I've spent very little time in Italy, and I didn't get a chance to go to the city of Siena, even though I had heard there were incredible frescoes there. My mistake.
I only recently learned from a friend about a few of them, and I confess this post is still not entirely a case of art for art's sake. I'm writing it partly because their content could have been created today.
Almost 700 years ago, in 1338–39, Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted three large frescoes on the walls of the Palazzo Pubblico, the council hall of the city. (They're the equivalent of the Saint Paul city council WPA paintings, only better.)
I don't have a sense of the scale, but it's a large room where the nine councilors met, I assume with an audience, so it's not small.
The left wall contains the Allegory of Bad Government and the Effects of Bad Government in the City:
The center wall shows The Allegory of Good Government...
...and the right wall displays the Effects of Good Government in the City and in the Country:
The citizens and city officers in the Allegory of Good Government, in the foreground of that fresco, are holding two woven ropes, symbolizing the way they are connected.
The virtues of Peace, Fortitude, Prudence, Magnanimity, Temperance, and Justice are arrayed on either side of Wisdom, who is dressed in the black and white colors of Siena.
Peace, on the far left of the virtues, is posed resting on unneeded armor and holding an olive branch.
The fresco that depicts the effects of good government was, according to the Wikipedia entry, "the first accurate panoramic view of city and country (landscape) since antiquity."
It is clearly identifiable as Siena and is full of thriving people and
businesses, coexisting in peace.
The surrounding countryside is likewise
tranquil and fruitful.
This is the part that seemed particularly apt for our present situation. Those words sound so familiar: Division, Cruelty, Avarice, Deceit, Fraud. There's hardly a one that can't be used to describe some aspect of our current administration's acts in government.
And what do we see as a result?
The Effects of Bad Government [fresco] shows the city is in ruin, windows are wide open, houses are being demolished, and businesses are nonexistent, except that of the armourer. The streets are deserted, and the country side shows two armies advancing towards each other
I don't intend to go back and study 14th century Italian history to understand exactly what the city councilors of Siena were speaking to when they commissioned these frescoes, but I may do a little bit of CliffsNotes reading on the subject.
The fact that these murals exist in the very country that later gave rise to Mussolini doesn't lend a lot of reinforcement to the idea that one era can pass its hard-won wisdom to later generations.
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The first six photos are from the Wikimedia Commons. The last five were taken by my unnamed friend during her visit to Siena.
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