The Sienese School of painting flourished in Siena, Italy between the 13th and 15th centuries and for a time rivaled Florence, though it was more conservative, being inclined towards the decorative beauty and elegant grace of late Gothic art. Its most important representatives include Duccio, whose work shows Byzantine influence; his pupil Simone Martini; Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti; Domenico and Taddeo di Bartolo; Sassetta and Matteo di Giovanni. Unlike the naturalistic Florentine art, there is a mystical streak in Sienese artwho?, characterized by a common focus on miraculous events, with less attention to proportions, surrealist distortions of time and place, and often dreamlike and unrealistic coloration. In the 16th century the Mannerists Beccafumi and Il Sodoma worked there. While Baldassare Peruzzi was born and trained in Siena, his major works and style reflect his long career in Rome. The economic and political decline of Siena by the 1500s, its eventual external subjugation, tempered the expansion and progression of the artistic enterprisewho?. Luckilywho? for modern centuries, it has also meant that Siena is a remarkablyclarify preserved Italian late-Medieval town.
Maestà by Duccio (1308-11) Tempera on wood, 214 x 412 cm Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena
