The splendid exhibition at the National Gallery of Sienese art from the glory days of the 14th century is perhaps the nearest many visitors will get to the experience of Siena itself. Let me say at the outset though, if you can visit, do. That said, it’s a city built on steps and it’d be a nightmare for any wheelchair users.
For Catholics, the city probably has two associations – the annual <em>palio</em>, or urban horserace, and St Catherine… of Siena. She was a Dominican tertiary, but Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s depiction of <em>A Group of Four Poor Clares</em>, from the 1320s, depicts something of the same serene spirituality. Both the flamboyance of the race and the asceticism of the saint are characteristic of the city in its golden age, which came to an abrupt halt with the arrival of the Black Death in 1350. What outside enemies – for which read Florence – could not do, the bubonic plague did, which was to arrest the development of one of the great 14th-century city states, a marvel of a balanced republican constitution, until the 20th century.
Siena had it all. It was on the great pilgrim route, the <em>Via Francigena</em>, from the Alps and beyond to Rome, which brought people and things into the city. What things? There are several suggestive pieces here from Paris collections, in gold and enamel. If you look at the lively marble pulpit in the cathedral, the work of Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni, you might imagine they had studied the marvels of Gothic work in France. No need, for France came to them in its pilgrims. What they brought with them, notably ivory work, may have provided the inspiration for these crammed narrative panels.
Then there was the city’s wealth as a mercantile and banking centre. Pilgrims and tradespeople also brought beautiful rich cloths and fabrics which feature in the colours of so many pictures in the National Gallery exhibition. The wealth of the city and its trade gave it gold, and that too features in the pictures of its – literally – golden age. A lovely triptych,<em> The Virgin and Child with St Dominic</em> by Duccio (from the National Gallery’s own collection) has a gold backdrop, as if only the most precious material could do justice to that moving depiction of divine and human love.
Siena was also blessed by its enemy, Florence, for one of the great motivating powers of the early Renaissance was a sheer competitive impulse. It was competition with Florence that meant that the great façade of the cathedral was so huge – whatever Florence could do, Siena could do better. Indeed, in this particular race, the citizens had the brilliant idea of turning the nave of their cathedral into a transept; we can see the start of that astonishing venture, only halted by the Black Death, to this day. Some of its great statues – still bearing faint traces of their vivid colours – are in the exhibition.
Then there was the city’s relationship with the Virgin Mary, embodied in the great fresco in the Hall of the People, where the Nine – the members of the city council – deliberated. The great fresco of <em>The</em> <em>Virgin and Saints</em> by Simone Martini (1284-1344) embodies the contract between the city and the Virgin after the battle against the Florentines, which the city won against all the odds in 1315. The Florentines offered quarter in return for surrender, but one man stood out against it and said Siena must fight. The city, led by the dignitaries, processed to the cathedral, still in the making, and devoted Siena to the Virgin. She gave them victory, but it seems in return said that the city must take care of all its citizens, including the poor. So the Virgin and Child, who holds an actual parchment in the fresco, represent civic responsibility.
The fresco symbolises that contract: the Virgin holds a rope which is passed through the hands of the citizens. This is reflected in the division of power within the Sienese constitution between people and rulers.
Simone Martini was the creator of one of the most beautiful pieces reassembled in the exhibition: the Orsini Polyptych. This was a folding work made for private prayer, probably for Cardinal Napoleone Orsini. Today it is divided between three galleries: the Louvre, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp and the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. All six panels are together in the show, but it is a sadness that these works, intended as a compilation of scenes juxtaposed for contemplation, were ever broken up. Devotional works are just that: intended for devotion. We must be grateful that this exhibition has brought them together – and they were sold at a time when the Sienese set less value by their art – but the secular devotion of art lovers is a shadow of the devout attention of the Christians for whom they were made.
That Sienese devotion to the Virgin is evident, too, in the great altarpiece by Duccio di Buoninsegna, the <em>Maestà</em> or “Majesty”, and some of its panels are brought together in this show. But however lovely they are – <em>The Annunciation</em>, <em>The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew</em>, <em>Christ and the Woman of Samaria</em> – they are isolated pieces from a once-glorious whole. The great, double-sided <em>Maestà</em> is quite overwhelming in scale and magnificence. And it was intended for display, to be seen and paraded. Those panels would have featured in the great procession that followed its completion when all that splendour was carried – heaven knows how – around the city. Those panels are part of a picture that was once used for the glorification of the city and its patron, not to be viewed broken up.
This sounds churlish, and it isn’t meant to be. This is a marvellous exhibition, which brings together work from both sides of the Atlantic – which we would never otherwise see. Do go.
Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 <em>is at the National Gallery in London until 22 June</em>
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