LORENZETTI, AMBROGIO AND PIETRO. - Brothers, Sienese painters.
I. AMBROGIO
The first universally accepted date concerning him is 1319. In 1331 Tizio reliably attributed to him the frescoes of the cloister of S. Francesco in Siena, of which two scenes remain (the Martyrdom of the Franciscan saints at Ceuta and St. Louis of Anjou pronouncing his Franciscan vows into the hands of Boniface VIII), now in a chapel of the church.
In 1332-34 in Florence he was enrolled in the Arte dei medici e speziali, and in 1332 he painted for the church of S. Procolo in Florence frescoed Stories of St. Nicholas (lost) and perhaps two panels, now dismembered: of one, two lateral sections survive (St. Proculus and St. Nicholas) in the Museo Bandini in Fiesole, and of the other, four Little Stories of St. Nicholas of Bari in the Uffizi (nos. 8348 and 8349). From 1335 are the frescoes (lost) in the church of S. Margherita in Cortona, and together with his brother Pietro he executed some Stories of the Virgin on the facade of the Hospital of S. M. della Scala in Siena (destroyed in 1720). From 1337 to '39 he frescoed the Sala dei Nove in the Palazzo pubblico in Siena with the Allegories and Effects of Good and Bad Government, and in the loggia of the same Palazzo he painted in 1340 a Madonna and Child. Signed and dated 1342 is the Presentation in the Temple, formerly in the Cathedral, now in the Uffizi (no. 8346), and likewise signed and dated 1344 is the Annunciation for the Gabella of Siena, now in the Pinacoteca (no. 88). From 1347 comes the last documentary notice of A., who probably died of the plague in 1348. Besides the aforementioned works, all securely documented or dated, of particular importance and now undisputed attribution are certain panels in Siena, in the Pinacoteca (Madonna between St. M. Magdalene and St. Dorothy, from S. Petronilla [no. 77]; Madonna with little angels and saints [no. 65]; the so-called Madonna of the Serre di Rapolano [no. 605]; two Landscape Views [nos. 70 and 71]), in the Museo dell'Opera (Sts. Francis, M. Magdalene, Catherine and Benedict), in the Archiepiscopal Seminary (Madonna of the Milk), at Massa Marittima (Madonna between little angels and saints, called the Maestà, in the Palazzo del Comune), at Roccalbegna (Madonna, in the Parish Church), at Badia a Rofeno (Madonna and St. Michael the Archangel, in the Parish Church), in Milan (Madonna formerly in the Cagnola collection, now at Brera), in New York (Madonnas, in the Blumenthal and Lehman collections), in Frankfurt (two Polyptychs in the Staedel Institute), in Budapest (Madonna in the Gallery), in Cambridge, Mass. (Crucifixion in the Fogg Museum), in Zurich (Holy Family in the Abegg collection), etc. Recently (1944) a fresco with the Madonna and various saints was discovered in a chapel of the church of S. Agostino in Siena; but the attribution to A. of this last work, as well as of the frescoes in the chapel of S. Galgano at Montesipi near Siena and of other minor paintings, is not accepted by everyone.
The personality of A. is perhaps the most complete and the richest in problems among all those presented to us by Sienese painting of the fourteenth century; and the profound originality of his language must be clarified through the various cultural experiences to which the artist proved sensitive. In the youthful Madonna of Vico the abbot A. shows himself oriented rather toward Florence, and Giotto in particular, than toward the preceding Sienese tradition: but already the gravity and the volumetric quality of Giottesque painting appear personally interpreted and translated in a predominantly chromatic and linear sense, through the synthesizing power of contours. Once again a Florentine echo is discernible in the great fresco compositions: the Franciscan scenes of Siena and the allegorical cycle of the Buon Governo, which was the artist's most extensive pictorial undertaking. The complicated symbolic and doctrinal scaffolding of these famous compositions not only does not diminish their representational effectiveness, but itself becomes material for poetry, whence the exceptional importance of the cycle, historical and documentary as well. But it is above all in certain panel paintings, such as the Madonna del latte and the Maestà of Massa, that the most personal characteristics of A.'s technique and inspiration shine forth with greater intensity and elevation: the sense of absorbed, superhuman calm that breathes and is reflected also, with a touch of sensual languor, in the florid and opulent ideal of feminine beauty that he cherished, the capacity to perceive the most hidden and delicate movements of the heart, representing them, for example, in the tender, passionate intimacy of his Madonnas and his Infant Christs; the most refined sensitivity to color, which he knew how to render warm and luminous. Of these gifts the late Annunciation of 1344 is a surprising testimony, perhaps unique in all of 14th-century European painting.
