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The Herald Scotland
7 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
I discovered a fascinating link between Scotland and the art of Siena
Siena, helped by its position on the Via Francigena, an important pilgrim and trade route to Rome, had risen as a centre of culture as well as of commerce after it defeated its rival Florence in 1260. Architecture and art in all forms flourished and Sienese painters, originally influenced by byzantine art, began to move away from stylized and devotional representations towards more secular, narrative portrayals. Some feature skilfully executed architecture, many are decorative and lyrical and others notable for the expressive and poetic faces. For those not lucky enough to be able to visit Siena, the exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300 - 1350 running at the National Gallery, London until June 22 contains fine examples. The artists included the Lorenzetti brothers and Simone Martini but it was undoubtedly Duccio who was the master. Fresco by Pinturicchio in the Piccolomini Library showing Aneas Silvius Piccolomino meeting King James I of Scotland (Image: unknown) It was in recognition that he had created something superb that the procession of the Maestà was arranged. To show it off it did not however, take the direct route to the cathedral but a more circuitous one and I realised that by following it, even today I would discover much of the art and architecture for which Siena is famous. The procession in fact headed straight down to the newly built Piazza del Campo which the year before had hosted the very first Palio, the horse race which still takes place every summer. It is a unique scallop-shaped space of great charm which, then as now, quickly established itself as the heart of Siena. Sheltered by tall imposing buildings and edged with cafes, there are fewer more pleasant places to sit and relax. Within the piazza is the town hall, the Palazzo Pubblico, an impressive example of medieval/gothic civic architecture. This was commissioned by The Nine, the governing body of the city, together with a series of magnificent frescoes still to be found in almost every room. The most outstanding are the enormous Allegories of Good and Bad Government painted in 1338 by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, which not only reminded citizens of the importance of good governance and the potential consequences of bad decisions but also provide us today with an unparalleled glimpse of 14th century Tuscan life. Piazza del Campo (Image: Visit Tuscany) Here too in the Sala del Mappamondo is Simone Martini's Maestà painted just after Duccio's as well as his fresco portrait of the mounted warlord Giudoricco da Fogiano, between the castles he had conquered, resplendent in the same striking livery as his horse. This is one of the first truly secular paintings created with both realism and imagination. From the Piazza the procession did not have far to travel to the cathedral but the followers may not have seen all its wonders as we do today because it took many years to complete. Conversely, if we want to see Duccio's Maestà now (many Sienese art works were lent to the London exhibition but this one remained firmly at home) we need to cross over to the Museo dell'Opera Metropolitana. There I sat quietly and contemplated the glorious masterpiece which, although stripped of some predellas and smaller paintings, still finds itself 714 years later at (almost) its original location. It remained on the high altar for some years and was then moved around the cathedral several times before being dismembered and sections sold off in the eighteenth century. It was moved to its present location in 1878 and now some 33 of the smaller sections are found in 10 collections in I 5 countries. Hotel Duomo in Siena (Image: Hotel Duomo) Before leaving the cathedral complex, I entered the Piccolomini Library where I came upon a fascinating link between Siena and Scotland. Amongst the frescos painted by Pinturicchio around 1505 there is one depicting King James 1 of Scotland receiving Aeneas Silivius Piccolmini, the future Pope Pius II. The king sits enthroned under a loggia surrounded by courtiers but there is nothing remotely Scottish about this rather enchanting scene. The style of the clothing is entirely Italian and the background, a lake on which a gondola-like boat sails, is as different from the Firth of Forth as one can imagine. Yet such a meeting did occur. In 1335 Aenaes Silvius, aged 30, did go to meet the Scottish monarch in Edinburgh on a mysterious diplomatic mission. He had many adventures including a shipwreck - he also got a Sienese lady pregnant…Later, another famous Scotsman, James Boswell while ostensibly looking at art on his Grand Tour also had several dalliances in Siena and was in fact the love object of Girolama Piccolomino, a situation from which he apparently, 'beat a hasty retreat.' Read more Of course Siena has much more to offer than art; there are numerous excellent restaurants: La Taverna del Capitano, Enoteca I Terzi, Ristorante il Particolare, Ristorante San Desidero and Ristorante il Tufo were amongst those wherein I enjoyed good local dishes. There are also all the smart shops one expects from a thriving Italian city but why not take the opportunity in this city so imbued with art, to buy enduring treasures from local artist and crafts people? A complete list of artisans can be found at For truly exquisite paintings ( expensive but worth it considering work involved) Chiara Perinetti Casoni together with her brother Paolo, use the old traditional techniques of wood, egg tempera and gilding to produce both copies and enchanting original works which capture the essence of the Sienese masters. Several other people including Marco Caratelli, offer similar works Siena is not only a beautiful city in itself but the visitor will find within it a unique treasure trove of beautiful things to enjoy. Duccio 's Maestà (Image: free) FACT BOX Patricia Cleveland-Peck travelled to Florence courtesy of Vueling Airlines. Flights from Edinburgh connect via Barcelona. She was hosted by Tuscany Official Tourism She stayed at the Hotel Duomo, Siena Thanks too to the Comune di Siena, Councillor Mrs Vanna Giunti and Veronika Wobbe. Also to the city guides, Giulia, Lucovica and Anna
