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.
Duccio di Buoninsegna, commonly known as just Duccio, was an Italian painter active in Siena, Tuscany, in the late 13th and early 14th century. He was hired throughout his life to complete many important works in government and religious buildings around Italy. Duccio is considered one of the greatest Italian painters of the Middle Ages, and is credited with creating the painting styles of Trecento and the Sienese school. He also contributed significantly to the Sienese Gothic style.
Pietro Lorenzetti or Pietro Laurati was an Italian painter, active between c. 1306 and 1345. Together with his younger brother Ambrogio, he introduced naturalism into Sienese art. In their artistry and experiments with three-dimensional and spatial arrangements, the brothers foreshadowed the art of the Renaissance.
Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia was an Italian painter, working primarily in Siena, becoming a prolific painter and illustrator of manuscripts, including Dante's texts. He was one of the most important painters of the 15th century Sienese School. His early works show the influence of earlier Sienese masters, but his later style was more individual, characterized by cold, harsh colours and elongated forms. His style also took on the influence of International Gothic artists such as Gentile da Fabriano. Many of his works have an unusual dreamlike atmosphere, such as the surrealistic Miracle of St. Nicholas of Tolentino painted about 1455 and now housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, while his last works, particularly Last Judgment, Heaven, and Hell from about 1465 and Assumption painted in 1475, both at Pinacoteca Nazionale (Siena), are grotesque treatments of their lofty subjects. Giovanni's reputation declined after his death but was revived in the 20th century.
Domenico di Bartolo, born in Asciano, Siena, was a Sienese painter of the early Renaissance period. In the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Giorgio Vasari says that Domenico was the nephew of Taddeo di Bartolo. Influenced by the new Florentine style of painting, Domenico di Bartolo was the only Sienese painter of his time to receive commissions from clients in Florence. In Siena, he was employed by Lorenzo di Pietro, to help execute the fresco The Care of the Sick, in the Pilgrim's Hall of the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala.
Taddeo di Bartolo, also known as Taddeo Bartoli, was an Italian painter of the Sienese School during the early Renaissance. His biography appears in the Vite of Giorgio Vasari, who claims that Taddeo was the uncle of Domenico di Bartolo.
Sano di Pietro or Ansano di Pietro di Mencio (1405–1481) was an Italian painter of the Sienese school of painting. He was active for about half a century during the Quattrocento period, and his contemporaries included Giovanni di Paolo and Sassetta.
Matteo di Giovanni was an Italian Renaissance artist from the Sienese School.
Coppo di Marcovaldo was a Florentine painter in the Italo-Byzantine style, active in the middle of the thirteenth century, whose fusion of both the Italian and Byzantine styles had great influence on generations of Italian artists.
Lorenzo di Niccolò or Lorenzo di Niccolò di Martino was an Italian painter who was active in Florence from 1391 to 1412. This early Renaissance artist worked in the Trecento style, and his work maintains influences of the Gothic style, marking a transitional period between the Gothic sensibilities of the Middle Ages while simultaneously beginning to draw on the Classical. Lorenzo's works were usually religious scenes in tempera with gold backgrounds.
Santa Maria della Scala is located in Siena, Italy. Now a museum, it was once an important civic hospital dedicated to caring for abandoned children, the poor, the sick, and pilgrims. Revenues were earned partially from bequests and donations from the citizens of Siena, particularly the wealthy. The head of the hospital was the rector who managed the lay brothers responsible for its operation.
The Basilica of San Domenico, also known as Basilica Cateriniana, is a basilica church in Siena, Tuscany, Italy, one of the most important in the city. The basilica is an example of Cistercian Gothic style.
Luca di Tommè was an Italian painter active between 1356 and 1389 in Siena. He worked in the style established by earlier Sienese painters Duccio, Simone Martini, Pietro Lorenzetti and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. More than 50 works have been attributed to him. This large output contributed to the long-term survival of the decorative Sienese style well into the 15th century.
The Madonna del Bordone is a panel painting by the Italian painter Coppo di Marcovaldo, in the church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Siena, Italy.
Bartolomeo Bulgarini, also known as Bulgarino or Bologhini, was an Italian painter of the Trecento period in Siena both before and after the Black Death.
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, although built in the 15th century, has a 19th-century neo-medieval façade based on the city's Palazzo Pubblico.
The Presentation at the Temple is a 1342 painting by the Italian late medieval painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti, signed and dated 1342, now housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, Italy. It is one of the largest works by the Italian medieval painter, as well as one of the five which he signed and dated.
Niccolò di Segna was an Italian painter from Siena. His activity is documented starting from 1331.
Master of Città di Castello, in Italian, Maestro di Città di Castello, was an anonymous painter of Medieval art. Mason Perkins is responsible for his identification and naming in 1908, based on the styling from the Master preserved at the Pinacoteca comunale, Città di Castello, in Umbria.
The Museo d'Arte Sacra della Val d'Arbia is a small museum of religious art in Buonconvento, in the Val d'Arbia to the south of Siena, in Tuscany in central Italy. It contain a number of paintings by important artists of the Sienese School, among them Duccio di Buoninsegna, Sano di Pietro and Pietro Lorenzetti. The museum is housed in the Palazzo Ricci Socini, close to the parish church of Santi Pietro e Paolo.
