Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena

Edited by Timothy B. Smith and Judith B. Steinhoff

Routledge, 2013, 234 pages, Paperback, ISBN: 9781409400660

In Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, contributors explore the evolving relationship between image and politics in Siena from the time of the city-state's defeat of Florence at the Battle of Montaperti in 1260 to the end of the Sienese Republic in 1550. Engaging issues of the politicization of art in Sienese painting, sculpture, architecture, and urban design, the volume challenges the still-prevalent myth of Siena's cultural and artistic conservatism after the mid fourteenth century. Clearly establishing uniquely Sienese artistic agendas and vocabulary, these essays broaden our understanding of the intersection of art, politics, and religion in Siena by revisiting its medieval origins and exploring its continuing role in the Renaissance.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Urban images and civic identity in medieval Sienese painting, Judith B. Steinhoff

Cistercian Gothic in a civic setting: the translation of the pointed arch in Sienese architecture, 1250-1350, Ann Johns

'Vedete come è bella la cittade quando è ordinata': politics and the art of city planning in republican Siena, Berthold Hub

Images of the Virgin and power in late-duecento Siena, Rebecca W. Corrie; Iconography and identity in a Renaissance republic, Andrea W. Campbell

'Santi cittadini': Vecchietta and the civic pantheon in mid-15th-century Siena, Diana Norman

Politics and antiquity in the Baptist's chapel façade, Timothy B. Smith

'Armet se duritia': Domenico Beccafumi and the politics of punishment, Jennifer Sliwka

Sodoma at Porta Pispini and the pictorial decoration of Sienese city gates, Machtelt Israels

Select bibliography

Index