I had been looking forward to the National Gallery's exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 for several ...

And convincingly, too. The show is focused mostly on the work of four artists: Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti; Simone Martini; and, "first and foremost", Duccio di Buoninsegna, a polymath whose ...

For a masterful analysis of the political philosophy embedded in this fresco, see Quentin Skinner, "Ambrogio Lorenzetti and the Portrayal of Virtuous Government" and "Ambrogio Lorenzetti on the Power ...

In his celebrated Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government (1338–39), Ambrogio Lorenzetti depicts an idealised Siena as the model of civic and social order. Against a panoramic backdrop of ...