Washington Post
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
A painting of a miracle that's nothing less than a miracle
Great Works, In Focus • #189 A painting of a miracle that's nothing less than a miracle In its raw artistic power, Duccio's 'The Raising of Lazarus' connects to Aretha Franklin's own storytelling masterpiece six centuries later. Expand the image Click to zoom in Column by Sebastian Smee March 27, 2025 4 min Duccio di Buoninsegna was the radical, poetic artist who guided a group of other artists working in Siena, Italy, in the 14th century. As the recent Siena exhibition in New York so beautifully demonstrated, these artists helped redefine Western painting for centuries to come. None of these Sienese artists survived the Black Death. But Duccio had meanwhile breathed new life into painting. He 'opened up a door through which others could pass,' as Hisham Matar wrote in 'A Month in Siena.' 'The Raising of Lazarus,' one of the great treasures at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, was painted — patiently, and with unmatched delicacy and fluidity — in egg tempera and gold in 1310-1311. Originally, it formed part of a giant altarpiece known as the Maestà for the high altar of Siena Cathedral. This small panel was positioned near the base, or predella, the last in a sequence of images showing scenes from the Passion before Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement A born storyteller, Duccio was acutely alert to nuances of emotion. He wanted to depict biblical history as though it were a contemporary event. That may be why, when I see 'The Raising of Lazarus,' I can't help but think of another artist who told this story — not in paint but in song. In 1972, Aretha Franklin performed 'Mary, Don't You Weep' with a gospel choir at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. 'We're going to review the story of two sisters called Mary and Martha,' she sang, her matter-of-factness oddly reminiscent of Duccio's. 'They had a brother named Lazarus.' Franklin sings of how Lazarus, a follower of Jesus, had died while Jesus was away. Drowning in grief, Mary ran to Jesus, saying: ''Master. My sweet Lord.'' In the song, Franklin repeats the word 'my' 10 times, oscillating back and forth between two gasping notes. ''If you had've been here,'' she sings, ''my brother wouldn't have died.'' Sobered up by this terrible accusation, the song briefly reverts to a quieter mode: 'Jesus said: 'Come on and show me. Show me where you buried him. Show me where you laid him down.'' But the high drama returns when Jesus is brought before the tomb of Lazarus. (This is the part of the story Duccio painted.) Ventriloquizing Jesus, Franklin sings 'Lazarus' three times. Before the second, she launches into a high-pitched hum: ''Mm-mm, Lazarus!'' For the third, she hits an astonishing high note, almost a scream — 'LA-ZARUS!' What follows is one of the most powerful musical moments I know. The choir pursues this third 'Lazarus' with two undulating, sirenlike notes that echo Mary's earlier anguish ('My my, my my …') and that instantly conjure the moment's spookiness, the sheer unlikely power of what Jesus has just done. You may consider it a stretch, but what Franklin and her church choir did in 1972 is exactly what Duccio was doing 660 years earlier. Notice the man removing the lid of the upright sarcophagus. (Underpainting suggests Duccio originally painted it horizontal.) Then look at the man in the yellow cloak, covering his nose and mouth. Is it a simple gesture of shock? Or is he protecting himself from the foul smell of Lazarus, who has been dead four days? Unlike the rest of the gathered crowd, Mary and Martha are focused not on Lazarus but on Jesus. This unites them with their brother, who has just opened his uncomprehending eyes. The moment is too fraught and uncanny for anything so saccharine as happiness. Lazarus's body is still tightly wrapped in its shroud. A moment ago — gah! — he was dead. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Like Franklin, Duccio used color, gesture, composition, character and a crowded chorus of concerned onlookers to bring the story, and Lazarus, to life. I use that phrase deliberately, because I suspect its implications go to the heart of why we have art. We are mortal. Vulnerable in our mortality, we love. For the same reason, we are always losing what we love. Helplessly, we accuse the world — as Mary accused Jesus — of being complicit in our mounting losses. Art is there to do, in a sense, what Jesus did to Lazarus, and what Duccio and Franklin did to their art forms: to open up a door, to recoup the losses, with stories, song and images. To bring what we love back to life.
