Lorenzetti Brothers

Italian painters, representatives of the Sienese school of the 14th century.

Pietro Lorenzetti. Born circa 1280 in Siena; died there in 1348 (?).

P. Lorenzetti first drew on the traditions of Duccio di Buoninsegna, which he proceeded to modify under the influence of Giotto and Giovanni Pisano. Seeking to convey greater corporeality and monumentality, he often used architectural motifs and well-developed spatial construction (for example, the polyptych in Santa Maria della Pieve, Arezzo, 1320; the altarpiece History of the Carmelite Order, National Pinacoteca, Siena, 1329; the triptych Nativity of the Virgin, Cathedral Museum, Siena, 1342). Lorenzetti’s frescoes in the lower church of San Francesco in Assisi (1325-29 and after 1340) are marked by a tragic fervor; there is a somewhat Giottesque generalization of form, yet two-dimensional composition is preserved.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Died in 1348 (?) in Siena.

A. Lorenzetti was closely tied to the art of Florence, where he worked intermittently between 1320 and 1330. He studied antique sculpture and was interested in the problems of perspective (Annunciation, 1344, National Pinacoteca, Siena). His principal work, the series of frescoes Good and Bad Government in the Palazzo Publico in Siena (1337-39), is based on a complicated allegorical concept that integrates images marked by a strict didacticism with accurate representations of urban life and of majestic landscapes.