\paperw3900 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 After the important thirteenth-century experience of \b \cf4 \ATXht1031 Guido da Siena\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , considered the founder of the
cityÆs school of painting, artists in Siena also tried to go beyond the immobility of Byzantine images, though they followed a line of their own that can be distinguished from contemporary developments in Florence.\par
Duccio is unanimously regarded as
the initiator of this movement of renewal. He probably received his training working on the decoration of the cathedral in Assisi, under the guidance of Cimabue, but chose to emphasize the function of line and color over his teacherÆs plastic language o
f forms. By doing so he introduced the linear, chromatic and naturalistic ferments of the Gothic style into the painting of the thirteenth century, and these characteristics were long to be a feature of Sienese art.\par
A faithful follower and brilliant
interpreter of DuccioÆs style was \b \cf4 \ATXht1038 Ugolino di Nerio\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , who also worked in Florence, painting two large polyptychs for the churches of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella: significant examples of a meeting between the art
istic cultures of the two cities.\par
\b \cf4 \ATXht1044 Simone Martini \b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 took up the legacy of Duccio in full, accentuating the Gothic aspects of his painting. The time he spent in the service of the papal court at Avignon in the latter
part of his career helped to spread Sienese culture widely through Europe. An artist with close ties to Simone Martini was \b \cf4 \ATXht1032 Lippo Memmi\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , son of the painter Memmo di Filippuccio from San Gimignano and married to Simone M
artiniÆs sister. Lippo collaborated with Martini on numerous works for Siena, Pisa and Orvieto, and would also accompany him to Avignon.\par
\b \cf4 \ATXht1042 Pietro\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 and \b \cf4 \ATXht1037 Ambrogio Lorenzetti\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , on the o
ther hand, were more deeply and profitably influenced by Giotto, from whom they derived their interest in a coherent representation of space and the solidity of their figures. Pietro combined these elements with a greater expressiveness, inspired by the
sculptural work of Giovanni Pisano, while AmbrogioÆs painting is characterized by a lively vein of narrative.\par
The encounter between Sienese culture and the Gothic one of Northern Europe reached its climax in the work of \b \cf4 \ATXht1041 Matteo Gio
vannetti\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , a painter originally from Viterbo who was active at the papal court in Avignon and responsible for many important cycles of paintings in the Palace of the Popes.\par
In the second half of the fourteenth century the Sienese sch
ool did not move in the direction of any major and significant renewal, and the link with the tradition of the first half of the century remained strong. The example of the Lorenzetti brothers, and their approach to space and perspective, had a particula
rly strong influence on \b \cf4 \ATXht1035 Bartolo di Fredi\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , the author of the cycle of frescoes representing \i Scenes from the Old Testament\i0 in the Collegiate church of San Gimignano. This was equally true of the painting of \b \cf4 \ATXht1039 Bartolomeo Bulgarini\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , formerly known as "Ugolino-Lorenzetti" owing to the thirteenth-century and Lorenzettian components of his style. The task of bringing the fourteenth century to a close and ushering in the new one was fina
lly left to \b \cf4 \ATXht1036 Taddeo di Bartolo\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 . In his work, however, the influence of the great painters of the early Trecento was accompanied by a new openness to developments in other Italian artistic centers, like Pisa, Umbria and
Liguria, and toward the example set by contemporary painters in those places, in particular \b \cf4 \ATXht1033 Barnaba da Modena\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 . This artist, of Emilian origin and formed by the Bolognese culture of the mid-fourteenth century, in close
contact with \b \cf4 \ATXht1040 Vitale da Bologna\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 , would in turn be subjected to the same Tuscan, Pisan and Sienese influences during his stays in Liguria and Pisa.\par
Gothic tradition and taste, deeply rooted in the Sienese artistic c
ulture of the fourteenth century, persisted and continued to develop in the Quattrocento as well, while adopting some elements of the new language of the Florentine Renaissance. \b \cf4 \ATXht1034 Sassetta \b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 was certainly the most importan
t and refined exponent of this renewal, which was marked by an opening up to the luministic and chromatic interpretation that \b \cf4 \ATXht1097 Fra Angelico \b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 and Domenico Veneziano gave to the innovations of Masaccio: the only interpreta
tion that could ensure the continuity and even relevance of such characteristic values of the Sienese figurative tradition as light and color. \par
The stylistic tendency inaugurated by Sassetta was pursued and taken further by the ôMaster of the Osserv
anzaö and \b \cf4 \ATXht1043 Sano di Pietro\ATXht1093 \b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 in particular, artists who were bound together by a strong community of interests. Conversely, \b \cf4 \ATXht1029 Giovanni di Paolo\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 retained powerful links with the
great models of the early Sienese Trecento and made use, at least in his juvenile phase, of stylistic modules of an archaic and markedly linear character.
