Episode 23: Siena – City of the Virgin Mary (Battle of Montaperti/Duccio’s Maestà)

Buongiorno! I’m Dr. Rocky Ruggiero. Join me in Rebuilding The Renaissance and making art and history come to life.

Welcome to the Rebuilding The Renaissance podcast, your guide to the art and history of Italy, from the glory of Rome to the magnificence of the Renaissance. And now here’s your host, Dr. Rocky Ruggiero.

Buongiorno, everyone. Today we are going to discuss the very special relationship that the city of Siena has with the Blessed Virgin Mary. In fact, all throughout Siena, you’ll see this acronym, C-S-C-V written, and the acronym, which is a sort of play of course on the SPQR of ancient Rome. In Siena, the CSCV, or the Commune of Siena, the City of the Virgin.

Now, how did Siena come to have such an exclusive and privilege relationship with the Virgin Mary? The answer of course lies in the middle ages. In fact, what is probably the most important year in Siena’s history, which is the year 1260. Now, consider that at the middle of the 13th century, Siena was still a city dominated by Ghibelline forces, right? You may remember from my past podcast of how Europe was essentially divided between these two groups. The Ghibelline, who of course were the imperial supporters and the Guelphs, who instead supported the Pope. In 1260, Siena was dominated by a imperial or feudal oligarchy. At that time, Florence had already succumbed to Guelph or Papal forces. The story goes that the city of Florence assembled an army, joined forces with another Tuscan city called Arezzo and marched this massive army down to the city of Siena. The intention of course was to conquer Ghibelline Siena.

In fact, in face of such great numbers, there was really no way that Siena stood a chance against Florence. So the story goes, before the attack began, Florentine ambassadors were sent in to negotiate terms of surrender. Siena accepted this position because again, there was really no chance that it could survive or defeat such an overwhelming force. The story goes that just as the Sienese were about to sign papers of unconditional surrender, essentially the terms were simple. Florence said that if Siena surrendered, that Florence would take their city but obviously not harm it. If instead Siena were to resist, then the city would be taken regardless and obviously destroyed in the siege that would be involved.

Just as the Sienese were about to sign these papers of surrender, the story goes that a Sienese man, who I like to call the John Adams of 13th century, Siena, stands up and he stops everything. He says, “Stop. Hold it. Instead of simply surrendering and giving up like cowards, let us instead go down fighting,” and I quote, “Put our fate into the hands of the queen and empress of eternal light, aka, the Blessed Virgin Mary,” Right? This is the story.

And so supposedly he actually does rally all of his townsmen, and they decide that in fact they’re going to expel these Florentine ambassadors and they’re going to prepare for war. They’re going to march out to certain defeat. Now, before this happened, there was a very important ceremony that took place, where essentially a procession began at the Sienese Church of Saint Christopher, and the procession was essentially carrying the keys of the city of Siena to the cathedral itself, which if you remember was still underway in the year 1260.

In this ceremony, the keys of the city of Siena were given to a painting of the Virgin Mary. Now, the painting to which the keys were given is referred to as the Madonna with the Large Eyes. If you’re fortunate enough to actually see the painting in the Cathedral Museum of Siena, I think you’ll understand why they call it the Madonna with the Large Eyes. In every representation of this particular event, what we see is the Virgin Mary actually reaching out of this 13th century painting, her arms extending out of the painting and actually accepting the keys.

This is not the Mayor of Boston giving the keys of the city to the New England patriots for the fourth year in a row. This particular ceremony was much more profound, and essentially the way the Sienese saw it was that that day, the city of Siena married itself. It espoused the Virgin Mary. She became the bride of the city. After the ceremony took place, the people of Siena began beating the war drums and prepared for war.

The story goes that they marched their army out to a place called Montaperti, again to a certain defeat. But instead, the greatest military upset in medieval warfare took place. The city of Siena not only defeated the overwhelming Florentine and Arantine forces, we are told that it was such a one sided victory for the Sienese that Sienese women were beating up Florentine men with cooking utensils.

