Renaissance Siena: Art for a City

Siena flourished as a major artistic center during the Italian Renaissance, fuelled by the patronage of powerful and wealthy families, and the results were remarkable for their virtuoso beauty and strong sense of civic identity. Renaissance Siena: Art for a City is the first major book in English to showcase a breathtaking and diverse range of masterpieces and discuss in depth how art was shaped and sustained to provide a unique artistic language for Siena––prior to the city’s possession in 1557 by Cosimo de Medici of Florence, its cultural and political rival.

Renaissance Siena: Art for a City presents paintings, drawings, and sculptures by Francesco di Giorgio and Domenico Beccafumi, two of the greatest Sienese artists of the period, along with Matteo di Giovanni, Benvenuto di Giovanni, and visiting artists such as Luca Signorelli and Pintoricchio. These artists combined exquisite color, decoration, sinuous line, and delicate beauty with ambitious compositions and figurative styles to establish one of the most distinctive and elegant schools of Italian art. With a chronology and artists’ biographies, Renaissance Siena: Art for a City is a comprehensive book, featuring essays by leading scholars that discuss all aspects of Sienese art––including issues of patronage, the role of politics and foreign artists in influencing style and production, and public versus private spaces.

Luke Syson is Curator of Italian Paintings 1460–1500 and author of Pisanello (Yale). Alessandro Angelini is Associate Professor of Modern Art at the University of Siena. Philippa Jackson is an independent historian. Fabrizio Nevola teaches at the University of Siena and is author of the forthcoming Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City (see previous page).