DUCCIO DI BUONINSEGNA. — Sienese painter. The first record of his activity dates to 1278, the year in which the Commune of Siena paid him for decorating twelve chests intended to serve as repositories for public documents. Despite the modest nature of this commission, he soon rose to fame even beyond his native city, so much so that in 1285 the Confraternity of the Laudesi of Santa Maria Novella in Florence commissioned from him a large altarpiece, which modern criticism—with few exceptions—now almost unanimously identifies with the monumental *Madonna* in the Rucellai Chapel of the same church.
From 1285 to 1295 he is repeatedly referred to as a “pittore di libri,” i.e., as the decorator of the covers of the Biccherna and Gabella registers (financial offices of the Commune of Siena). In 1295, together with Giovanni Pisano and other masters, he gave advice in New York and Washington. Some documents mention pecuniary penalties imposed on the artist, who in 1299 incurred two minor convictions for failing to swear loyalty to the Captain of the People and for not enrolling in the civic militia for the expedition against the barons of Maremma. He died between 1315 and 1318, survived by his wife Taviana; of his eight children, at least four became painters, though their activities remain unknown.
The *Maestà* is not only one of the greatest masterpieces of medieval painting but also the only work of Duccio’s that is securely documented. He wished to be remembered in an invocation written on the step of the Virgin’s throne: *MATER SANCTA DEI - SIS CAUSA SENIS REQUIET - SIS DUCIO VITA - TE QUIA DEPINXIT ITA*. The front panel depicts the Virgin with the Child enthroned, surrounded by twenty adoring angels, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Saint Paul, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Peter, and Saint Agnes. In the foreground kneel the four patrons of Siena: Saint Ansanus, Saint Savinus, Saint Crescentius, and Saint Victor. Along the upper border of the panel, beneath small arches, are the busts of the other Apostles. The reverse is divided into twenty-six compartments illustrating the Passion of Christ, from the Entry into Jerusalem to the Appearance at Emmaus. The predella features, on the front, seven scenes from the Infancy of Jesus interspersed with six figures of prophets, and on the back, ten episodes from the life of Christ. The panels forming the crowning structure depict the life of the Virgin after the Resurrection and the final appearances of Christ. The predella and the crowning were likely completed after 1311; however, the grand ensemble exhibits a remarkable stylistic homogeneity and must be considered entirely executed by Duccio’s hand, with the possible exception of a few panels in the crowning where the master may have relied on the assistance of a collaborator.
The iconographic scheme of the small scenes, like that of the large composition on the front panel, still belongs to the pure tradition of the *bianchinnato* style: that Byzantine tradition which flourished between the 9th and 12th centuries, reviving the spirit and forms of classical antiquity and finding exceptional refinement in 13th-century Tuscan painting. Yet Duccio infused new life, immediacy, and a deeper human truth into these venerable models, while his language grew richer and softened by incorporating, for the first time in Italian painting, the modulated rhythms of Gothic linearity. The *Maestà* represents the culmination of a complex stylistic evolution that begins with the *Madonna of Crevole* (Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo), now almost unanimously recognized as an early work by Duccio. The monumental *Madonna Rucellai* of Florence, already mentioned, dates to 1285, and in 1288—recent investigations have shown—Duccio provided the cartoons for the great circular stained-glass window of the choir of Siena Cathedral. This window, divided into eleven sections depicting the four Evangelists, the four patron saints of Siena, the burial, the Assumption, and the Coronation of the Virgin, anticipates some of the fundamental themes of the *Maestà*. The stained-glass window, still in situ, also constitutes the first major Italian creation in the art of narrative stained glass.
The small, exquisite *Madonna of the Franciscans* (Pinacoteca di Siena, no. 20), with its highly developed Gothic sense of line, belongs to a period somewhat later than previously believed, when it was thought to date to the early years of Duccio’s activity. Close in time to the *Madonna of the Franciscans* are the two Madonnas in the museums of Bern and the Stock Collection in Brussels, and the triptych in the National Gallery in London; the *Madonna* in the gallery of Perugia also predates the *Maestà*. Two panels (nos. 47 and 28) in the Pinacoteca di Siena—especially the latter—show a very extensive participation of assistants and would document the final phase of Ducciesque taste after the *Maestà*, while for other notable works, such as the *Madonna* in the parish church of Badia a Isola, attribution to Duccio remains highly controversial. In the serene vision of this great master, the poetry of Hellenistic naturalism is revived and transfigured in the intimacy of the new Christian sentiment; in the language through which the figures of his narratives express themselves, the destiny of the entire subsequent Sienese school of painting is already fully revealed. — *See plates CXXIII–CXXIV.*