The Battle of Montaperti, M-O-N-T-A-P-E-R-T-I, the battle of Montaperti which took place in the year 1260. The year 1260 is for Sienese history what 1776 would be for American history. The extraordinary thing about this is that if you in fact visit Siena today, they get very excited about it. In fact, oftentimes say the Sienese soccer team is beating Florence, Sienese fans will chant out from the stands, “Remember Montaperti. We beat you once and we’re beating you again.” Or if you go into a bar with some old timers and ask them, “What happened that day out in the fields of Montaperti.” They’ll let you know. “We really licked them Florentines that time,” and they still get very emotional and excited about an event that took place 759 years ago. It shows you just how rooted medieval history is in the city of Siena.

Now, that day, the city of Siena married itself to the Virgin Mary, and like most married couples, periodically the city would renew its wedding vows. And so about 25 years later, another painting was the object of the key giving ceremony. In fact, that painting is in the Cathedral of Siena today. If you’re in the church, you walk all the way down, you look to the right. There is a chapel inside of which is this dark painting of the Virgin Mary with a rather conspicuous crown on its head. This painting, which is in a chapel called the V-O-T-O, or the chapel of the votive image, because this particular painting, the second to which Siena gave the keys of the city, is considered still today to be miraculous.

In fact, just before you walk into the chapel, you’ll notice to the right hand side that there are framed golden and silver hearts, and these golden and silver hearts are the votive offerings. In other words, they represent miracles worked by the painting on behalf of Sienese people, so that if I asked the Virgin Mary to have my mom recover miraculously from some illness, if in fact she did recover, it was then my responsibility to put one of these votive offerings or images up on the wall.

Now, consider when you see it today, all you see are framed silver and gold hearts. But up until a few years ago when the chapel and the painting itself were restored, what you saw instead was a panoply of motorcycle helmets, crutches, wheelchairs, horse reins believe it or not, the story goes that a particular horse breeder had a sick horse and he prayed to Mary who intervened and allowed the horse to survive. Just to show you that what we’re talking about in many ways is still very much alive and this idea of miracles and divine intercession is still very much a part of Sienese and of Italian life today. That painting is not the only example.

Now, the third painting to which the keys of Siena were given is the most important of all, and it is a painting known as the Maesta, M-A-E-S-T-A, with a reverse accent over the a, Maesta, which was painted by the most important of Sienese painters whose name was Duccio, Duccio di Buoninsegna, but he’s so well known that we refer to him by his first name Duccio. The painting was executed over a three year period between 1308 and 1311. The patron was the Opera, or the Works Committee of the Cathedral because the original location of this painting was on the high altar of the Siena Cathedral, right?

Now, let’s unpack this a little bit. The word Maesta is the Italian word for majesty, and in art it refers to an image of the Virgin Mary in Majesty. In other words, it’s not just one of your run of the mill, Madonna, child and saints, but a much larger, much more majestic, as its name would suggest, image. Duccio, as I mentioned, is a very important Sienese painter and he’s considered to be the father of the 14th Century School of Sienese painting, which was the most important school, arguably in all of Europe at the time. Three years to execute the work, and consider that on the day it was completed in October of 1311, a national holiday was declared in Siena. All banks and public offices and schools and everything else were closed, so that they could carry this painting from Duccio’s workshop and bring it to its destined place on the high altar of Siena Cathedral.

Now, this must not have been an easy task right now. You can still see a majority of the painting today. It is in the Museo del Opera, or the Cathedral Museum in Siena. It’s the museum just off to the right of the cathedral itself. But consider that the painting is in parts today. Once upon a time when it was completely united, the Maesta by Duccio was the largest altarpiece ever painted in Italian art. We don’t know what its original frame looked like, but we do know its original dimensions, right? It was some 4.99 meters in height. Five meters. That’s just under 17 feet tall in height. And it was 4.69 meters across. So about 16 feet or so across as well. And it had a front side and it had a backside. And this painting sitting on the high altar in my mind, in fact, I have a theory that the painting was so large that it actually served as a rood screen, or you may remember from my podcast about Santa Croce of how all Catholic churches have these dividing walls, right? With crucifixes, with roods above them.