II. PIETRO
It is probable, though not certain, that a payment dated 25 February 1306 refers to him; after that one must come down to 1320, when a Polyptych for the parish church of S. Maria was commissioned from him by Guido Tarlati, bishop of Arezzo: a work still signed in situ. In 1324 he was painting in Siena some shields for the captain of the people, and in 1326 some Histories in the house of the Opera del Duomo, now lost; likewise lost, or unidentified, is a panel of 1329 for the church of the Umiliati. Of 1329 is the great altarpiece for the convent of the Carmine in Siena, dismembered in 1818; there survive the central composition (Madonna and Child, four Angels, St. Nicholas and the Prophet Elijah) with the entire predella depicting five Histories of the Carmelite Order, coming from the church of S. Ansano at Dofana, in the Pinacoteca of Siena, together with other secondary parts. To 1329, 1330 and 1333 go back records of minor works on behalf of the Commune and of the Opera del Duomo of Siena.
In 1335, having completed together with his brother Ambrogio the Histories of the Virgin in fresco on the facade of the Spedale di S. M. della Scala (destroyed in 1720), he began to paint the altarpiece for the altar of S. Savino in the cathedral of Siena: the central part of it, consisting of the Nativity of the Virgin, dated 1342, is at present in the Museo dell'Opera of Siena, while two panels that P. undertook to paint for Paolo di Tingo in 1340 have been lost. This date and the painter's signature, however, are borne by the Madonna and Child with angels in the Uffizi (no. 445), coming from the church of S. Francesco in Pistoia. Sienese documents relating to licences granted to him run from 1337 to 1345; the lack of further records leads one to presume him dead in the plague of 1348. Among the works not documented, but of undisputed attribution to P., are a Madonna and Child with four angels, formerly in the Cathedral, now in the Museo d'Arte sacra of Cortona, chronologically earlier than the Polyptych of Arezzo, a painted Cross in the church of S. Marco also at Cortona, a small signed diptych (Madonna and Ecce Homo) in the Lindenau Museum at Altenburg, a Madonna in the parish church of Castiglion d'Orcia, one in that of Monticchiello in the Sienese territory and one in the Perkins collection at Lastra a Signa, a Crucifixion in fresco in the church of S. Francesco in Siena, coming from the Chapter house, a St. Lucy, in the church of S. Lucia de' Magnoli in Florence and various other panels in the Pinacoteca of Siena, among them an incomplete polyptych dated 1332 (nos. 79-81-82), and in public galleries and private collections in Italy and abroad. Finally a cycle of frescoes in the lower basilica of S. Francesco d'Assisi, comprising the Histories of the Passion and two Madonnas with saints, is judged among his most important creations. Controversial, on the other hand, is the attribution of the polyptych with the Blessed Humility and stories of her legend in the Uffizi (no. 8347).
P. L. was very different from his brother Ambrogio in temperament and stylistic formation. Through him a sober and vigorous narrative taste was introduced into Sienese painting, rich in immediacy and in dramatic possibilities, so much so that of the customary themes of the Christian figurative repertoire he brings out above all the tragic element. The sculpture of Giovanni Pisano suggested to him motifs of great
LORENZETTO (Lorenzo Lotti, called il) - Statue of Jonah after a design by Raphael - Rome, church of S. Maria del Popolo, Chigi Chapel.
of pathetic effectiveness and of profound religious and human resonance at the same time: the best known is that of the mute and sorrowful exchange of glances that affectionately binds the Madonna to the Child in various representations on panel and in fresco (at Cortona, Arezzo, Assisi, Florence). Of a truly precious and exquisite minuteness in small-format compositions, such as, for example, the predella of the Carmelites' altarpiece in Siena, his painting asserted itself with perhaps even more original and effective results in the broad technique of fresco. The mutilated Crucifixion in S. Francesco in Siena and the stupendous cycle of the Passion at Assisi, executed probably in several campaigns and with the collaboration of assistants, especially for the very dense Deposition and for the grandiose Crucifixion, mindful of the sublime one in Duccio's Maestà, are among the highest figurative expressions of the dramatic genius of the Italian Trecento. - See plate CV.
Bibliography6 works
Enzo Carli