Telegraph
08-03-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Forget tourist-clogged Florence – this is Tuscany's best city by a mile
The Piazza del Campo, Siena's main square, is surely the most theatrical public space in the whole of Tuscany. Shaped like a giant scallop shell, it forms a sort of amphitheatre where the main roads which once led into the city met on a gentle slope near the top of this ancient hill town. The cobbled arena slopes gently down to the most impressive of the buildings which surround the piazza – the civic hall, a crenellated red-brick medieval palace with a stepped façade, a lower storey encrusted in white marble and rows of gothic windows trimmed with the same stone. Sprouting from one side is the great, top-heavy tower – the tallest in Italy when it was finished in 1348. It is this remarkable building that I have come to see. The clue to its historic significance is in its official name – the Palazzo Pubblico. It wasn't built by a domineering seigniorial family like the Medici or by domineering dukes like those of Mantua or Milan. This was a public – or perhaps better – a people's palace, the home of a unique system of government which was developed after Siena became a republic in 1280. A ruling council of nine men – the Nove – was established and its members were elected on rotation. It was hardly what we would think of as a democracy – these men were chosen from an elite of only 500 out of a population of about 80,000. But the Nove provided a common vision and the stability needed for Siena to develop an international banking and trading empire which brought with it enormous wealth, as well as a fierce rivalry with its Tuscan neighbour, Florence. Florence usually triumphed in military encounters, but by the middle of the 14th century, Siena was one of the most progressive, powerful and richest city states in the world. And the way that Siena best liked to demonstrate its status was through art and architecture. The lavish building projects underway in the first half of the 14th century were unparalleled in Europe – and even its great rival Florence had to bow to the artists who flourished here. Duccio, Simone Martin, and the Lorenzetti brothers, Pietro and Ambrogio, were among the most celebrated painters of their time. As a new exhibition of medieval Sienese art which opens at the National Gallery today demonstrates, it was a city in love with colour and extravagance. But while you can enjoy some of its most stunning artistic treasures in the London exhibition, the greatest of all can only be seen in Siena itself. Most appealing, in my view, is the series of frescoes on the walls of one of the state rooms where the Nove met in the Palazzo Pubblico. Made by Ambrogio Lorenzetti and his workshop in 1338-1339, they illustrate and contrast the consequences of good and bad government. The National Gallery curators describe them as 'one of the most exceptional visualisations of the mechanisms of government and its moral purpose ever made.' For the casual viewer, they are also a highly engaging insight into Siena when it was at the peak of its glory, 700 years ago. The 46ft-long mural of the Well-Governed City depicts the Siena as a jumble of towers and buildings – you can spot the green and white marble stripes of the cathedral in the distance, while the foreground is full of vignettes of everyday life. There is a wedding party, a teacher lecturing in a school room, men playing a board game, huntsmen heading for the forest and reapers working in the fields beyond. By contrast on the wall opposite, the Badly Governed City depicts a society dominated by a tyrant. The figure of Justice lies captive and bound, tormented by Cruelty and Deceit, Fury and War. Unlike the Well-Governed City, the streets are half-empty, the houses are beginning to fall into ruin, and only the armourer does a good trade. In the centre in the foreground, a man lies dead on the street. The warning to the Nove about their responsibilities could hardly be clearer. Every time I have seen it, however, I'm struck by the terrible irony inherent in this scene; an unintended prediction of what was going to happen here just ten years later, not because of the failings of the Nove, but because of Europe's worst ever pandemic. Only weeks after the Palazzo Pubblico was finally completed in 1348 and the last of the wooden scaffolding was removed from the tower, Siena was laid waste. Nearly 700 years after the event, few eye-witness descriptions of the horrific impact of the Black Death in Europe have survived. But an account by Agnolo di Tura, a shoemaker from Siena, is one of the most powerful. Agnolo survived and chronicled a plague which killed, in just a few weeks, more than half the population, including all five of his own children. His description includes eery echoes of Lorenzetti's fresco. 