On their coins the Sienese struck this legend: "Sena vetus Civitas Virginis." It will be remembered how the Florentines, two centuries and a half later, dedicated their city to Christ as king.
Date of birth unknown; date of death, about 1320.
He is better known as Simone Memmi, a name given to him by a mistake of Vasari's. He was born in 1283 at Siena. He died in 1344 at Avignon. Petrarch mentions his portrait of Madonna Laura, in the 49th and 50th sonnets of the "Rime in Vita di Madonna Laura." In another place he uses these words about Simone: "Duos ego novi pictores egregios, nec formosos, Jottum Florentinum civem, cujus inter modernos fama ingens est, et Simonem Senensem."—Epist. Fam. lib. v. 17, p. 653. Petrarch proceeds to mention that he has also known sculptors, and asserts their inferiority to painters in modern times.