Siena and the Virgin : Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State

by Diana Norman

• ISBN13: 9780300080063
• ISBN10: 0300080069
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 1999-09-10
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Celebrating the Virgin Mary as both an object of religious affection and a focus of civic pride, artists of fourteenth-century Siena established for their city a vibrant tradition that continued into the early decades of the next century. Such celebratory portraits of the Virgin were also common in Siena's extensive subject territories, the contado. This richly illustrated book explores late medieval Sienese art -- how it was created, commissioned, and understood by the citizens of Siena. Examining political, economic, and cultural relations between Siena and the contado, Diana Norman offers a new understanding of Marian arts and its political function as an expression of civic ideology.

Drawing on extensive unpublished archives, Norman reconstructs the circumstances surrounding the commission of Marian art in the three most prestigious locations of fourteenth-century Siena: the cathedral, the Palazzo Pubblico, and the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. She analyzes similarly important commissions in the contado towns of Massa Marittima, Montalcino, and Mon

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Acknowledgements	ix
PART I FEASTS AND FEALTIES
Civic Rituals and Images	1	(20)
PART II THE CITY
The Cathedral	21	(24)
The Town Hall	45	(22)
The Patronal Altars	67	(20)
The Spedale	87	(20)
PART III THE CONTADO
Massa Marittima	107	(26)
San Leonardo al Lago	133	(24)
Montalcino	157	(26)
Montepulciano and Siena	183	(26)
Epilogue Under the Sway of the Virgin	209	(6)
Notes	215	(24)
Select Bibliography	239	(6)
Index	245	(7)
Photographic Acknowledgements	252