Siena, Archdiocese of

SIENA, ARCHDIOCESE of. – City and archdiocese, provincial capital in Tuscany. It has an area of 800 sq km and a population of 85,000 inhabitants, of whom 84,000 are Catholics, distributed among 110 parishes and 13 vicariates, served by 140 secular and 70 regular priests; it has a major and minor seminary, 11 male and 33 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 379). The diocese, which suffered considerable reductions in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, extends in the form of an irregular rectangle from north to south, chiefly along the right bank of the Ombrone and its tributaries Arbia, Merse, Lanzo, and Gretano; it is traversed by the Via Cassia and Via Grossetana. Its suffragan dioceses are Grosseto, Chiusi, Massa Marittima, Sovana, and Pitigliano.

I. ORIGIN AND HISTORY

S. (Saena, Sena, Senae) has obscure origins. Probably an Etruscan center, it became an important Roman colony around 30 B.C., but few ruins remain.

According to tradition, Christianity was introduced there at the beginning of the 4th century through the efforts of the young Roman Ansano Anicio, martyred for the faith on the Arbia in 303 and later made the principal patron of the diocese. A monastery and a church dedicated to the martyr are documented in the 7th century (Lanzoni, p. 564). It seems almost certain that the Floriano who took part in the Council of Rome in 313 was bishop of S.; but the history of the diocese during the first centuries is shrouded in darkness. After Floriano, Eusebio is mentioned, who participated in the Roman Synod of 465; Mauro, at that of 649, and who around that time reached a compromise with the bishop of Arezzo concerning the disputed possession of eighteen pieves located in the territory of Siena (cf. C. Lanzeri, La donazione del tribuno Zenobio, etc., Arezzo 1938, p. 12 ff.); and Vitaliano, who at the Roman Council of 680 signed the well-known Letter to the Emperor of the East. The compromise concerning the disputed pieves was not maintained, and long conflicts, with alternating fortunes, recurred and even led to violence, as in the transfer to S. of the body of S. Ansano (1107), continuing until the 12th century, without benefit to S. and leaving a trail of animosity between the two dioceses. Meanwhile, a few kilometers from the city arose the famous Benedictine monastery of S. Eugenio (730), and a few years later, at the extreme limit of the contado, the even more famous abbey of S. ROSA, SALVATORE (v.) was built. Religious life was taking firm root. The authority of the bishop,

already eminent alongside the Lombard gastaldi, was strengthened under the Frankish counts.

With the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire, the bishop remained the sole undisputed authority. The imperial count returned to S. only under Otto I, and did not remain there long. Power had passed to the bishop, who exercised it with a council of noble consuls, summoning the population before the church to approve proposals. Ecclesiastical life developed alongside political evolution. From the beginning of the 10th century, the Cathedral Chapter was already bound to communal life with its Schola, the names of some of whose teachers, priores scholae, have been handed down. The Sienese Chapter still takes pride in the brief membership of the learned s. Bruno of Segni in that school. The Sienese canons founded the hospital of S. Maria della Scala for sick and abandoned pilgrims, entrusting its care to an association of laymen, the Frati dello Spedale, while reserving to themselves approval of the rector and supervision of the administration. Until the end of the 14th century, the Chapter elected the bishop. In S., Pope Nicolò II was elected against the intruder Benedetto X (1058), a sign that it supported the new reform movement. Even before the investiture conflict, the Sienese Church had obtained (around 1055) quasi-sovereign prerogatives over a broad territory between the Arbia and the Merse, which would form the fief of the bishopric and endure, amid conflicts and agreements, until Pietro Leopoldo (1786).

The great feudal lords took advantage of the political and religious disorder produced by the struggle between the Papacy and the Empire (when Gregory VII confronted Henry IV, the Sienese Church was governed by the bishop s. Ridolfo [1072–84]) to enlarge their domains. But by then the movement toward the unification of communal life could no longer be halted; and under the leadership of the bishop and the consuls, the power of the great lords was gradually limited. Donations to the bishop and the Virgin Mary, to the bishop and the people, and to the Virgin and the Commune followed one another. The feudal lords were compelled to reside in the city. The new struggle between the Sienese pope Alexander III and Frederick I found Ranieri (1129–67), active and zealous, as bishop of S.; to him is owed the precious calendar-obituary of the Sienese Church (around 1140). When the consuls, pressured by the imperial vicar, imprisoned some ecclesiastics, the bishop excommunicated the consuls and placed the city and contado under interdict. The clergy remained faithful to the Pope, but the bishop, forced to flee, could never return (he died in 1170).