And so this served in my opinion anyway as the rood screen for the city of Siena. It was a 17 foot tall painting. Remember the rood screen in Santa Croce was approximately 20 feet tall, so it is comparative in size. And the front side of Duccio’s Maesta had the more iconic image of the Virgin Mary, Christ child surrounded by saints and angels, and the backside instead has what we call a Christology. In other words, 26 scenes depicting the passion of Jesus Christ, beginning on Palm Sunday and ending with one of his apparitions on the road. Now the painting was put on the high altar in 1311 and it remained there until the 16th century. But if you remember back to my discussion of how the term Gothic came about, during the renaissance, as a derogatory way to describe northern European art and architecture. Well, consider that Duccio’s painting is one of the finest examples of gothic painting ever, so that because it’s style kind of fell out of favor.

In the 16th century, the painting was removed and put in storage. Now this is important because when a guy named Giorgio Vasari, I’ve been nodding to him consistently now, the author of this great 16th century work, the Lives Of The Artists, wrote his life of Duccio, his short biography of Duccio, which by the way consists of all of two pages, which shows Vasari’s partiality towards Florentine artists. He does not mention Duccio’s Maesta. In other words, Vasari went to Siena to do research about this artist so he could write a biography, and does not mention a 17 by 16 foot painting. How do you miss it? Well, you miss it if obviously it’s put in some obscure place and that it was just so obsolete stylistically that people didn’t even consider it.

Now it remained in storage for the better part of 200 years. And then at the end of the 18th century, decided to sell the painting. Problem of course is that there aren’t that many people who have living rooms large enough to accommodate a 17 by 16 foot painting. So what they decided to do was to dismember the work. They pulled apart the original frame, they pulled out the smaller pinnacle and predella pieces, right? Those paintings that are above, the smaller ones above, and the smaller below the actual main panels, if you will. And pieces of the Maesta are scattered throughout the world. One in the National Gallery in Washington, DC. in the Frick collection in New York, another in Fort Worth, Texas at the Kimball Art Museum. European galleries have pieces of the Maesta, and some of them are actually in private collections as well.

So they sold some of it off, but a majority of it actually remained in Siena, where today you find it in the Cathedral Museum, a rather suggestive room. You walk into this room and it’s a dimly lit, and there are chairs set up and you sort of sit down and you admire the beauty of the Maesta. And it gives me the distinct feeling of being in a funeral parlor or at a wake. And in a way it’s appropriate, because what you’re seeing is essentially what’s left of the Maesta, which once upon a time would have been simply overwhelming in scale.

Now let’s talk about the front of the painting first. So when you walk into the room, that’s essentially what you will see and you see this large horizontal rectangular painting, with the Virgin Mary seated upon a marble throne. And the architectural style of that throne is very consistent with that of the interior of Siena Cathedral. In other words, she is the queen sitting on her throne and the cathedral becomes her castle, if you will, right? Which is rather appropriate. Notice the Christ child wearing this kind of transparent purple Gossamer right? Purple, of course, is the color of royalty.

And before I forget, if you actually look at the bottom of the throne, you’ll see a very rare thing in the 14th century, and that is the actual signature of the artist himself, right? It says Holy mother of God, be thou the cause of peace for Siena and because he painted you thus of life for D-U-C-I-O, oh right, the medieval spelling of Duccio, which today is spelled with two Cs, right? A very rare thing, but the painting was considered so important that the artist was allowed to immortalize himself on the plinth of the actual throne itself.

Now surrounding the Virgin Mary, you have 15 people to the left and 15 people to the right. Let me correct myself, not people, figures. Considered that the proportion here is that there are 20 angels surrounding the Virgin Mary and Christ child and there are 10 saints. I want you to remember this number, because later on we’re going to talk about another painting where that number will actually be inverted. There’ll be more saints than angels. But I’ll tell you why then. And one of my favorite things is to increase people’s visual literacy by teaching you how to recognize these various characters. And again, this might seem like proselytizing or trying to convert people to Christianity, but it’s not at all. In fact, the way I always explain this to my students, it would be like someone from a non Western world watching an Avengers movie and saying, “Okay, the guy with red is Ironman, right? The guy in black is whoever, and the big green guy is the Hulk.” And it’s kind of the same thing.

