Description
The church of Sant'Agostino stands on Prato Sant'Agostino and is much richer than its plain facade lets you imagine. Founded by the Augustinians in 1258, it has an 18th-century interior, with a single nave and monumental altars of polychrome marble that hold Sienese painting and more.
The Piccolomini Chapel opens through a door in the right wall. At the back is the altar of 1596 with Sodoma's Adoration of the Magi (around 1531). On the opposite wall, in a lunette, is Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Maestà (1337-1338), the oldest work in the church.
Don't miss Perugino's Crucifixion, at the second altar on the right: it is the artist's only painting in the city, commissioned in 1502 by Mariano Chigi but executed between 1506 and 1507. The predella is split between the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Art Institute in Chicago.
In the Bichi Chapel, at the end of the right transept, 15th-century frescoes have come back to light: two Sibyls by Luca Signorelli in the lunettes and two monochromes by Francesco di Giorgio Martini and workshop, with the Birth of the Virgin and the Nativity. The majolica floor dates from 1488.
Then there are Baroque altars with altarpieces by Alessandro Casolani and Ventura Salimbeni, an Immaculate Conception by Carlo Maratta (1681), the Baptism of Constantine by Francesco Vanni and the monument to Pope Pius II, carved by Giovanni Duprè in 1850.
Lorenzetti's work survived by chance. At the end of the 16th century the Piccolomini rebuilt the chapel and set an enormous altar against the wall: the Maestà ended up hidden, but nobody bothered to destroy it, while the chapel's other frescoes were lost.
It was rediscovered in 1944. To protect Sodoma's panel from the bombings, the Piccolomini altar was moved to the opposite side of the chapel, and behind it the 14th-century fresco reappeared.
The church's present look is owed to a fire. After the devastating blaze of 1747 the interior was renewed by Luigi Vanvitelli, who in 1755 gave the earlier structures a classicizing 18th-century dress.
At the start of the 19th century, with the Napoleonic suppressions, the Augustinians left the convent, which was entrusted to the Convitto Tolomei; the brick facade is hidden by a colonnaded atrium by Agostino Fantastici (1818-1819). On the inside of the facade is a pipe organ built between 1522 and 1526.
The Piccolomini Chapel opens through a door in the right wall. At the back is the altar of 1596 with Sodoma's Adoration of the Magi (around 1531). On the opposite wall, in a lunette, is Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Maestà (1337-1338), the oldest work in the church.
Don't miss Perugino's Crucifixion, at the second altar on the right: it is the artist's only painting in the city, commissioned in 1502 by Mariano Chigi but executed between 1506 and 1507. The predella is split between the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Art Institute in Chicago.
In the Bichi Chapel, at the end of the right transept, 15th-century frescoes have come back to light: two Sibyls by Luca Signorelli in the lunettes and two monochromes by Francesco di Giorgio Martini and workshop, with the Birth of the Virgin and the Nativity. The majolica floor dates from 1488.
Then there are Baroque altars with altarpieces by Alessandro Casolani and Ventura Salimbeni, an Immaculate Conception by Carlo Maratta (1681), the Baptism of Constantine by Francesco Vanni and the monument to Pope Pius II, carved by Giovanni Duprè in 1850.
Lorenzetti's work survived by chance. At the end of the 16th century the Piccolomini rebuilt the chapel and set an enormous altar against the wall: the Maestà ended up hidden, but nobody bothered to destroy it, while the chapel's other frescoes were lost.
It was rediscovered in 1944. To protect Sodoma's panel from the bombings, the Piccolomini altar was moved to the opposite side of the chapel, and behind it the 14th-century fresco reappeared.
The church's present look is owed to a fire. After the devastating blaze of 1747 the interior was renewed by Luigi Vanvitelli, who in 1755 gave the earlier structures a classicizing 18th-century dress.
At the start of the 19th century, with the Napoleonic suppressions, the Augustinians left the convent, which was entrusted to the Convitto Tolomei; the brick facade is hidden by a colonnaded atrium by Agostino Fantastici (1818-1819). On the inside of the facade is a pipe organ built between 1522 and 1526.