The consecration of the new Cathedral dates from this period. Ghibelline S. received imperial recognition as a free city (1186), together with the free election of consuls (whom S. had been electing for several decades), the right to mint coinage, and so forth; this recognition was completed with the institution of the podestà (1199). Unfortunately, the movement toward communal unification was clouded by continual wars between S. and Florence—wars that neither the pastoral zeal of the bishops Buono (1189–1215) and Buonfiglio (1216–52), nor the preaching of peace by the new Dominican, Franciscan, and Servite Orders could appease—until S. succeeded in defeating its Guelph rival (1260) and was able to domi-

SIENA, ARCIDIOCESI di — Bernardinian monogram supported by an angel (15th century) — Siena, Conservatori Riuniti.

(phot. Grassi, Siena)

SIENA, ARCIDIOCESI di — The Virgin protects S. during the earthquake of 1466, bicherna of 1467 attributed to Francesco di Giorgio Martini — Siena, State Archives.

nate Tuscany for a decade, after adopting a wise civil constitution (1262). The wealthy Guelph merchants and bankers succeeded in taking control of the government, which they, the « Nove », maintained with wisdom and energy and without significant upheavals for a long period (1292–1355).

The legacy of the b. Andrea Gallerani (c. 1200–51), founder of the Casa di Misericordia (c. 1240), expanded with the Compagnia dei Disciplinati under the vaults of the Spedale (1295), which still continues something of the ancient charitable work under the name of Società di Esecutori di pie disposizioni; the b. Bernardo Tolomei (1272–1348) founded the Congregation of the Olivetans in 1319; the Charterhouses of Maggiano and Pontignano arose; and the Commune, not content with possessing a great cathedral, planned an even larger one. The bishop Donusdeo (1313–51), deserving well of the faith for the charity and firmness he showed toward the Fraticelli, just as his predecessor Buonfiglio (1216–52) had deserved well of it with regard to the Albigensians, blessed (1339) the foundation stone of the great Cathedral, which, though unfinished, remains a testimony to faith, daring, and genius.

S. was filled with churches, convents, and hospitals, all enlivened by the grace of art. Three years after the deadly plague, the same bishop Donusdeo, in his will (1351), endowed 20 parishes, 34 convents, 2 abbeys, and 13 hospitals. In this contest of faith and charity, the contado in no way fell short of the center of the diocese. Yet, deeply agitated by turbulent passions, after the fall of the « Nove » the people exhausted themselves in continuous internal and external struggles that brought the Republic to ruin (1555), with its incorporation into the Medici Grand Duchy. During these two centuries, the University of S. was raised by Charles IV (1357) to the status of a Studium generale, with authority granted to the bishop to confer degrees; the work of the b. Giovanni Colombini arose, with his Gesuati; there appeared the ardor of s. Caterina, the learned piety of the Ilicetani, and that of s. Bernardino with his Observance; Gregory XII, patron of the Studium, resided in S. and granted it a chair of theology; Eugene IV, Gabriele Condulmer, formerly bishop of S. (1408), also resided there; there was the unfinished Ecumenical Council of 1423;

the episcopate of Enea Silvio Piccolomini (1450–58), later Pius II, who raised the see of S. to a metropolitan see on 23 April 1459; then that of Fr. Piccolomini (1460–1501), later Pius III; and that of Fr. Bandini Piccolomini, an energetic defender of the faith against the innovators (1529–88). And the faith remained firm in the Sienese Church, despite sporadic cases of defection culminating in the apostasy of B. Ochino.

