Rich Martinez

Professor Lauer

Humanities I 1301 TCP #3

Due Date:  April 11, 2011

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Ambrogio Lorenzetti's frescoes on three walls of the room known as either <em>Sala Della Pace (Hall of Peace) </em>or the <em>Sala dei Nove (Hall of the Nine) </em>in Siena' Palazzo Pubblico are often called the "first large-scale secular murals since antiquity." (White). These frescoes project an ideal political landscape and document aspects of contemporary life then.  Before the Palazzo Pubblico became home of Siena's elected officials, counsels and town meetings taken place everywhere from private palaces of influence to the cathedral; having its own public, dedicated building on an organized public space helped stake Siena's claim to prominence as a powerful town ruled by elected officials.
<p style="text-align: right"><a href="http://jeanatacc.com/2011/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/three-walls.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-925" src="http://jeanatacc.com/2011/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/three-walls-300x177.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="177" /></a>Sala Della Pace    <em>www.casasantapia.com</em></p>
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The frescoed allegories of Good and Bad Government were painted in 1338-1339.  While the frescoes offer glimpses of what daily life looked like in Siena, they more tellingly convey the Sienese government's sense of itself, its mission and its effect on the town.  Lorenzetti's frescoes show the virtues and vices of two kinds of government and their effects.  The message is that what makes a good or bad government ultimately depends on the society each created and supports and what we know about this society then can read more into the public's realm. Quick note; there is a complex interweaving of secular and Christian iconography in these frescos.

On the north wall, Good Government presides over personification of the moral and theological Virtues.  The ruler of the good city in fact represents the Common Good (Bene Comune).

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Ambrogio Lorenzetti, <em>Allegory of Good Government</em>, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, 1338-9

<em>www.casasantapia.com</em>

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The subject of the painting is an allegorical representational of what was then believed to constitute good government. It relies on the classical convention of personifying positive human qualities in the form of female figures.  The painting shows a male personification of the city government surrounded by female figures personifying virtues as Justice, Concord and Peace.  The message to Siena's government is that in order to pursue just policies, it should emulate human virtues of this kind.

If peace and justice are the operative conditions of the good city, violence and fear are the conditions in its opposite.  In the fresco of <em>Bad Government and Its Effects, </em>evil Tyranny presided over a collection of Vices and Fear, who are behind the disarray and decay of the buildings, the violence in the streets in incessant war in the countryside.  Justice is bound at the fee of Tyranny; there is no figure of Concordia.  Buildings decay or display wanton regard for the planning restrictions Siena had enacted.  Swords and daggers are drawn and disorderly mercenaries roam the streets and countryside, meaning no work is done in either.  IN these centuries of consistent warfare, the images depicted here would have been familiar to the people of Siena. Bad Government and the Effect on the Countryside           <em>www.casasantapia.com</em>

What, then are we to make of the general point's regarding the "lack of sophistication of early medieval artists mentioned in this time capsule.  The evidence we have seen relating to Ambrogio Lorenzetti suggests that this is a marked over simplification of his attitude to his calling as an artist.  The high incidence of inscriptions on his paintings testify to his identity, suggests a clear desire to be known for his work.

One of the fascinations of the art of the late medieval period is precisely that it belongs to a culture that did not on the whole adopt the later preoccupation with the cult of the individual.  It is for these reasons that we should preserve the frescos and all the literature related to this artist and his brother.  In doing so we avoid the automatic assumption that is common in the history of western art, that the artist of the fifteenth or sixteenth century are necessarily greater or more worthy of study than their predecessors.

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Works Cited

Cunningham, Dolin. 1995. "For the Honour and Beauty of the City: The Design of Town Halls."  Pp. 29-54 in <em>Siena, Florence, and Padua: Art, Society and Religion </em>1280-1400, Edited by        D. Norman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Nevola, Fabrizio. 2008. Siena: <em>Constructing the Renaissance City.</em> New Haven, CT: Yale   University Press.

White, John. 1987. <em>Art and Architecture in Italy: </em>1250-1400. New York: Penguin Books.

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