'And the city of Siena seemed deserted… No bells tolled and there was no one who wept for any death, for all awaited death… So many died that all believed that it was the end of the world. Those that survived were like persons distraught and almost without feeling.' And in many ways, it was the end of a world. Siena's golden age was stopped suddenly in its tracks. The Palazzo Pubblico may have been finished, but the spectacular project to transform Siena's great cathedral into the largest church in Christendom was abandoned. You can still see the roofless walls of what would have been an enormous nave built at right angles to the original building. The empty frame stands as a monument to the moment that Siena's world stopped turning. Of course, like all European cities, it found a way to survive and, eventually, to prosper again. But the days when it outshone Florence were over. Though, maybe not… Today, while Florence often feels choked with tourists, Siena remains relatively free of disruption – especially in the evenings when the day trippers have left. Not only is it much quieter, but it is much more compact than its ancient rival, and the views out over the Tuscan countryside are even more spectacular. For a peaceful cultural break where you can enjoy some of the most beautiful art ever made, there is only one winner. The wonders of medieval Siena Siena's network of narrow cobbled streets and many of its red-brick houses, churches and palaces are medieval in origin. But its artistic treasures are hidden away in museums. Here are some of the best. The Duomo Work on the Duomo began in 1226, when Siena was enjoying a surge in prosperity and it was largely completed by 1311, when one of the most important paintings ever made was installed above the high altar – Duccio's shimmering Maesta (Virgin in Majesty). Now in the Opera del Duomo museum next door, it was, at the time, the most expensive panel painting ever made in Europe and is also the earliest surviving double-sided altarpiece. So proud was the city of its new masterpiece, that the work was paraded through the streets before its installation behind the altar. The important relic of Medieval Sienese Art still in the Duomo itself is Pisano' pulpit, carved out of Carrara marble between 1265 and 1268 and embellished with seven scenes from the Life of Christ. Some of the greatest painters and sculptors of the 15th- and 16th-centuries were also enticed to Siena and the Duomo is home to works by Donatello and the young Michelangelo as well as frescos by Pinturicchio and Raphael in the Piccolomini Library. Down in the Baptistry, the sculpted bronze panels around the font are by Jacopo della Quercia and also Donatello and Ghiberti, who came from Florence to work on it. The Palazzo Pubblico As well as the wonderful 14th-century frescoes by Lorenzetti (see above) the Palazzo has a spectacular art collection, including a splendid frescoed Maesta – the first known work by Simone Martini, who was almost certainly trained by Duccio. The Pinacoteca Nazionale This wonderfully quiet and under-visited museum, in the 15th-century former Palazzo Buonsignori is a pleasure to explore compared with the heaving galleries of the Uffizi in Florence. Among the highlights are works by Duccio and Martini and what may be Ambrogio Lorenzetti's last work, a wonderfully tender Annunciation which, ironically, was commissioned by the city tax collector and once hung in the Palazzo Pubblico. The Palio In its current form, the historic Palio, when horses representing ten of the city's seventeen contrade (districts) race around the Piazza del Campo, dates back to 1644. But its origins were medieval. It's still a splendid sight. Turn up early enough and you can enjoy it for free from the central compound. The two races take place on July 2 and August 16. How to do it Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300 ‒1350 is at the National Gallery from March 8 -June 22 (admission £20). Nick Trend was a guest of the the Grand Hotel Continental in Siena which is housed in a 17th-century palazzo and is Siena's only five-star hotel. Doubles from about £280 per night (room only).
