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renaissance trail

Val d'Orcia

In the fascinating territory of the Val d'Orcia we can find very important evidence of the indissoluble bond between the Sienese late-Renaissance culture and the most prominent man of the time: Pope Pius II who gave great impulse to the elaborate figurative culture of the period and wanted his own town, Corsignano, to become an example of Renaissance-city planning thus creating an accomplished model of space organization in a classical sense in the town that, at a later stage, took its new name from him, Pienza.

Few features of Pienza remind us of pope Pius II: The Palazzo Piccolomini with the stunning view from the italian-style garden over the Val d'Orcia, the Duomo with the four masterpieces of the altarpiece painted by Sano di Pietro, Giovanni di Paolo, Vecchietta, Matteo di Giovanni, the Diocesan Museum hosting items belonged to Pius II such as the pastoral and the mitre skillfully chiseled and embellished with enamel decorations and the Spedaletto's altarpiece, further evidence of Vecchietta's acceptance of the Renaissance style.

In the nearby San Quirico the Collegiate church holds the altarpiece by Sano di Pietro representing the Madonna and Child with Angels and Saints and seven mirrors of the choir-stalls carved and inlaid by Antonio di Neri Barili for the Duomo of Siena (1482-1502) moved to the current venue in 1749.

The Monastery of Sant'Anna in Camprena marks an important stage of that pictorial culture developed at the beginning of the sixteenth-century which saw a young painter coming from Vercelli, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, as a protagonist. Right in the frescos of the refectory, representing the Events in the Life of Jesus, painted in 1503-1504, it is possible to identify the first signs of his craft that few years later would be definitively established in the nearby Montoliveto.

In Castiglion d'Orcia, the Sala d'Arte San Giovanni recently equipped and dedicated to the artistic production of that area, hosts the Madonna and Child with Angels, surmounted by an ogival frame of gothic tradition which is an early work of Vecchietta.

In Montalcino the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art holds the arts' treasures produced over the centuries and the artworks of the fifteenth-century are represented by the refined panels by Sano di Pietro Madonna and Child crowned by the Angels, destined for private worship and the larger representation of Saint Bernardino; to the same saint, Vecchietta dedicated the painting Saint Bernardino with two Angels; the Madonna and Child with two Angels by Guidoccio Cozzarelli shows the continuity of technique with his teacher Matteo di Giovanni. The Della Robbia family is extensively represented by an elegant Saint Sebastian, the altarpiece Madonna and Child crowned by two Angels and the Saints John the Baptist and Peter (1507), both attributed to Andrea della Robbia and the Wreath of Leaves and Fruits attributed to his son Giovanni.