Chapter II: Siena

GENERAL WORKS:

Langton Douglas. _A History of Siena._ New York, 1902. Ferdinand Schevill. _Siena, the Story of a Mediæval Commune_, New York, 1909. Edmund G. Gardiner. _The Story of Siena and San Gemignano_, London, 1902. William Heywood and Lucy Olcott. _Guide to Siena, History and Art_, London, 1903.

PAINTING, THE SCHOOL.

Emil Jacobsen. _Sienesische Meister des Trecento in der Gemälde
Galerie zu Siena_, Strassburg, 1907; _Das Quattrocento in
Siena_, Strassburg, 1908; _Sodoma und das Cinquecento in
Siena_, Strassburg, 1910; all very valuable for illustrations.

Venturi, _Storia dell’ Arte Italiana_, Vols. V and VII.

Bernard Berenson, _Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance_,
New York and London, 1909.

C. Ricci, _Il Palazzo Pubblico di Siena e la Mostra d’Antica Arte
Senese_, Bergamo, 1904, offers a good and inexpensive survey
of Sienese handicraft in general.

SIENESE PICTURES IN THE UNITED STATES. Consult the illustrated
catalogues of the Fogg Museum, Harvard; and of the Jarves
Collection, Yale. Also many special articles in _Art in America_,
especially the series in Vol. VIII-IX, by F. Mason Perkins, _Some
Sienese Paintings in American Collections_.

Footnote 15:

The fact that the Madonna of the Palazzo Pubblico had been much
repainted in Duccio’s time not unnaturally threw Milanesi and other
critics off the track. But the date is entirely genuine (see _C. & C._
[Douglas] Vol. I, p. 162, note 1*; and E. Jacobsen, _Das Trecento_, p.
18). The latter writes, “The signature and date are genuine. There is
no tenable ground for doubting them.”

I have satisfied myself by close inspection that such is the case, and
the half dozen or so other panels associated with this Madonna
stylistically all seem to belong to the first half of the 13th
century.

Footnote 16:

Sirén, _Burlington Magazine_, XXXII (1918) p. 45, ascribes this panel
to Cavallini. Berenson in _Dedalo_, Vol. II, fasc. v, allots it to
Constantinople at the end of the 12th century. Neither view is even
plausible to me.

Footnote 17:

_Duccio._ A. Lisini, _Notizie di Duccio_ &c. Siena, 1898. Curt
Weigelt, _Duccio di Buoninsegna_, Leipzig, 1911, the standard
monograph, well illustrated.

Footnote 18:

The whole matter of the Rucellai Madonna is well discussed by Douglas
in his edition of _C. & C._, Vol. I. Appendix to chapter VI. Andreas
Aubert, _Cimabue_, p. 138 ff., and Curt Weigelt, _Duccio_, both agree
that the Rucellai Madonna is the picture called for by the contract of
1285, hence is by Duccio. Aside from many stylistic similarities to
Duccio’s early Madonna with Franciscans in the Siena Academy, the
exquisitely drawn bare feet of the Angels in the Rucellai Madonna
amount almost to a signature for Siena’s greatest painter. H. Thode
and O. Sirén hold that a picture designed and begun by Duccio was
finished by Cimabue, _Toskanische Maler_, pp. 308–9, and note 41 to
latter page. The hypothesis that Duccio was strongly influenced by
Cimabue in this work seems simpler.

Footnote 19:

The contract is worth quoting in part from G. Fontana, _Due documenti
inediti riguardanti Cimabue_, Pisa, 1878; it is reprinted in
Strzygowski, _Cimabue und Rom_, Wien, 1888. The papers were recovered
from a grocer who was about to use them for wrappers.

“Which picture of the Majesty of Divine and Blessed Virgin Mary and of
the Apostles and other saints is to be made in columns and in the
predella and [main] spaces of the picture good and pure florin gold
shall be used; the other pictures which are to be made in the
aforesaid panel above the columns in tabernacles, gables, and frames
shall be made ... of good silver gilt.”

The picture apparently was a polyptych of three, five, or seven panels
with columns and round arches, with an upper order of gables and
tabernacles. It seems to have been the first well-peopled Madonna in
Majesty, and it probably served as Duccio’s exemplar. Cimabue died
before finishing it, but since in Nov. 1302 he received a large
installment of 40 Pisan _lire_, he must at least have fully drawn the
composition on the panel.

Footnote 20:

_Simone Martini._ See the standard work by Raimond van Marle, _Simone
Martini_, Strasbourg, 1920.

There is considerable difference among critics in dating these
frescoes, and no objective evidence. The early date, 1322–25,
suggested by Venturi and Van Marle, is confirmed by the stylistic
character of the work. It lacks the calligraphic, linear formulas
which abound in Simone’s works after 1330. The early date also agrees
with the general probabilities of the course of events in the
decoration of the Lower Church at Assisi.

Footnote 21:

Frey’s ed. Berlin, 1886, p. 42.

Footnote 22:

The contract for this altar-piece is translated in the illustrations
to chapter II, p. 106.

Footnote 23:

Venturi, Vol. V, pp. 680–694, offers a sensible compromise view of the
authorship of this series, assigning to Pietro himself only the
Deposition, Entombment, Stigmatization of St. Francis and a Madonna
and Saints, ascribing most of the subjects to an assistant. Dr. Ernest
Dewald in a forthcoming Princeton dissertation takes a more skeptical
view than Venturi as to Pietro’s presence at Assisi.

Footnote 24:

However the “Cecelia Master,” active about 1300, deals ably with such
spatial problems. See O. Sirén, _Burlington Magazine_, Vol. XXXIV, p.
234, and XXXVI, p. 4. and _Giotto_, plates 11–13, Vol. II.

Footnote 25:

_Sassetta._ Bernard Berenson. _A Painter of the Franciscan Legend_,
(Sassetta), London and New York, 1909.

Footnote 26:

_Matteo di Giovanni._ We have the standard work of G. Hartlaub,
_Matteo da Siena_, Strassburg, 1910. Mr. Berenson in _Essays in the
Study of Sienese Painting_, New York, 1918, essay on Cozzarelli, has
made useful criticisms of the list of pictures usually ascribed to
Matteo.

Footnote 27:

_Sodoma._ Hobart Cust, _Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, usually styled
“Sodoma,”_ New York, 1906.