"Half a millennium in Tuscany" (Book review: Sienese Painting), The Art Newspaper, July-Aug. 1999, p. 55.

Giulietta Chelazzi Dini, Alessandro Angelini, and Bernardina Sani, "Sienese painting from Duccio to the birth of the Baroque", Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, Dec. 1998, 471 pages, around 150 b&w illustrations plus 200 in color and 2 4-page gatefolds, cloth, 11 x 13", US$95, ISBN 0-8109-4184-8. (Published in the UK by Thames and Hudson as "Five centuries of Sienese art", £55.)

by Jason Edward Kaufman

Sienese art has generated myriad books by scholars from Enzo Carli to Cesare Brandi, but hitherto none which spans the duegento to the settecento within its covers. First published in Italian as "Pittura senese" (Milan: Federico Motta, 1997), the present translation by Cordelia Warr is one of very few English-language overviews of Sienese art, joining Henk van Os's two-volume study of Sienese altarpieces (1984) and Keith Christiansen, Laurence Kanter, and Carl Strehlke's catalogue of the Metropolitan's exhibition "Painting in Renaissance Siena" (1988). Three Italian scholars collaborated: Dini, an art historian at Florence University, writes on "Sienese painting from 1250-1450"; Angelini, an independent scholar of Tuscan art, briefly examines the second half of the fifteenth century; and Sani, an art history professor at Siena University, covers the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Though their text extends over nearly 500 pages, the bulk of the large-format book is devoted to the abundant, mainly color illustrations. End materials include an unannotated year-by-year bibliography and an index of names that includes only artists and several patrons -- no cities, museums, general themes, nor titles of individual works.

In the introduction, the authors declare that "the development of style has remained our primary concern". Social and political events, religious practice, and iconography remain largely in the background, and "new" art historical issues such as gender and class are left out of the picture altogether. Like so many scholars before them, the authors trace the thread of influence from one generation to the next, noting the occasional impact of non-Sienese sources as well.

The most thorough discussions are reserved for the achievements of Duccio, Simone Martini, the Lorenzetti, and their contemporaries, with brief sections on all of their major works. Considerable attention is paid also to minor masters such as Taddeo di Bartolo and Pietro Vannucio, and later figures such as Francesco di Giorgio, Sodoma, Peruzzi, Beccafumi, Bernardino Mei and others also receive expanded treatment. In addition, topics such as the relationship between painting and goldsmithery in the fourteenth century, painting after the Black Death, the Cathedral baptistry, Pius II and Pienza, the Piccolomini Library, the maniera moderna, the Palazzo Agostino Academy, and genre painting also are addressed.

With its cursory, eminently readable, well-illustrated embrace of half a millennium, this volume is ideal for general readers seeking a serviceable introductory overview, particularly educated museum goers who travel in Italy. Specialists, however, will have to look elsewhere for in-depth analysis. Matters such as the legitimacy of Millard Meiss's hypothetical "Black Death Style" and the controversy surrounding the Guidoriccio da Fogliano in the Sala del Mappamundo are dispatched in a sentence or two, as when professor Dini shakily upholds the fresco's attribution to Simone based on "the quality of its execution and certain technical aspects".

The caparisoned head of Guidoriccio's steed on the glossy dustjacket makes this large-format tome a decorator's dream, but the glorious color illustrations throughout will delight amateurs and academics alike: large, sharp-focused, and generally faithful to the palette of the originals, they include full- or two-page reproductions of most of the landmarks of Sienese painting, many supplemented with well-chosen details. Four-page gatefolds feature the Madonna and saints from Duccio's Maesta, and Ambrogio's entire "Good government" landscape from the Sala dei Nove. The visuals are so splendid and ample that the book might best be described as a picture atlas in which the text functions as an extended running caption.

Jason Edward Kaufman ©