With the fall of the republic, S. became part of the Duchy of Tuscany. In the new political climate, the Tridentine norms inspired fruitful initiatives, directed especially by the Capuchins and the Jesuits, who came to S. in 1536 and 1555, respectively. The episcopates of the learned Archbishop A. Piccolomini (1588–97); of the most zealous Cardinal Fr. Tarugi (1597–1607), who held a provincial synod (1599); of Cardinal M. Bichi (1612–14), founder of the Seminary; and of A. Piccolomini (1628–71), who adapted prudent educational norms to the changed circumstances but also encountered fierce resistance to the implementation of canonical prescriptions from two prominent lay congregations jealous of supposed rights, brought honour to the Church of Siena. The Seminary, strengthened by the munificence of Alessandro VII (1660), attracted young men from every part of Tuscany, competing with the Tolomei College directed by the Jesuits; after their suppression (1774), the Piarists succeeded them.

Jansenist controversies barely touched the diocese. But when Pietro Leopoldo sought to implement ill-considered religious reforms along with well-considered economic reforms, the Archbishop P. Borghesi, a meritorious prelate, following the grand-ducal suppression of the lay confraternities and the reorganization of the city parishes (1783–86), firmly defended the rights of ecclesiastical doctrine and discipline. The exiled Pius VI was a guest of S. from February to May 1798. The religious orders suppressed by the French (1808–1809) returned after the Restoration. The Risorgimento period did not find the diocese unprepared for the new times, as worthy prelates such as the learned and generous Archbishop G. Mancini (1824–55) governed II. The Seminary—

The College continued the formation of young clerics and laymen until the beginning of this century, when the Seminary was separated from the College; and through the work of Archbishop P. Scaccia, the Seminary obtained the authority to confer degrees in theology (1914–31). The University of S. had abolished theology in 1860.

II. ILLUSTRIOUS PERSONAGES

They brought honor to their Church and their Sienese homeland: Rolando Bandinelli, eminent jurist, later Alexander III (1159–81); Cardinal Riccardo Petroni (ca. 1250–1313), profound jurist and patron of the arts; the two popes Piccolomini; Camillo Borghese, of Sienese origin, later Paul V (1605–21); Fabio Chigi, man of letters and diplomat, Pope Alexander VII (1655–67); Ambrogio Caterino (Lancellotto Politi: 1487–1553), poet and theologian; Claudio Tolomei (1480?–1555), poet, philologist, politician, Bishop of Corcira (1549–1555); Sisto da S. (1520–69), converted from Judaism, a most learned biblical exegete; Sallustio Bandini (1677–1760), archdeacon of the Cathedral, an acute economist; the abbot Giovanni Caselli (1815–91), physicist and inventor of the pantelegraph; Monsignor Nazareno Orlandi (1872–1945), pioneer of Catholic Action, founder of the Federation of Associations of the Clergy in Italy (F.A.C.I.). The saints already mentioned are worthily crowned by b. Ambrogio Sansedoni (1220–82); b. Andrea Gallerani (ca. 1200–51); b. Francesco (d. in 1328) and b. Antonio Patrizi (d. in 1311); b. Giovacchino Piccolomini (1258–1305), and the bb. Caterina Lenzi, Nera Tolomei, Caterina Colombini, together with the others of whom every Sienese family takes pride in boasting.

III. NOTABLE MONUMENTS

S. abounds in monuments.

(phot. Facostere, Turin)

SIENA, ARCIDIOCESI di — Apse of the Duomo and façade of the church of S. Giovanni (baptistery), probably designed in 1382 — Siena.

(phot. Exil)

SIENA, ARCIDIOCESI di — The dome of the Cathedral (1266). At the corners, above columns, statues of saints; in the gallery with small columns, figures of patriarchs, painted by Guidoccio Cozzarelli and others (15th cent.) — Siena.

Foremost among these is the Duomo, dedicated to the Assumption. Since the 12th century, a host of artists has worked here, creating, in composed harmony, masterpieces of every style. The Romanesque bell tower (13th cent.), the dome (1266), the pulpit by N. Pisano (1268), the façade by G. Pisano (1297) and Giovanni di Cecco (14th cent.), the graffito pavement based on designs by Beccafumi, Matteo di Giovanni, etc.; the choir by Fr. del Tonghio and the Riccio; the high altar by Peruzzi; the tabernacle by Vecchietta; the bronze and marble statues by Giovanni di Stefano, Francesco di Giorgio, Tino di Camaino, Donatello; the Piccolomini altar by Andrea Bregno (1503), with statues by Michelangelo; the chapel of S. Giovanni with the relic of the arm of the Baptist; the statue of the Baptist by Donatello; that of S. Caterina of Alexandria by Neroccio and paintings by Pinturicchio; the chapel of the Vow, where the archaic image of the Advocata Senensium is venerated, together with S. Jerome and the Magdalene by Bernini and an altar service chased by Cellini; the adjoining Piccolomini library with the Life of Pius II by Pinturicchio, to whom also belongs the Coronation of Pius III on the inner wall of the Duomo.

The Museo dell’Opera, adjoining the Duomo, contains priceless treasures: sculptures, statues (formerly in the Duomo), the Three Graces, drawings, illuminated codices, goldwork, ivories, embroideries, reliquaries, vestments, including Duccio’s panel, the Maestà (1309–11) made for the high altar of the Duomo.

The Spedale di S. Maria della Scala, opposite the Duomo, a gigantic two- and six-storey building (10th–14th centuries), encloses, through the masterpieces of art in the church, the oratories below and its interior, especially in the Pellegrinaio (1440–43) by Domenico di Bartolo and Vecchietta, the history of ten centuries of Christian charity. The parish church of S. Giovanni, built (14th cent.) beneath the presbytery of the Duomo, has the baptismal font fashioned by Jacopo della Quercia, Donatello and Ghiberti.

The basilica of S. Domenico (1223 ff.), now the Basilica Cateriniana, boasts the chapel of the Vaults with the portrait of S. Caterina by Andrea di Vanni and the chapel of S. Caterina with the Saint’s head and frescoes by Sodoma, as well as a majestic crypt. The basilica of S. Francesco (1246 ff.), spacious and austere, with masterpieces by Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti, damaged at various times and during the Second World War, is a destination for pilgrimages because of the prodigy of the Sacred Particles, which have remained intact since 1730. Adjacent to S. Francesco is the oratory of S. Bernardino, with paintings by Beccafumi, Sodoma and Del Pacchia; it contains the Saint’s heart and the small panel of the Name of Jesus designed by the Saint himself. The basilica of S. Maria dei Servi (ca. 1260), with its unfinished façade renovated (1534) and dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, was restored at the beginning of this

SIENA, ARCIDIOCESI di — Illuminated letter with the Annunciation and the prophet Isaiah (in the manner of Sano di Pietro, first half of the 15th cent.). Choir book in the Piccolomini Library — Siena.

century, with paintings by Matteo di Giovanni, Taddeo di Bartolo, P. Lorenzetti and Fungai.

The church of S. Agostino (1258 ff.), remodeled at various times, spacious and luminous, has a triptych by Simone Martini, a Crucifixion by Perugino, the Massacre of the Innocents by Matteo di Giovanni and the Epiphany by Sodoma. S. Maria del Carmine (13th–14th centuries), restored in this century, possesses an archaic Madonna dei Mantellini and the S. Michele by Beccafumi. The house of S. Caterina, transformed into oratories (1464 ff.), is a sanctuary to which the faithful flock from throughout the world; it contains works by Sodoma, Pacchia, Neroccio, Fungai and Riccio, as well as memorabilia of the Saint. S. Maria di Provenzano (1596 ff.) is a notable collegiate church, closely connected with the traditional Palio and exceptionally rich in precious furnishings; it is the city’s only Baroque church. S. Maria di Fontegiusta (15th cent.) is a singular cubic structure, with masterpieces by Marrina, Peruzzi and Fungai. The church of the Osservanza (basilica of S. Bernardino all’Osservanza, 15th cent.), destroyed during the Second World War and completely rebuilt, a short distance from the city, has the Coronation of the Madonna by A. della Robbia, the Reliquary of the Tunic of S. Bernardino by Fr. d’Antonio (1454), S. Elisabetta by Benvenuto di Giovanni, and polyptychs by Sano di Pietro and Sassetta. Among the sacred places, mention must also be made of the oratories of the historic seventeen contrade, still intimately bound to the civil and religious life of the people of Siena.

