Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa, known as Catherine of Siena, was an Italian mystic and pious laywoman who engaged in papal and Italian politics through extensive letter-writing and advocacy. Canonized in 1461, she is revered as a saint and as a Doctor of the Church due to her extensive theological authorship. She is also considered to have influenced Italian literature.
The Sienese School of painting flourished in Siena, Italy, between the 13th and 15th centuries. Its most important artists include Duccio, whose work shows Byzantine influence, his pupil Simone Martini, the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Domenico and Taddeo di Bartolo, Sassetta, and Matteo di Giovanni.
Domenico di Pace Beccafumi was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter active predominantly in Siena. He is considered one of the last undiluted representatives of the Sienese school of painting.
The mystical marriage of Saint Catherine covers two different subjects in Christian art arising from visions received by either Catherine of Alexandria or Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), in which these virgin saints went through a mystical marriage wedding ceremony with Christ, in the presence of the Virgin Mary, consecrating themselves and their virginity to him.
The Pinacoteca Nazionale is a national museum in Siena, Tuscany, Italy. Inaugurated in 1932, it houses especially late medieval and Renaissance paintings from Italian artists. It is housed in the Brigidi and Buonsignori palaces in the city's center: the former, built in the 14th century, it is traditionally identified as the Pannocchieschi family's residence. The Palazzo Bichi-Buonsignori, built in the 15th century, was until recently thought to have a 19th-century neo-medieval façade based on the city's Palazzo Pubblico; however, restoration in 2022 revealed that it is mostly original.
Nativity of the Virgin is an oil on panel painting by Domenico Beccafumi, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena. Painted for Santi Pietro e Paolo, it has been dated to 1540-1543 by its stylistic similarities to the paintings produced by the artist on Moses and the evangelists for Pisa Cathedral and to some scenes from the pavement of Siena Cathedral. It may have originally had a predella - Sammniatelli identifies the predella's panels as a number of paintings now in a private collection in Somerset.
Deucalion and Pyhrra is an oil painting on panel of c. 1520–1525 by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi. It is held now in the Museo Horne, in Florence.
Putti Bearing a Tondo Showing the Drunkenness of Noah is an oil painting on panel executed c. 1522–1523 by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi.
Tanaquil is an oil-on-wood painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi, which depicts Tanaquil, a queen of Rome. The work was painted by Beccafumi c. 1519 for the bedroom of Francesco Petrucci, Lord of Siena, part of a series which also included Marcia. The painting depicts the queen together with broken architecture and dead plants. She points to a tablet that identifies her as Tanaquil.
The Trinity Triptych is a 1513 oil-on-panel painting by the Italian Mannerist painter Domenico Beccafumi, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena.
Descent into Limbo or Descent into Hell is an oil-on-panel painting executed c. 1530–1535 by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi, now in the Sienese Grand Masters room in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena. With the Saint Martin Nativity and Holy Family with the Infant John the Baptist it is one of the last works commissioned from the artist by the Beccafumi Marsili family for their family chapel at the Basilica of San Francesco in Siena. Damaged by a fire in 1655, the painting was seen by Giorgio Vasari, who praised it for the uniqueness of its figures, prefiguring Mannerism.
The Sarteano Annunciation is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi, executed c. 1546. It is located in the church of San Martino in Foro in Sarteano, Italy.
Coronation of the Virgin is an oil-on-canvas painting executed c. 1539 by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi, now in the Pinacoteca nazionale in Siena.
The Bellanti Madonna is oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian artist Domenico Beccafumi, executed c. 1515. Long attributed to Girolamo del Pacchia, Vigni reattributed it as a youthful work by Domenico Beccafumi in 1936, an attribution accepted by most other later art historians. The painting depicts the Virgin Mary glancing downward, holding the Christ Child in her arms. Jesus is in turn clinging on to Mary's collar. Heavily influenced by Michelangelo, its oval format is also influenced by Raphael's Madonnas, as are other Beccafumi works of the period such as the Madonna and Child in his Saint Paul Enthroned. Previously in the Bellanti collection, it is now one of several works by Beccafumi in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena, including another Madonna and Child from 1514.
Saint Paul Enthroned is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi, now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Siena. On the basis of its style it is dated to c. 1515, before his St Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata and after his trip to Rome, where he had come into contact with Sodoma and Florentine artists of the period. The figure of Saint Paul draws on the prophets in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling whilst those in the background draw on Dürer and Piero di Cosimo.
The San Martino Nativity is an oil painting on canvas executed c. 1524 by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi. It is named after the church of San Martino in Siena, where it still hangs over the altar in the funerary chapel of its commissioner Anastasia Marisli, who died in 1524.
The Oratory of the Compagnia di San Bernardino is a place of worship in the Piazza San Francesco in Siena. Elevated to minor basilica status in 1925 by Pope Pius XI, it adjoins rooms housing the diocesan museum. It is notable for its frescoes from various 16th- and 17th-century Sienese painters like Sodoma and Domenico Beccafumi. The oratory is almost adjacent to the Basilica of San Francesco, Siena.
Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist is an oil-on-canvas painting executed c. 1521–1522 by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi. It is now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, which it entered in 1850. It was previously acquired from the casa Marsili in Siena in 1816 for 975 scudi for Prince Ludwig.
Saint Michael Defeats the Rebel Angels or Fall of the Rebel Angels is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi, executed c. 1524, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. It was begun for San Niccolò al Carmine, Siena, but left unfinished, with the artist completing another version for the same church in 1526. Vasari's Lives of the Artists mentions the work, stating the artist wished to create "a new invention to show the virtue and good conceits of his soul".
Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine is an oil-on-canvas painting executed c. 1528 by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi. It is now in the Palazzo Chigi-Saracini in Siena.