Telegraph
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350: a sequence of stunning artistic coups
With glittering paintings on every side, the National Gallery's intense and bewitching new exhibition focuses on Siena's medieval golden age, when the Tuscan city was a banking centre and important stop-off on the pilgrimage route linking Canterbury with Rome. Its fortunes climaxed during the first half of the 14th century, when Duccio di Buoninsegna – 'the flower from whose seed all Sienese art sprang', according to the American art historian Bernard Berenson – initiated a sublime artistic scene. As well as Duccio, who died in 1319 and is often described as a founder of Western European painting, the show celebrates his three 'outstanding successors': Simone Martini (who eventually settled in Avignon, and set the standard for courtly art across Europe), and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. The latter's masterpiece, his almost-square Annunciation of 1344, was painted for Siena's tax office. Different times. The exhibition – which recently took New York by storm, but was conceived, in 2012, over lunch in London by two of its curators – pulls off several coups. For the first time since the 18th century, all eight surviving scenes from the back predella (step-like base) of Duccio's magnificent (and mammoth) Maestà altarpiece – his only signed work, installed in Siena's cathedral in 1311 – are reunited. Arranged in a row within a central octagonal room, they resemble a 14th-century comic strip, in which Christ, sporting an ultramarine cape, is a bearded superhero, healing the blind and raising the dead. Throughout dark, crypt-like galleries, gilded paintings – including several on large panels shaped like rocket lollies – are dramatically spot-lit, so that even non-believers may feel moved by the prevailing atmosphere of sanctity. They're also juxtaposed with contemporary sculptures and textiles, including a unique 14th-century Italian terracotta, as well as intricate metalwork that directs attention to the precisely tooled patterns enlivening the pictures' gold leaf. Punched, stippled, and incised, these ornate, whirling decorations have a 3D, Braille-like quality that's undetectable in reproduction. Exquisite craftsmanship is a hallmark of Sienese trecento art, along with mastery of narrative. Modern viewers, though, may be most transported by another innovation: a newfound interest in the emotional lives of the holy figures being represented. At the start, a painting by Duccio from about 1290-1300 depicts a sweet yet sorrowful Virgin tilting her head like Diana, Princess of Wales, while a perky Christ Child tugs at her veil and involuntarily caresses her wrist with inquisitive toes. In another standout picture, from 1342, Simone imagines the truculent expression and crossed arms of a young Christ chided by remonstrating parents. Even the Son of God, it seems, could get the grumps. As much as Duccio, Simone, who was eulogised by the Italian poet Petrarch, proves to be the show's star. The finale recombines the panels, painted on both sides, of his luxurious Orsini Polyptych, and pairs them with the gallery's Wilton Diptych. Made in London for King Richard II, the latter – which, like the Royal Collection's Duccio triptych (on display in the opening room), didn't feature at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – was probably executed by a French artist versed in Sienese painting, as demonstrated by his depiction of, say, stiff angelic wings. It's another stunning moment.
The Independent
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Siena's golden paintings open unexpected vistas through quirky byways of late medieval art
There's a lot of gold in the National Gallery 's major winter exhibition. Not golden light or painted approximations of its effects, but the actual stuff: hammered gold leaf filling the haloes of saints, highlighting the folds in their garments, flooding the backgrounds of painting after painting in sheets of shining gilded glow. Well, what did you expect of medieval representations of the Saviour of the World and his Mother? Certainly not the rags and hovels that Jesus and his followers no doubt wore and lived in in real life. Dirty realism doesn't appear in art for another 300 years. The idea that spiritually powerful people are best embodied through the most valuable materials goes back at least to ancient Egypt, and permeated European art right up to the Renaissance, as anyone who has spent time in the National's medieval galleries will be well aware. By and large, images of saints on gold backgrounds aren't the most popular with the general public, as the curators of Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350 observe in the catalogue. The ostensible subject of the show is a late medieval proto-Renaissance that took place in the Tuscan city a good century before the Florentine Renaissance – the one we all know about – and was centred on Duccio di Buoninsegna, considered the greatest of all Sienese painters. The innovations of Duccio and his contemporaries were pivotal, the show argues, in establishing painting as the dominant form in Western art. It also has the almost inevitable subtext of trying to make 'gold ground' paintings more sympathetic and 'relatable' to the modern viewer. Organised in tandem with New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it