The innumerable pictorial and sculptural treasures scattered throughout the churches of the diocesan territory have for the most part ended up in the city Picture Gallery.

In the following century, on the other hand, it was from the Sienese territory that impulses towards a general renewal of religious architecture spread throughout Tuscany: the abbey church of S. Galgano in the Valle della Merse, built between 1224 and 1288 and now in ruins, was among the very earliest manifestations of an Italian interpretation of transalpine Gothic, and served as a model for a large part of Tuscan ecclesiastical building in the 13th and 14th centuries. Meanwhile, beginning in 1258, the same Cistercian monks of S. Galgano were entrusted with the construction of S.'s greatest building enterprise: the Cathedral, dedicated to S. Maria Assunta. In its interior (completed about 1265-67) it reflects, with great elegance and harmony of proportions, transitional Romanesque-Gothic forms; in its exterior (the façade begun by Giovanni Pisano in 1284 and completed, after a very long interruption, from 1376 onwards), in the extension of the choir (decided upon in 1317), in the underlying parish church of S. Giovanni (completed in 1325, with a façade probably designed in 1382), and above all in the grandiose remains of the so-called « Duomo nuovo », begun by Lando di Pietro in 1339 as the longitudinal body of a vast Cathedral of which the one already built was to form the transept (construction was interrupted following the plague of 1348), it is a most daring expression of Tuscan Gothic, which in S. becomes graceful with marvellous decorative motifs and acquires greater upward impetus than in the contemporary Florentine buildings. While other 14th-century churches in the city, especially those of the monastic Orders such as S. Francesco, S. Domenico, and the Carmine, despite the extreme simplicity of their forms, attest the consistently high level attained by religious building, civic and private architecture acquired no less importance in S., where every square and street contains conspicuous examples still perfectly preserved. From the 13th to the 14th century, S. created its characteristic appearance, which still constitutes one of its greatest attractions. Civil buildings almost all display, as recurring elements, the so-called « Sienese arch », consisting of a blind depressed arch surmounted by a curved ogive: and from the primitive “tower-houses” and sombre buildings with sparse windows and stone-block facing, there is a progression to sumptuous palaces in which stone is combined with brick, decorated with small arches, with serene rows of double- and four-light pointed windows, and crowned with battlements supported by slender inverted-pyramidal corbels. The supreme expression of this elegant architectural style is the Palazzo Pubblico (1288-1342), with a façade of three slightly curved sections following the line of the marvellous Piazza del Campo, and flanked by the slender Torre del Mangia (1338-48): numerous splendid buildings repeat its essential motifs, with an infinite variety of particular solutions (Palazzo Sansedoni, Buonsignori, Tolomei, Marescotti, now Chigi-Saracini, Salimbeni, del Capitano, etc.). Also typical is the architecture of the Sienese fountains, consisting of broad basins of stone and brick covered by cross vaults (Fontebranda, Fonte Nuova, etc.), and of the city gates, of grand proportions, furnished with barbicans and enclosed by battlements (Porta Romana, Porta Pispini or S. Viene, Porta Tufi).

(from E. Carli, Scultura lignea senese, Milano-Firenze 1951, pl. 17) SIENA, ARCIDIOCESI di - S. Crescenzo, wooden bust by Francesco di Valdambrino (1409) - Siena, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.

