Lorenzetti, Ambrogio

(c. 1290-1348)

   Painter of the Sienese School who, along with his brother Pietro Lorenzetti, foreshadowed the 15th-century developments in one-point linear perspective that would change the course of art. Documents indicate that Ambrogio was in Florence on two occasions, which would have given him first-hand knowledge of the new mode introduced by Giotto, well represented in the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels at Santa Croce. In 1319 Ambrogio painted an altarpiece of the Madonna for the Pieve in Vico l'Abate in the Florentine outskirts, and in 1332-1334 he created a polyptych for the Church of San Procolo in Florence proper, when he had no choice but to join the Florentine painter's guild in order to work in that city. The Virgin and Child with Saints Mary Magdalen and Dorothy (1330s; Siena, Pinacoteca), commissioned for the Convent of St. Petronilla in Siena, is one of Ambrogio's earlier extant works. Here, the Virgin and Child are not enthroned as tradition dictated but rather represented as three-quarter-length figures placed against a gilded background. In c. 1335-1337, Ambrogio painted the Maestà Altarpiece for the high altar of the Church of Sant' Agostino in Massa Marittima, then under Sienese dominion. As a subject often represented by Sienese masters, the work was meant to assert the dominance of Siena over the city. Only the main panel of this altarpiece survives; the predella, frame, and other decorative elements are missing.

   Ambrogio's most significant commission is the allegory of Good and Bad Government (1338-1339) in the Sala della Pace of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, the most ambitious fresco of the 14th century. In 1342, Ambrogio painted the Presentation in the Temple for the Cathedral of Siena (now in Florence, Uffizi), which shows a row of columns convincingly receding into space and toward the center of the work. The figures are placed behind the columns that, along with the glimpse of the vaulted ceiling, enhances the sense of three-dimensionality. Ambrogio and his brother are thought to have succumbed to the Black Death that struck Europe in 1348.