I mean these characters in Christian art are the protagonists. I mean they are the heroes of the entire scenes. And if you look at the image there of Mary and Jesus, just to the right of the Virgin Mary, there’s an angel and then one over, perhaps the most recognizable of Christian saints, because he looks like a hippie who just stumbled out of Woodstock. And his name of course is S.J.B., right? Saint John the Baptist. Identifiable because he has that animal skin, he’s usually dressed in a camel hair shirt, and that long straggly hair and beard. Now the corresponding place on the other side of the Virgin Mary, so to the left of the Virgin Mary, you have an old man holding a book. And a general rule of thumb for you to follow when you’re looking at Christian art, if you see an old man holding a book, it implies that he is a New Testament evangelist, right? Book means evangelist. If instead you see an old man holding a scroll, in all probability he represents an old testament prophet. So book means evangelist. Scroll means prophet. Remember this rule, because generally it is applicable.

Okay, let’s go back to S.J.B. on the right hand side. Next to him is a saint who’s wearing green and blue in Duccio’s painting. He normally wears yellow and blue, but more importantly, he is an older male saint, almost always depicted holding keys. And keys are the symbols of Saint Peter, as in the rock upon which Jesus Christ built his church, right? Petruce. And the keys, one silver, one gold representing access to the Kingdom of Heaven, the Golden One and then the silver instead to the Kingdom of Earth, and that the pope is essentially the intermediary between these two worlds. Heaven, up above, and earth down below. And in standard Christian imagery, almost always if you have Peter in a painting, you will have his sort of sidekick or counterpart.

So back to the left hand side of the Virgin Mary, you have a saint holding a sword and that is Saint Paul. So Saints Peter and Paul usually compliment each other. And why is Saint Paul holding a sword? Well because it indicates his method of martyrdom. Paul was martyred by being beheaded with a sword, and so he actually holds the sword. And we’ll get a bit more gruesome in terms of martyr imagery as these podcasts go along. I’ll leave that one there because we have plenty more to discuss, without getting into the gruesome details of other martyr symbols.

Okay, let’s go all the way back to the right hand side, to that female saint in the far right who holds a medallion upon which a lamb is depicted, and the Latin word for lamb is agnus, A-G-N-U-S, and it is a pun on the name of this female saint which is Agnes. Saint Agnes on one side. If we go to the corresponding players to the left hand side of the Virgin Mary, we have a female saint holding a palm. And again, another important symbol. Any Christian saint holding a palm is identifiable as a martyr as well. The palm branch is the symbol of martyrdom, symbol of royalty. Remember they wove those palm branches when Jesus entered into Jerusalem, because that’s how kings were welcomed. Well, consider that in Christianity, if you are martyred, if you die for your religion, you are granted instant access into the Kingdom of Heaven. You enter into this royal divine world. And so the palm branche is the symbol of martyrdom.

Now, no identifying symbols on this particular female saint, but if you look carefully at the bottom of the painting, you’ll actually see her name written. And again this is something else that I often encourage my own students to do and I always try to read paintings, or I read the writing on those paintings. And again, most people won’t even try because they think it’s all Greek to them when in fact it’s all Latin. But if you were to try to read the inscription below this female saint, you see the capital letter S, Saint, for Saint Catherine. And not Saint Catherine of Siena who we will discuss in another podcast. This is Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who usually is very easily identifiable because her symbol is a large spiked wooden wheel. Saint Catherine of Alexandra who’s first attempt at martyrdom took place in a machine that was specially devised by the Roman Emperor Maxentius, essentially consisting of two large spiked wooden wheels, which were meant to rotate rapidly in opposite direction and shred her to pieces, a kind of Holy Mullinex, if you will. And consider that. Fortunately for her, an angel showed up just the nick of time and broke the wheel. So this particular means of execution didn’t work, so then Maxentius resorted to the old fashioned but reliable method of beheading and that worked like a charm.

Anyway, you see a female saint holding a large spike wood wheel or fragment there of, you are looking at Saint Catherine of Alexandria, as in Egypt. And then the four kneeling saints you see, two to the left and two to the right are the four patron saints of the Siena. The two kneeling saints to the left of the Virgin Mary are St Ansanas and Saint Savinus. The two kneeling saints to the right of the Virgin Mary are Saint Crescentius and Saint Victor. Who? Exactly. The four patron saints of the city of Siena. I say this in a bit of a critical tone, but you can usually evaluate the importance of the city based on the importance of a city’s patron saint or saints. In Florence, we have S.J.B., or we have Saint John The baptist. Venice has Saint Mark, the evangelist. Rome has Saint Peter, Milan has saint Ambrose and you go to Siena and you have Saint Ansanus, Savinus, Crescentius and Victor.

