Ambrogio Lorenzetti

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Maestà of Massa Marittima (c. 1335). Depicted are the Madonna and Child with saints, prophets, angels and theological virtues, around 1335

Ambrogio Lorenzetti (* around 1290 in Siena ; † around 1348 there ; also in Latin Ambrosius Laurentius ) was an Italian painter. Ambrogio and his brother Pietro Lorenzetti were important representatives of the Siena School .

Nowadays he is most famous for his cycle of frescoes Allegory and Effects of the Good and Bad Government in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena.

biography

Annunciation , 1344, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena

Little is known about Ambrogio's personal life. His earliest dated work, the so-called Madonna by Vico l'Abate of 1319, suggests a date of birth in the 1290s.

He mainly painted altar paintings and frescoes. His most important works include several great Maestàs , including the spectacular altar for Massa Marittima , the date of which is estimated to have been around 1335 (fig. Above), and two more frescoed in the Cappella di Montesiepi in Galgano and in the church of Sant'Agostino in Siena. The latter is the only remaining fragment of a great Catherine's cycle, which was once one of Ambrogio's most important masterpieces, as well as a fragmentary cycle of frescoes in the cloister and chapter house of the Church of San Francesco (Siena). Both were highly praised, precisely described and admired by the famous sculptor and art theorist Lorenzo Ghiberti , in contrast to the now famous allegorical frescoes in the Palazzo Pubblico, which Ghiberti only mentions relatively casually.

Also lost are frescoes of the life of Mary on the facade of the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, which Ambrogio painted together with his brother Pietro and which were the only evidence that the two Lorenzettis were brothers.

In addition to the aforementioned Madonna by Vico l'Abate , only two late works are dated: the offering in the temple from 1342 for a chapel in the cathedral of Siena (today: Uffizi Gallery , Florence) and the Annunciation from 1344, which was originally intended for the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena was (today: Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena).

On June 9, 1348, Ambrogio made his will , in case he, his wife and three daughters did not survive the plague epidemic, which was rampant at the time , and bequeathed all his goods to the Compagnia della Vergine Maria of Siena. Since Ambrogio sold various properties in the same year, it is assumed that his entire family was actually wiped out by the epidemic.

Works

Triptych of St. Proclus , ca.1332 (?)
  • Madonna by Vico l'Abate (1319), originally for the church of Sant'Angelo in Vico Abate, today in the Museo Arcivescovile del Cestello, Florence
  • Madonna del Latte , Palazzo Arcivescovile, Siena
  • Madonna with Child and Saints Magdalena and Dorothea (parts of a polyptych of Saint Mary Magdalene  ?), Pinacoteca Nazionale , Siena
  • Triptych of St. Proclus (1332?), Uffizi Gallery , Florence
  • Maestà (around 1335), Palazzo Communale, Massa Marittima
  • Maestà and other frescoes in the Cappella (or Rotonda) of Montesiepi (1334–36)
  • The martyrdom of Francis near Bombay (around 1336), fresco in San Francesco, Siena
  • Maestà (around 1338), fresco in Sant'Agostino , Siena (part of a lost Catherine cycle)
  • Row of frescoes in the Sala d ei Nove in the Palazzo Pubblico , Siena (1338–1339)
    • Allegoria del Cattivo Governo
    • Allegoria del Buon Governo
    • Effetti del Buon Governo in città e in campagna
  • Santa Petronilla , altarpiece (1340)
  • The Little Maestà (around 1340), Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena
  • Offering in the Temple (1342), Uffizi Gallery, Florence
  • Annunciation (1344), originally in the Palazzo Pubblico, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena

A cycle of frescoes in the Sala dei Nove of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena

The frescoes were created in 1338 and 1339. On three walls of the room there is an allegory of the Good Government on one wall and an allegory of the Bad Government on the other , and the third depicts the effects of the Good Government on town and country .
The influential Swiss art historian and cultural scientist of the late 19th century, Jacob Burckhardt , was probably one of the first to refer to the thematic references between Ambrogio Lorenzetti's fresco cycle of 1338/1339 and the “ Ekphrasis ”, the description of a (fictional) image, namely the representation of the world on the shield of Achilles forged by Hephaestus in the XVIII. Singing of the Iliad of Homer pointed out, Burckhardt emphasizes, however, that Ambrogio Lorenzetti certainly did not "have any indirect news from Homer." Modern cultural studies also consider it a “wrong trace” to assume that the painters of the Trecento had a detailed knowledge of the contents of the Iliad , not even in the strongly shortened Latin versions. An intensive visual examination of scenes from Homer's works takes place in European painting more than 100 years later at the earliest, in painting of the Renaissance, and then especially in the Baroque. and also the poets of the Trecento such as Petrarch and Boccaccio were only able to get to know the Iliad more precisely in the Latin translation by Leontius Pilatus after 1362.

Ambrogio's fresco Allegory of the Good Government in the Palazzo Pubblico (Siena) also contains the presumably first depiction of an hourglass in the hand of Temperantia , one of the cardinal virtues , which in this form probably only appeared in the second half of a “restoration” of the fresco by Andrea Vanni the 14th century was added

  • Allegoria del Cattivo Governo

  • Allegoria del Buon Governo

  • Effetti del Buon Governo in città , approx. 300 × 700 cm

  • Effetti del Buon Governo in campagna , approx. 14 m wide

literature

  • Jacob Burckhardt: The Art of the Renaissance. Volume I. Painting according to content and tasks. Edited from the estate by Marizio Ghelardi and others CH Beck. Munich. Schwabe, Basel. 2006, p. 351 (= Jacob Burckhardt: Works. Critical Complete Edition . Volume 16)
  • Michela Becchis:  Lorenzetti, Ambrogio. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 65:  Levis-Lorenzetti. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2005.
  • C. De Benedictis: Lorenzetti, Ambrogio. In: Dizionario dell'Arte medievale Volume 7, Rome 1996, pp. 878-884 ( online version at treccani.it )
  • Enzo Carli: Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Frescoes from the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. Woldemar Klein Verlag, Baden-Baden 1956
  • Chiara Frugoni: Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti . Scala Books, New York 1988, ISBN 0-935748-80-6 .
  • Michael Kühr: Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Good and bad government. A vision of peace. Images and thoughts from Homer to Dante. A cycle of frescoes in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, AD 1338/1339 . Studio buk, Mandelbachtal 2002, ISBN 3-00-010833-5 ; 2nd edition 2012 ISSN  2193-4487 (self-published, 60 pages)
  • Dagmar Schmidt: Ambrogio Lorenzetti's cycle of frescoes about good and bad government. A Dantesque vision in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena . Interdisciplinary dissertation University of St. Gallen 2003 ( Online ; PDF; 1.6 MB).
  • Uta Feldges-Henning: The pictorial program of the Sala della Pace: A new interpretation. In: Journal of Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 25, 1972, pp. 145-162.
  • Patrick Boucheron : Banished fear. Siena 1338. Essay on the political power of images. Übers. Sarah Heurtier, Sebastian Wilde. Wolff, Berlin 2017, 2nd edition. 2018 ( Conjurer la peur. Sienne 1338. Essai sur la force politique des images . Seuil, Paris 2013, TB 2015)

Web links

Commons : Ambrogio Lorenzetti  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Chiara Frugoni: Pietro e Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Italian), Scala, Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 1988, p. 36.
  2. ^ Chiara Frugoni: Pietro e Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Italian), Scala, Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 1988, pp. 47-48.
  3. ↑ Chiara Frugoni: Pietro e Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Italian), Scala, Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 1988, pp. 41-47.
  4. ↑ Chiara Frugoni: Pietro e Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Italian), Scala, Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 1988, pp. 36, 41 and 59-62
  5. ↑ This was narrated by Ugurgieri Azzolini in Pompe Senese in 1649 , shortly before these frescoes were destroyed. Chiara Frugoni: Pietro e Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Italian), Scala, Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 1988, p. 3.
  6. ^ Jacob Burckhardt: The art of the Renaissance. Volume I. Painting according to content and tasks. Edited from the estate by Marizio Ghelardi and others CH Beck. Munich. Schwabe, Basel. 2006, p. 351 (= Jacob Burckhardt: Works. Critical Complete Edition . Volume 16)
  7. ↑ Patrick Boucheron: Banished Fear. Siena 1338. Wolff Verlag Berlin. German 2017, p. 196.
  8. ↑ archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de
  9. ^ Chiara Frugoni: Pietro et Ambrogio Lorenzetti. P. 83.
  10. ↑ L. Bellosi: Buffalmacco e il trionfo della morte . Turin. 1974, pp. 53-54.
personal data
SURNAME Lorenzetti, Ambrogio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian painter
DATE OF BIRTH around 1290
PLACE OF BIRTH Siena
DATE OF DEATH around 1348
Place of death Siena