Gothic and Renaissance blend harmoniously in the Loggia della Mercanzia (by Sano di Matteo; 1417-1429) and in the Cappella di Piazza (1376), completed by Antonio Federighi, to whom are also due the airy Logge del Papa and the original Palazzo dei Diavoli. Meanwhile, noted Florentine architects of the 15th century erected superb testimonies to the new style in the heart of this stronghold of Gothic: Bernardo Rossellino, who for Pio II transformed the rustic village of Corsignano into a perfect model of a Renaissance town, creating present-day Pienza, raised in S. the most noble mass of the Palazzo Piccolomini, imitated in the one known as « delle Papesse »; and Giuliano da Maiano began the Palazzo Spannocchi, which was also to serve as a model for the so-called Palazzo di S. Galgano. Although direct traces of the activity in his native land of the greatest Sienese architect of the 15th century, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, are scant, his style is nevertheless reflected in the work of Giacomo Cozzarelli (Chiesa dell'Osservanza, Cupola di S. Spirito, Palazzo del Magnifico): nor are there many reminders of Baldassarre Peruzzi in S. (Palazzo Pollini, Castello di Belcaro), while other good Sienese architects of the 16th century were A. M. Lari, G. B. Pelori, and Bartolomeo Neroni called « il Riccio ». In the 17th century Sienese building activity, though not very intense, remained within the bounds of a dignified and sober balance, as is shown by the harmonious mass of S. Maria di Provenzano, designed by the Carthusian fra D. Schifardini and executed by Flaminio del Turco. Particularly characteristic of the 18th century are the most elegant interiors of certain contrada oratories and the façades of the churches of S. Giorgio and S. Vigilio.

SIENA, ARCIDIOCESI di - Voting casket (14th century) - Siena, Palazzo comunale.

As with architecture, one cannot speak of Sienese sculpture during the Romanesque period: indeed, only after the activity carried out in S. by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano did a local school arise, developing in the first decades of the 14th century, of great importance because it was represented by highly notable masters such as Tino di Camaino, Gano di Fazio, Goro di Gregorio, Agostino di Giovanni, Agnolo di Ventura, and Giovanni d'Agostino, whereas no certain works in S. are known by Ramo di Paganello and Lorenzo Mainani, both active at Orvieto. This splendid tradition, suddenly extinguished by the plague of 1348, revived at the beginning of the 15th century with the great Jacopo della Quercia, Francesco di Valdambrino, and Domenico dei Cori, the latter two being chiefly sculptors of wooden statues. Meanwhile Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello introduced the new taste of the Renaissance into S. by modelling, together with Jacopo della Quercia, the scenes of the baptismal font of S. Giovanni: and while Antonio Federighi continued the tradition of della Quercia with a certain academic coldness, Lorenzo di Pietro called il Vecchietta and Francesco di Giorgio Martini became lofty and original interpreters of Donatello's teaching.

With the end of the fifteenth century, however, there spread a taste for decorative sculpture of fine and minute carving, rich in classicizing motifs, which was to culminate in the most elegant virtuoso works of Lorenzo di Mariano, known as “il Marrina” (1476–1534). In the sixteenth century there are no other noteworthy sculptors, with the exception of Beccafumi, who, in addition to painting, successfully practiced bronze casting; and during the Baroque period intense activity was carried out, disseminating the Berninesque style, by the numerous members of the Mazzuoli family, from the elder Dionisio to his sons Giuseppe and Giov. Antonio and finally to his grandson Bartolomeo. Finally, Giovanni Duprè, the very well-known sculptor, was born in S. (1817) and left several works there. But S.’s greatest glory is that it was the seat of a school of painting which, especially during the fourteenth century, was one of the most important in Europe. The fanciful and fairy-tale character of Sienese painting, which seems almost to oppose the lucid rationalism of Florentine painting, is seen above all in the constant predilection that Sienese masters showed for color and for line understood as the pure and free expression of an exquisitely musical and decorative sensibility. Thus, the robust and concise language of Giotto is seen to contrast with the slender and florid linear elegance of a Simone Martini, and the chiaroscuro and constructive volumetric treatment of the Florentines with the tranquil chromatic surfaces of an Ambrogio Lorenzetti.

SIENA, ARCIDIOCESI di - The Palio (16 Aug.) - Siena.