attracted large crowds last year, the show opens with a Byzantine icon, the kind of hyper-stylised Greek Orthodox religious painting that formed the principal model for Italian painting well into the Middle Ages. The tiny, supposedly divinely charged image of the Virgin and Child, which is known to have been in Siena during the period covered by the exhibition, is in a rigid, time-honoured format, encrusted in gold and precious stones, with which Duccio and his followers were, we are told, 'intimately familiar'. Yet Duccio's attempts to soften and humanise this ossified form aren't, at first sight, as world-changing as one might hope. The Christ Child in Duccio's small Virgin and Child (1290) reaches up to pull at his mother's blue veil, a charmingly ordinary touch that is neutralised by the Madonna's blankly beatific expression, which removes the image from anything remotely connected with the everyday world. Yet it isn't long before more dramatic elements edge – almost literally – into the frame. The figures crowding Duccio's Triptych: Crucifixion and other Scenes (circa 1302-08), including a fainting Virgin, have a slightly compressed look, as though they've somehow squeezed themselves into the golden background from the margins. The exhibition's great coup is having reassembled the panels of several great Sienese triptychs and altarpieces that were broken up and dispersed around the world over centuries. The greatest of these is Duccio's monumental Maesta (1308) from Siena Cathedral, eight panels of which have been borrowed from European and American collections. These aren't the near life-size central figures of the Virgin and Child with saints, which remain in Siena, but the predelle, small narrative panels that surround it. These are the elements with the greatest human interest, showing universally recognisable scenes from the life of Christ – though they are pretty small, each hardly more than a foot square. The compositions feel perfectly balanced, the colour exquisitely pretty: subtle contrasts of lilac-inflected greys and salmon pink in the Annunciation, one of the most popular medieval paintings in the National's own collection, feel startlingly modern. The gold backgrounds now stand in for a notional 'sky', but they're still very much present, and the mood is uniformly serene. The crowd accompanying Christ to the tomb in The Raising of Lazarus (1310-11) all wear the same expression of measured alertness. Nothing can be allowed to disrupt the calm of the Blessed. When you compare these wonderfully refined, yet relatively tiny works with the dramatic grandeur of the life-size frescoes of the same narratives by Duccio's Florentine contemporary Giotto, the Sienese painter feels a rather rarefied talent, one who it's easier to admire from a safe emotional distance than be profoundly moved by. It's perhaps easier to relate to Simone Martini's larger 'portraits' of saints, because they seem so determined to get our attention with the intensity of their beady-eyed stares towards the Virgin – a figure of particular reverence in Siena; there's barely an image here in which she doesn't appear. The even bigger figures of the Madonna and Child in Pietro Lorenzetti's Pieve Altarpiece (1320) appear a touch awkward, even amateurish beside Duccio's consummate craftsmanship, but at least they look alive. The fact that the scene of the Annunciation, in which Mary receives the news of her Immaculate Conception from the Angel Gabriel, seems to be taking place in a separate booth, suspended above the Virgin's head, is no doubt easily explicable in terms of medieval theology but to the modern eye, it gives the work the delightfully naive feel of a piece of proto-Renaissance 'outsider' art. But it's with a series of Stories from the Life of St Nicholas (1332) by Lorenzetti's younger brother Ambrogio, that the exhibition seems to come full circle. And it took a couple of seconds for the penny to drop and realise why: the gold is removed – apart from the odd halo – to the very margins. The materiality of gold, the way it pulls our attention to the physical surface of the painting, has the effect of flattening not only the illusion of physical space but of emotional engagement. Here, the eye and the mind are free to enter the fictional spaces of these charming images with their early attempts at perspective and disconcertingly modern feeling for architecture. Rather than a celebration of 'gold ground' painting, the exhibit, up to this point, has been about the struggle of Sienese artists to transcend its deadening effect as a material. But then, as if to remind us that art rarely proceeds in straight lines, we're shown an extraordinary slightly later Annunciation (1344) by the younger Lorenzetti in which the massive, monumental figures are surrounded by gold leaf manipulated in more ways than the mind can quite cope with: stippling, embossing, engraving to name just a few. The strength of this remarkable exhibition lies less in its avowed intention to 'complicate' the well-worn narrative of the Florence-centred early Renaissance, as in the ways it opens unexpected vistas through quirky byways of late medieval art. There's a reassuring sense that even then, there was a lot going on well outside the mainstream. 'Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350' is at the National Gallery from 8 March until 22 June
