An essential visual overview for students and readers with an interest in Sienese art, history, and Renaissance culture. For two centuries, the city-republic of Siena was home to a brilliant succession of painters who produced some of the greatest masterpieces of all time. This overview by Timothy Hyman is an essential introduction to this extraordinary artistic tradition. Taking a broadly chronological approach, it moves from the fourteenth-century Siena of Duccio, Simone Martini, and the Lorenzetti brothers to the fifteenth-century city of Sassetta and Giovanni di Paolo. Hyman combines perceptive visual analysis of the distinctive styles and conventions of Sienese painting with clear explanations of traditional techniques, such as fresco and tempera. The works are also placed in their social and religious context through discussion of Siena’s system of government, its civic consciousness, the importance of the Franciscan movement, and the cults of local saints. An accomplished writer, curator, and practicing artist, Hyman brings his breadth of knowledge, experience, and personal enthusiasm to this brilliant, extensively illustrated, and newly revised overview of Sienese art.

The first extended study of the painting of Florence and Siena in the later 14th century, this book presents a rich interweaving of considerations of connoisseurship, style, iconography, cultural and social background, and historical events.

"This is a beautiful book which covers the history of Sienese painting from the 13th to the 15th century. Color and black and white illustrations of numerous works of art."--Amazon.

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Return comes a profoundly moving contemplation of the relationship between art and life. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND EVENING STANDARD After finishing his powerful memoir The Return, Hisham Matar, seeking solace and pleasure, traveled to Siena, Italy. Always finding comfort and clarity in great art, Matar immersed himself in eight significant works from the Sienese School of painting, which flourished from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. Artists he had admired throughout his life, including Duccio and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, evoke earlier engagements he’d had with works by Caravaggio and Poussin, and the personal experiences that surrounded those moments. Including beautiful full-color reproductions of the artworks, A Month in Siena is about what occurred between Matar, those paintings, and the city. That month would be an extraordinary period in the writer’s life: an exploration of how art can console and disturb in equal measure, as well as an intimate encounter with a city and its inhabitants. This is a gorgeous meditation on how centuries-old art can illuminate our own inner landscape—current relationships, long-lasting love, grief, intimacy, and solitude—and shed further light on the present world around us. Praise for A Month in Siena “As exquisitely structured as The Return, driven by desire, yearning, loss, illuminated by the kindness of strangers. A Month in Siena is a triumph.”—Peter Carey