Queen’s feet kneel Siena’s sainted patrons: Crescentius and Victor, Savinus and Ansanus. And their prayer is the painter’s own, that he has inscribed upon the base of the throne: “Holy Mother of God, be Thou the cause of rest to Siena, be life to Duccio because he has painted Thee thus.” The original back of this panel represents the Passion of Christ in twenty-six scenes, from the entry into Jerusalem to the Noli me tangere and the appearing to the two on the way to Emmaus. There are, further, eighteen separate scenes of different shapes and sizes, originally forming part of the whole (including the gradino, back and front), of different episodes from the lives of Christ and the Madonna. No more perfect illustration of these sacred histories, from the point of view of mediaeval tradition, has ever been painted. Duccio anticipates Raphael, in that side of his achievement in which the great master of Urbino, by the illustration that (with his followers) he supplied to religious history and legend, “has given an Hellenic garb to the Hebraic universe.”[98] But he is almost untouched by the new spirit that was manifesting itself in Giotto’s panels and frescoes. “Duccio,” says Mr Berenson, “properly regarded, is the last of the great artists of antiquity, in contrast to Giotto, who was the first of the moderns.”[99]
There are also in this gallery: St Paul enthroned, his conversion and martyrdom being seen in the background, by Beccafumi; St Jerome, by Giovanni di Paolo; the legend of the Finding of the Cross by St Helena and its recovery from the Persians by Heraclius, by Pietro Lorenzetti; four Saints (69, 70, 72, 73) by Ambrogio Lorenzetti; a predella by Matteo di Giovanni; the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (63), an admirable picture by Pietro Lorenzetti, signed and dated 1342; a Madonna and Child with Saints (64), by Matteo di Giovanni; St Antony of Padua (14), by Matteo Balducci; the apparition of St Francis to St Antony (62), by Giovanni di Paolo; nine scenes illustrating the Credo, by Taddeo di Bartolo; a quaint Madonna lactante, with Angel Musicians (59), by Gregorio da Siena, of 1323. Here also is preserved the episcopal ring of Pius II. In the further portion of the hall are embroidered vestments and other articles of church furniture. A door at the end admits you into the unfinished façade. A series of narrow winding stairs leads up to the very top of it, with a superb view of Siena and the country round.
Under the Duomo to the east is the Baptistery, San Giovanni di Siena, a construction of the same epoch as the Cathedral itself. The façade was begun in 1317, modified in 1382 from the design of Giacomo di Mino del Pellicciaio, but left unfinished. On the pavement in front of the three doors are three scenes in graffito representing the birth of a child, the sacrament of Baptism, the administration of Confirmation; they were laid down in the middle of the fifteenth century, the one in the centre (the Baptism) being designed and executed by Antonio Federighi. The interior has been completely restored. The Baptismal Font, which includes a tabernacle for preserving the holy oils, is one of the earliest masterpieces of the sculptural art of the Quattrocento, showing, in its architectural details, the transition from the Gothic to the style of the early Renaissance. The design of the whole is due to Giacomo della Quercia, the marble work being executed by his pupils. On the six sides of the font are six bronze bas-reliefs, representing scenes in the life of the Baptist, separated by six niches enshrining bronze figures of the Virtues. In 1417 the Operaio of the Duomo assigned two of these six bas-reliefs to Giacomo della Quercia, two to Turino di Sano and his son Giovanni, two to the great Florentine Lorenzo Ghiberti—the fame of whose nearly completed bronze door (the first of the two that he cast) was then ringing through Tuscany. Giacomo della Quercia showing himself tardy and preoccupied as usual with other commissions, one of his two histories was assigned to Donatello instead, in 1421. By 1427 the series was complete, and the Signoria forced Giacomo to return from Bologna, at the instance of the authorities of the Duomo, in the following year to bring the whole work to an end, which was done by 1434.[100] The histories begin opposite the altar. The Apparition of the Angel to Zaccharias in the Temple is by Giacomo della Quercia, a fine example of the simplicity of means with which the great sculptor of Siena obtains his effects, with no unnecessary figures, disregarding all but what is essential. The Justice and Prudence on either side of it, as also the Birth of the Precursor and the Preaching in the Wilderness, are by the two Turini—the bas-reliefs being excellent works, fully worthy of their place in the series. The Fortitude between them is four years later, having been cast in 1431 by Goro di Neroccio. The following statue, Charity, is by Turino. The Baptism of Christ and John before Herod are both by Lorenzo Ghiberti, finished in 1427. These two admirable reliefs, as M. Reymond observes, represent the transition from the style of Ghiberti’s first bronze door in Florence to that of his second, the disposition of the figures and the absence of perspective in the scene before Herod resembling the style of the first door, while the group of Angels attending upon the Saviour in the Baptism heralds the triumph of that second door which Michelangelo was to declare worthy to be the portal of Paradise. The beautiful, expressive figures of Faith and Hope are Donatello’s. By Donatello, too, is Herod’s Feast, a masterpiece full of energy and dramatic expression. Although both Ghiberti and Donatello dispose their figures on different planes so as to give the bas-relief the appearance of a picture in bronze, their methods show one notable point of contrast; Ghiberti gains depth by detaching his front figures almost in full relief, while Donatello produces a similar effect more by effacing those in the distance.[101] The four charming little putti in bronze upon the tabernacle, “certi fanciullini ignudi,” as the record of payment styles them, are also by Donatello. The five marble figures in the niches of the tabernacle are by Pietro del Minella, the bronze Madonna and Child by Giovanni di Turino. The statue of the Baptist surmounting the whole was probably designed by Giacomo and executed by Pietro del Minella.
The frescoes of the Baptistery for the most part belong to the middle of the fifteenth century. The three miracles of St Antony of Padua under the arch to the left of the chief altar, the Articles of the Creed in the vaulting, are by Vecchietta who began to paint here in 1450, and was assisted in 1453 by his young pupil, Benvenuto di Giovanni. The paintings behind the chief altar, representing the Annunciation, the Passion, the Assumption, appear to be by a certain Michele Lambertini of Bologna, a few years earlier. The Christ in the house of Simon, under the arch to the right, was painted in 1489 by Pietro di Francesco degli Oriuoli, a Sienese artist of much reputation in his day, who died in 1496.[102]