Pietro Lorenzetti

Little is known of Lorenzetti's life other than that he was (putatively) born in Siena in the late 13th century (c. 1280/90),[1] died there (possibly) in 1348 a victim of the first Black Death pandemic then devastating Europe, and had a younger brother, Ambrogio, also an artist.

That the men were brothers was unknown to Vasari because he misread Pietro's surname on a painting in Pistoia's church of San Francesco as "Laurati".

Although Lorenzetti's integration of frame and painted architecture in the Nativity of the Virgin is usually thought to be unique, it is evident in the frescoes of Assisi some decades earlier.

[8] His masterwork is a fresco decoration of the lower church of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, where he painted a series of large scenes depicting the Crucifixion, the Deposition from the Cross, and the Entombment.

Perhaps Lorenzetti's most ambitious work is the Passion fresco cycle in the left transept of the Lower Church of San Francesco in Assisi.

These seventeen well-preserved frescoes – the highpoint of his early career – show "the influence of Giotto's monumentality, the impulse of Pisano, thirteenth century Expressionism ... and the teachings of Duccio".

[11] The exact timeline of the frescoes is in question; some scholars have believed that the cycle was painted in sections over several years as the style had some similarities to Lorenzetti's Carmelite Altarpiece (commissioned in 1429).

The more recent technical and stylistic evidence presented by Maginnis poses strong arguments that Lorenzetti's Passion Cycle was completed in one campaign between the years 1316 or 1317 and 1319.

[16] The Last Supper has Christ and his disciples seated around an awkwardly angled table within a refulgent rotunda under a night sky festooned with shooting stars and a crescent moon.

To the left of the holy diners is a narrow kitchen and in it is a man doing dishes, a woman at his shoulder, a dog licking the last scraps from a plate, and a cat asleep.

Into this apparently mundane scene, Lorenzetti surprises with an innovation, for the pets and plates cast definite shadows at angles determined by their relation to the fire.

[20] The upper scenes on the same wall and the final two stories of the Passion cycle, the Descent of Christ to Limbo and the Resurrection are horn-shaped in a small difficult space.

The rich colours, graceful lines, decorative detail, and supple figures (suggestive of Martini's influence), endow the piece with "a vivacity rare in contemporary Sienese art".

A striking feature of the overall design is the broad central panel of the predella, which allowed the painter to depict the consignment of the Carmelite rule in the early thirteenth century in a particularly detailed manner.

[31] The Birth of the Virgin was the third painting in a series completed for Siena Cathedral, beginning with Duccio's Maestà and including Simone Martini's Annunciation.

"[36] While Duccio's Maestà and Simone's Annunciation were displayed behind the choir screen, Pietro's Birth of the Virgin was on view in the central part of Siena Cathedral.

In this scene, a bath is being poured for the Virgin, midwives attend Saint Anne, who lounges on a plaid blanket-covered bed, and an expectant father awaits news of the birth.

A small panel in the Abegg-Stiftung, Riggisberg, which has been attributed to either Pietro or Ambrogio Lorenzetti, similarly depicts the Holy Family in a domestic setting with Mary engaged in needlework or knitting, the Christ Child clinging to her and Joseph beside them and a plaid cover on a bed in the left side chamber.

As Keith Christiansen states, "the key impetus to his experiments with centralized spatial projection was doubtless his collaboration with Ambrogio, with whom he shared workshop materials".

As Hyman affirms, the "[Birth of the Virgin] reads both as a triptych ... and as a deep, unified space—the most convincing interior space of the entire fourteenth century.

"[37] Pietro's innovative use of spatial illusion in the Birth of the Virgin solidifies his place amongst the great masters of trecento Sienese art such as Duccio di Buonisegna, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini.