Maestà

[1] In the West, the image seems to have developed from Byzantine precedents such as the coin of Constantine's Empress Fausta, crowned and with their sons on her lap[2] and from literary examples, such as Flavius Cresconius Corippus's celebration of Justin II's coronation in 565.

[3] Paintings depicting the Maestà came into the mainstream artistic repertory, especially in Rome, in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries,[4] with an increased emphasis on the veneration of Mary.

Although it took a generation for its effect truly to be felt, Duccio's Maestà set Italian painting on a course leading away from the hieratic representations of Byzantine art towards more direct presentations of reality.

The work was not only large, the central panel was 7 by 13 feet, but it had to be painted on both sides since it could be seen from all directions when installed on the main altar at the centre of the sanctuary.

Sacred narrative unfolds in elegant episodes enacted by graceful figures who seem to dance their way through these stories while still conveying emotional content.