Frommer's Review
Don't be put off by the first rooms of mediocre 16th- to 18th-century works; the museum's pride comes later with the masterpieces of Sienese painting giants Simone Martini and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. The fifth room, the Sala del Risorgimento, was painted (1887-90) to celebrate the career of Italy's first king, Vittorio Emanuele II. A detour up the wide staircase leads up to an open-air loggia with Jacopo della Quercia's eroded panels from the original Gaia fountain.
The Sala di Balia beyond the foot of the stairs was frescoed (1407) by Spinello Aretino and his son Parri, with scenes from the Life of Pope Alexander III, including an exceptional naval battle. The Anticamera del Concistoro has a detached Ambrogio Lorenzetti fresco on the entrance wall and a Matteo di Giovanni Madonna and Child. The Sala del Concistoro was frescoed (1529-35) by Domenico Beccafumi in his best Mannerist style, illustrating the heroic feats of ancient Greece and Rome in order to give the government authorities who met here a backbone.
The vestibule has a 1429 gilded bronze she-wolf, Siena's republican symbol and link to its Roman founding. The Anticappella was frescoed by Taddeo di Bartolo with ancient Greek and Roman heroes, along with the Virtues and a giant St. Christopher. The Cappella is difficult to see through Jacopo della Quercia's iron screen, but it was also frescoed by Domenico di Bartolo (1407-08). The altarpiece is a dark Madonna and Child with Saints by Sodoma.
The Sala del Mappamondo off the chapel -- named after a now lost Ambrogio Lorenzetti painting of the world -- contains two of Simone Martini's greatest works. On the left is his masterpiece, Maestà. Incredibly, this was his very first painting, finished in 1315 (he went over it again in 1321). Cleaned and restored in the early 1990s, it's the next generation's answer to Duccio's groundbreaking work on the same theme painted just 4 years earlier and now in the Museo dell'Opera Metropolitana. Martini's paintings tend to be characterized by richly patterned fabrics, and the gown of the enthroned Mary is no exception.
Those fabrics can be seen again across this great hall in Simone Martini's other masterwork, the fresco of Guidoriccio da Fogliano, where the captain of the Sienese army rides his charger across the territory he has just conquered (Montemassi, in 1328). Recently, iconoclastic U.S. art historians have disputed the attribution of this work to Martini, claiming that it was either a slightly later work or even a 16th-century fake. Part of what sparked the debate was the 1980 discovery of another, slightly older scarred fresco lower on the wall here. This earlier painting depicts two figures standing in front of a wooden-fenced castle. Some claim this is the fresco Martini painted, while those who support the authenticity of the Guidoriccio attribute this older fresco to Duccio, Pietro Lorenzetti, or Memmo di Filippuccio.
The Sala della Pace was where the Council of Nine met, and to keep them mindful of how well they needed to govern, the city commissioned Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1338) to fresco the walls with his masterpiece and the single most important piece of secular art to survive from medieval Europe, the Allegory of Good and Bad Government and Their Effects on the Town and Countryside. Good government is represented by a bearded old man surrounded by virtues (starting with a languid, sexy Peace on the left). The good effects of this government are played out on the entrance wall. A prosperous 14th-century Siena is pictured here -- easily recognizable by its towers, battlemented houses, and the Duomo squeezed into the corner. The painted city wall breaks the scene in half so that the countryside -- with its cultivated hillsides watched over by winged Serenity -- runs the length of the Sienese territory all the way to their seaport Talamone.
The bad government frescoes are, perhaps appropriately, in a high state of ruin. Monstrous Tyranny reigns with the help of such henchman as Cruelty, Fraud, and the creaturelike Deceit. The city under their rule is literally falling into ruin, soldiers must patrol constantly, the shops are abandoned, and citizens are robbed on the streets. The countryside, over which flies Terror, fares as badly, with scorched, lifeless fields and armed highwaymen scaring travelers off the roads.
The Sala dei Pilastri beyond contains a 1330 stained-glass window of St. Michael the Archangel designed by Ambrogio Lorenzetti and a Maestà by Guido da Siena painted in the 1270s (despite the date on it of 1221, which was perhaps used to commemorate the year St. Domenic had died). The main prize is Matteo di Giovanni's Massacre of the Innocents, a richly painted but highly disturbing work. They sometimes display this painting in the Sala Mappamondo.
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