Description
The Basilica of San Clemente in Santa Maria dei Servi, simply "i Servi" to the Sienese, stands on top of the hill above Valdimontone, in Piazza Manzoni. It is a Servite church with a facade that was never finished and, inside, a treasure of Sienese painting.
The plan is a Tau cross: three aisles in Florentine Renaissance style, with white plaster and gray pietra serena, round arches with painted coffers, and at the far end older Gothic chapels. It is a meeting of eras, and you read it at once.
In the second chapel on the right is the Madonna del Bordone by Coppo di Marcovaldo, from 1261, his only signed work. The Virgin's face, however, was redone later by a follower of Duccio.
Then the Massacre of the Innocents, a recurring theme in the church: the panel by Matteo di Giovanni (1491) in the fifth chapel on the right, and a fresco attributed to Pietro Lorenzetti with the brothers Francesco and Niccolò di Segna, in the first chapel on the right.
In a chapel to the left of the presbytery is a Dead Christ in painted terracotta by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, from around 1490-1493: well-modeled drapery, intense naturalism and a soft sweetness. It was discovered in 2009 in the case under the altar of a chapel and restored in 2015.
The central chapel has the Coronation of the Virgin by Bernardino Fungai (1498-1501). In a chapel to the right of the transept there is a large painted cross from the 14th century, and beneath it the incorrupt body of Blessed Francesco Patrizi (1266-1328), of the Order of the Servants of Mary.
In 1260, after the Battle of Montaperti, the Sienese took the Florentine painter Coppo di Marcovaldo prisoner. To win his freedom he painted the Madonna: that panel is still here, in the second chapel on the right.
The building's history is a long one too. The Servites arrived in Siena shortly after the founding of Monte Senario, in 1234; the convent moved to the site of San Clemente in 1263. The construction lasted almost three centuries and the 15th-century facade was never completed.
The double name comes from the old parish church of San Clemente, absorbed by the new convent. The Romanesque bell tower was radically restored in 1926, with spires on top that make it look like the Duomo's.
The plan is a Tau cross: three aisles in Florentine Renaissance style, with white plaster and gray pietra serena, round arches with painted coffers, and at the far end older Gothic chapels. It is a meeting of eras, and you read it at once.
In the second chapel on the right is the Madonna del Bordone by Coppo di Marcovaldo, from 1261, his only signed work. The Virgin's face, however, was redone later by a follower of Duccio.
Then the Massacre of the Innocents, a recurring theme in the church: the panel by Matteo di Giovanni (1491) in the fifth chapel on the right, and a fresco attributed to Pietro Lorenzetti with the brothers Francesco and Niccolò di Segna, in the first chapel on the right.
In a chapel to the left of the presbytery is a Dead Christ in painted terracotta by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, from around 1490-1493: well-modeled drapery, intense naturalism and a soft sweetness. It was discovered in 2009 in the case under the altar of a chapel and restored in 2015.
The central chapel has the Coronation of the Virgin by Bernardino Fungai (1498-1501). In a chapel to the right of the transept there is a large painted cross from the 14th century, and beneath it the incorrupt body of Blessed Francesco Patrizi (1266-1328), of the Order of the Servants of Mary.
In 1260, after the Battle of Montaperti, the Sienese took the Florentine painter Coppo di Marcovaldo prisoner. To win his freedom he painted the Madonna: that panel is still here, in the second chapel on the right.
The building's history is a long one too. The Servites arrived in Siena shortly after the founding of Monte Senario, in 1234; the convent moved to the site of San Clemente in 1263. The construction lasted almost three centuries and the 15th-century facade was never completed.
The double name comes from the old parish church of San Clemente, absorbed by the new convent. The Romanesque bell tower was radically restored in 1926, with spires on top that make it look like the Duomo's.