It kind of reflects, and if you’re seeing these don’t take it personally, it kind of reflects the sort of provincial, if you will, character of the city in adopting lesser known and local saints as patron saints. And one curious fact, Saint Victor was a latecomer. The previous fourth patron saint of Siena was Saint Bartholomew, but because that important battle of Montaparti was won on the feast day of Saint Victor, Bartholomew got the boot and Victor got the [Instructor], and he was adopted instead as that fourth patron saint. So an important promotion for Saint Victor.

Anyway, that is the front of the painting. That is the more iconic side. That would have been seen by the general public, because of course it would have been sitting on the high altar facing out in that direction. If you turn around, let’s go look at the backside now of the Maesta, where again we have 26 scenes from the passion of Jesus Christ. And what I want you to realize is two things. One, we’re not in Florence anymore. It seems that A Duccio is not concerned with that. And some people think that this is one of the things that make Sienese paintings so different from Florentine. In other words, Duccio’s painting is confusing, right out confusing, and I instead believe that perhaps it has more to do with the back of the painting being an audience specific painting.

In other words, the back of the painting being visible only to clergy, if in fact the painting served as a rood screen inside. So the complex nature of the story may reflect the fact that priests or clergy may have actually enjoyed the challenge of trying to figure out which scenes went in what order, so that the actual story starts in the lower left as opposed to the upper left. And the first scene is the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, where you see Jesus and the apostles entering into Jerusalem. Instead of palms, by the way, in Italy, we actually use olive branches on Palm Sunday. A couple of reasons. One, palms are expensive and two, Easter usually falls in the period where we’re trimming our olive trees. So either you burn all those branches or you bring them to church and wave them on Palm Sunday.

And then it leads up to a smaller scene, which is the washing of the feet. Then down to a last supper painting. And in fact, that last supper is one of my favorites because when you look at last supper paintings, the two most important characters are always Jesus and Judas. The protagonist, Jesus Christ, and the Antagonist, Judas, who would betray him. And there is a whole series of criteria that you can use to identify Judas in last supper paintings, the first of which is the halo theory. In other words, Judas is usually the only figure president in the last supper without a halo, because as you can probably well imagine, Judas ain’t no saint, right? He’s the guy who betrayed Jesus Christ. The second way to identify Judas is the isolation theory. In most medieval last suppers, you’ll have Jesus and 11 apostles sitting on one side of the table and Judas sitting all by his lonesome on the other. The third way to identify Judas is the food and beverage theory, as I like to call it. Because all four gospels concur that food was involved in one way or another in Judas identify himself as the traitor, whether it was dipping bread into a bowl as Matthew and Mark suggest, or whether it was taking bread as the gospel of John says instead. So if you see someone holding bread or wine, theoretically it could also help in identifying Judas.

Well you look at Duccio’s representation of the subject. You have Jesus and eight apostles on one side of the table, and you have five instead in the front. So we can’t use the isolation theory. And all five of those figures sitting in front of the table are without halos. And the reason is very simply because we are in a pre perspective world. In two dimensional, halos would have obstructed the table. You wouldn’t be able to even make out the fact that it was the last supper. So we can’t use the halo theory. We can’t use the food and beverage theory because of those five halo-less men sitting in front of the table, you’ll notice that at least to have pieces of bread in their hands, another has a glass of wine. And so the question is, which one of these figures is Judas?

Well, when I take my students to Siena, I actually keep them in front of the painting and have them figure, I wait until they figure it out and the only hint that I give them is not to lose sight of the forest through the tree. They of course look at me and say, “What the hell does that mean?” Well, what it means is that you’ll stare so hard at that single painting to try to figure out which of the characters is Judas. And technically you have a one in five chance, because he is seated amongst those five figures in front, that you lose sight of the forest and the fact that it is simply one painting amongst a much larger series of paintings. And if you move onto the next scene where you’ll actually see Judas taking his 30 pieces of silver, the so-called Pact of Judas, then you’ll see that Judas is that figure wearing the green and orange with the pointy beard. Then you backtrack and it’s much easier to define.