Since full accounts of the activity of each individual master are given in the entries devoted to them, it will suffice to cite their names according to the chronological and stylistic sequence to which they belong. Thus, if the Sienese pictorial tradition began around the middle of the thirteenth century (according to some, however, in the first decades) with Guido da Siena, it achieved its highest and most splendid results between the end of the thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth with Duccio di Buoninsegna, Simone Martini, and the two brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Numerous minor personalities, nevertheless worthy of note, developed within the orbit of each of these masters: Duccio’s followers were Segna di Bonaventura, his son Niccolò, and Ugolino di Nerio; Simone Martini’s were Lippo Memmi, Jacopo di Mino del Pellicciaio, Naddo Ceccarelli, the delicate illuminator Niccolò Tegliacci, and Andrea Vanni. The legendary Barna occupies a position of his own; in his frescoes in the collegiate church of S. Gimignano, echoes of both Duccio and Martini can be discerned, originally reworked. But most of the painters of the late fourteenth century drew upon the Lorenzetti brothers’ experiences, although in them such influences were generally combined in such varying degrees with other motifs of different origin as to make a rigorous classification difficult. Thus, for example, the so-called “Master of Ovile” is designated by some with the exegetical appellation of Ugolino Lorenzetti, because elements derived both from Ugolino di Nerio and from Pietro Lorenzetti are fused in his manner. Likewise, Lippo Vanni, Niccolò di Buonaccorso, and Luca di Tommè drew, albeit with very different results, upon the same Martinian and Lorenzettian sources, while in Bartolo di Fredi and Paolo di Giovanni Fei even very late recollections of Ducciesque modes can be discerned.

While the language of the first great masters of the century survived without substantial innovations until the first decades of the fifteenth century through the eclectic manner of the immensely prolific Taddeo di Bartolo and Martino di Bartolommeo and their followers, Stefano di Giovanni, known as il Sassetta, showed himself informed not only by the contemporary currents of international Gothic taste but also by the first revolutionary innovations of the Florentine Renaissance. Yet these had little effect on Sassetta himself, otherwise an exceedingly refined artist; Sano di Pietro and Giovanni di Paolo, who after him were the leading Sienese painters of the fifteenth century, continued to develop the precious Gothic heritage with an autonomous language. Nor did the new Renaissance taste make inroads into Sienese artistic culture with Domenico di Bartolo and Pietro di Giovanni d’Ambrogio; it was to assimilate it much later through the mediation of Lorenzo di Pietro, known as il Vecchietta, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, and Matteo di Giovanni. But even on the threshold of the sixteenth century, a Neroccio di Bartolomeo could evoke the immaterial linearism of Simone Martini, at a time when Sienese painting, by then lacking figures of real distinction, had assumed a character of gracious eclecticism, opening itself to the most varied contributions, among which the Umbrian was particularly important. In the first half of the sixteenth century, the personalities of Sodoma and Beccafumi dominated: the former, of Piedmontese origin, a follower of Leonardo and Raphael; the latter, to be considered one of the creators and foremost exponents of the early Tuscan Mannerism.

At the end of the sixteenth century, a multitude of painters of modest merit worked in S. (one of the best was Francesco Vanni, delicately Baroccesque), until, in the following century, Rutilio Manetti emerged, one of the strongest interpreters of Italian Caravaggism. With him, essentially, the series of great Sienese painters comes to an end, because neither the eighteenth century, with its superficial Nasini family, nor the nineteenth century—which, with Maccari, Aldi, Cassioli, and Franchi, nevertheless possessed a flourishing school of fresco painters—was able to equal the glory of the earlier centuries. Alongside the major arts, the so-called minor arts also underwent extensive development in S. and attained a level of perfection difficult to surpass. Moreover, certain techniques established themselves in S. before doing so elsewhere, both in the field of goldsmithing, which owes to S. the invention of translucent enamels, and in the art of stained glass, since the oldest and most precious example of an Italian-made narrative stained-glass window is Sienese (the great “eye” of the cathedral choir, dated 1288), as well as in wood inlay and in marble inlay, which has left in the cathedral pavement a monument unique in its kind for the vastness of its dimensions and its imaginative genius; while the stylistic developments of painting were reflected in miniature, on a lesser scale but with exquisite refinement. Sienese art, with the exception of architecture, is almost exclusively religious in subject, even when it was not intended to furnish and adorn churches; and the favorite theme of Sienese artists in every period was the Madonna, solemnly proclaimed patron and advocate of the city on the eve of the Battle of Montaperti (1260), and always the object of the most fervent veneration on the part of the people and the rulers of the Republic. - Vedi tavv. XXXIV-XXXVI.