Ambrogio Lorenzetti Retrospective Opens at Santa Maria della Scala in Siena

A major exhibition dedicated to Ambrogio Lorenzetti, one of the greatest masters of 14th-century Sienese painting, opens on October 22 at the Complesso di Santa Maria della Scala in Siena. Curated by Alessandro Bagnoli, Roberto Bartalini, and Max Seidel, the show is the culmination of a multi-phase project begun in 2015 with the initiative "Dentro il restauro," aimed at deepening knowledge of Lorenzetti's work. Born in Siena around 1290 and dying in 1348, Lorenzetti trained among Florentine Giottesque painters and is renowned for blending iconographic and physiognomic research, spatial representation, and allegory. His most famous works are the frescoes in the Sala dei Nove of Siena's Palazzo Pubblico, depicting the Allegories and Effects of Good and Bad Government in the city and countryside (1338–40), crucial manifestos of political ethics in late medieval Italian city-states that also display a new sensitivity to atmospheric landscape. The exhibition offers a chance to discover frescoes from various commissions, including cycles from the Sienese churches of San Francesco and Sant'Agostino, and the chapel of San Galgano at Montesiepi, as well as loans from the Louvre, the National Gallery, the Gallerie degli Uffizi, and the Musei Vaticani. The exhibition runs through January 21, 2018.