Now the whole exercise that I perform with my students in having them try to figure it out only to inevitably tell them how to do it, is not to make them feel dumb, but to sort of illustrate my point that the backside of this painting was in all probability an audience specific painting, simply because if third year university students from a first world country cannot figure out where Judas is, how much more could an illiterate mass at the beginning of the 14th century? It’s kind of a religious where’s Waldo kind of game, and I almost imagine clergy appreciating the challenge of trying to figure it out.

We move to the next scenes, the first of which is Jesus in Gethsemani, and I point it out for a very simple reason and that is that I have this theory that Jesus’ Apostles were actually narcoleptic. Okay? Think about it. If you’re familiar with the stories, they’re incessant and constant falling asleep, may in fact have been the result of narcolepsy. Chew on that next time you’re here and Gospel starts. Okay. Then we have the kiss of Judas up above, which is not the most pathetic interpretation, meaningful of path. There’s not much drama, but is a successful formal presentation of Judas kissing Christ on the cheek and identifying him as the self-proclaimed Messiah.

That, of course then leads to the arrest of Christ, who then is passed through the bureaucracy of first going into Caiaphas, the high priest, then going to Pontious Pilot, the Roman Governor, who then in turn sends him. And in fact you’re in the lower right hand corner of the lower part of the backside. Now you have to get all the way up to the top left hand corner where Jesus shows up in the presence of King Herod, and according to the Gospels, Herod was just delighted that Christ was brought before him. Jesus was a sort of celebrity at the time and all Herod did was to actually provide Christ with a new white cloak. And if you look at the next scene, you’ll see that Jesus is actually wearing it.

Pilot then, desperate according to the gospel of Matthew anyway, finding no fault with Jesus Christ. So decided to have him flogged and humiliated in hopes that this would placate the crowd, the crowd instead insistent upon crucifying Jesus Christ. And so you see Pontious Pilot washing his hands, right? And this essentially is Jesus’ symbolic death sentence, Pilot washing his hands saying, “Hey, you want him dead, kill him, but the blood is on your hands.” This rather accusatory tone from the gospel of Matthew, which has led, to a certain extent, to years of anti-Semitism where essentially gospel of Matthew has the crowd, Jews obviously, responding to Pilot who said, “The blood be on your hands,” with these words, “Yes, his blood be on our hands and on the hands of our children.” and the evangelist Matthew essentially putting the onus of the responsibility for Christ’s crucifixion upon the Jewish people as well. And this obviously has been interpreted in many different ways, but that is for another point of discussion.

The death sentence leading to the crucifixion. You’ll notice that in fact Duccio dedicates quite a bit of space to the crucifixion scene, and in true Sienese fashion you have a triple execution, because all four Gospels concur that Christ was crucified on the same day as the good and bad thieves as they are identified. Crucifiction then leads to the descent from the cross and then the entombment. Now, the interesting thing is that when you look at it, you actually have the entombment up above, and the descent from the cross down below. Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to have a descent from the cross above an entombment? So it’s just this one continuous motion from the cross down into the tomb.

Anyway, Duccio not seeing this idea of using physical motion to compliment the fictive one. Right? And then the entire story ending in the upper right hand corner, where we have the apparition of Jesus on the road to Emmaus. So the idea of seeing how a Sienese artist in the 14th century would represent what was a movie, right? He’s reading the Gospel and the passion of Jesus Christ, and then visualizing it much as a modern movie director would today, how different it is from what we’ll be talking about quite soon. But also the fact that it isn’t boring to know where these paintings were originally, because it does obviously influenced how they were created and how they were interpreted. So in fact if Duccio’s painting was once the rood screen of Siena Cathedral, it would have been seen by an exclusive audience of priests who may have appreciated an intentional complexity in the way the scenes are organized.

So with that, stay tuned. In our next podcast, we will be moving away from the religious hub and center of Siena, which of course is the cathedral and its surrounding parts, and heading over to one of my favorite structures in the world. And that is the city hall, to talk about the architecture of the building itself, and then the great art that decorates the interior. So stay tuned for more.

For more information on lectures and programs in the United States, art history tours in Italy and for online video lectures, visit Rockyruggero.com.