a Roman patrician who suffered in the persecution of Diocletian; St Galganus lived in the twelfth century, was guided by St Michael into the wilderness, and when prevented by the devil from cutting wood to make a cross he struck his sword into the hard rock, which became soft as wax to receive it and then harder than adamant to retain it, and built a hermitage at the spot. He is usually pictured as here by Segna—a young knight with flowing golden hair, the miraculous sword forming on the rocky desert place the sacred sign of Redemption. Simone Martini is not represented in the Gallery; but there is an altarpiece (51) ascribed to Lippo Memmi, and fairly characteristic of the religious art of fourteenth century Siena. A well-preserved picture in the following room (11), with St Michael as central figure, shows something of Lippo’s manner, but is not a work of the master himself.
In the second room there is a noble collection of paintings by the Lorenzetti. By the elder brother Pietro are: the Assumption of the Madonna (5), with the doubting Thomas receiving the sacred girdle; the Madonna and Child enthroned (21), with a lovely band of Angels clustering round the throne; four small scenes from the history of the Order of the Carmelities (28, 29), being apparently the remains of the predella of a famous picture that Pietro painted for the church of the Carmine in 1329. The younger Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, is represented by three masterpieces. The smallest of these (9) is a perfect gem of early Sienese art; the Madonna is enthroned with both her arms folded round the Divine Child, who unfolds a scroll to the four Latin Doctors kneeling in adoration, each receiving His doctrine with a wonderful expression of rapt devotion, ecstasy and yearning—but each in a totally different way; the golden haired Virgin Martyrs, Catherine with her wheel, Dorothy with her flowers, are standing in attendance on the Queen, and there are six adoring Angels above. The large altar-piece (2) is a striking and imposing work; the Madonna and Child are attended by the Magdalene and St Dorothy and the two St Johns, while below is the Deposition from the Cross: the heads are full of beauty and expression, and the Deposition shows Ambrogio’s dramatic power. The Annunciation (33), dated the 17th of December 1344, appears to be Ambrogio’s last extant work; it was painted for the Palazzo del Comune and, in addition to the painter’s name, is inscribed with those of the Camarlingo—Don Francesco, monk of St Galganus—the three Esecutori and the Scrittore or scribe.[63] High up on the wall above this picture are two half figures of saints (34, 36), damaged, but genuine Ambrogios. Ascribed to Pietro Lorenzetti is a curious allegory (37), apparently of the story of sin and the Atonement of the Cross.
As in sculpture, so in painting, a decline set in after 1348. In the latter part of the fourteenth century worked Giacomo di Mino del Pellicciaio, Lippo di Vanni, Bartolo di Maestro Fredi (who died in 1410), Barna or Berna, Luca di Tommè, Paolo di Giovanni, Andrea di Vanni. They are somewhat mediocre artists, far below the Lorenzetti, from whom they not unfrequently borrow motives; still, as religious illustrators, they follow to the best of their limited powers the greater men who had gone before. Andrea di Vanni is an exceedingly interesting personality; he was a man of mark in the counsels of the Riformatori, served the State as ambassador and in other capacities, and was a fervent disciple of St Catherine, who addressed several letters to him and whose portrait he painted. Barna can only be studied at San Gimignano, and the picture ascribed to Andrea di Vanni (59) is not one of his few authenticated works. But Bartolo di Maestro Fredi is represented in this Stanza II. by a whole series of paintings (42 to 49); by Luca di Tommè is a signed and dated picture of 1367 (54), in which the central group of St Anne with a very sweet and girlish Madonna has great charm; Paolo di Giovanni’s Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (61), partly imitated from a picture by Pietro Lorenzetti, is bright and pleasant in colour and feeling; by Giacomo di Mino is a triptych (90). This room contains also some good and characteristic works of the Florentine school of the Trecento; a Madonna with the Magdalene and St Catherine of Alexandria and Angels (52), signed by Taddeo Gaddi; the Death and Coronation of the Madonna (64, 70), by Spinello Aretino. The connecting link between this group of Sienese artists and the painters of the Quattrocento is found in Taddeo di Bartolo (1363-1422), the pupil of Bartolo di Fredi. With no striking originality nor any great power, Taddeo was a conscientious and meritorious painter, whose works show a deep religious feeling, and who exercised considerable influence upon the Sienese school of his day. Most of the greater painters of the succeeding epoch may be said to have proceeded, directly or indirectly, from his school. By Taddeo di Bartolo, besides a number of smaller pictures, there is in this room one large altar-piece in several divisions (76), signed and dated 1409, of which the central scene is the Annunciation with St Cosmas and St Damian, the patron saints of the medical profession.