Description
Siena's Civic Museum occupies the first floor of the Palazzo Pubblico, in Piazza del Campo, where the Republic met to govern.
Here the frescoes the Nine wanted on the walls of the halls have survived, among them Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Good and Bad Government, one of the most famous secular paintings of fourteenth-century Europe.
The largest and best-known room is the Sala del Mappamondo. Simone Martini painted the Maestà here, between 1312 and 1315, and the condottiero Guidoriccio da Fogliano at the siege of Montemassi, from 1330.
Beneath the Guidoriccio is the Capture of a Castle, dated 1314: the oldest certain decoration in the palace.
The name comes from a revolving world map that Ambrogio Lorenzetti attached to the wall and that has been lost. The pivot and the marks of its rotation can still be seen.
Next door is the Sala dei Nove, also called the Sala della Pace. Between 1338 and 1339 Lorenzetti painted here the effects of Good and Bad Government: a city and its countryside when those in charge are just, and when they are not.
It is the largest secular cycle of the Middle Ages; the virtues and vices have their names written beneath them, and the wall of Bad Government is the most damaged.
In the Sala del Concistoro Domenico Beccafumi painted on the vaults, from 1529 to 1535, the public virtues of the ancient Greeks and Romans: love of country, justice and concord. The Sala di Balia has the life of Pope Alexander III, the Sienese pope, by Spinello Aretino and his son Parri.
The chapel is frescoed by Taddeo di Bartolo with the life of the Virgin; the wooden choir with twenty-one stalls is the work of Domenico di Niccolò, who for this work was nicknamed "dei Cori". In the antechapel a display case holds the Golden Rose given by Pope Pius II, made by the goldsmith Simone da Firenze in 1462.
Then you climb to the second floor, to the Loggia, for the view over Piazza del Mercato and the southern half of the city. The museum also includes the Sala del Risorgimento, with nineteenth-century paintings and sculptures by Tuscan artists, almost all Sienese.
Don't miss
• Good and Bad Government.
• Simone Martini's Maestà.
• Guidoriccio da Fogliano.
• The Loggia.
Did you know?
• Domenico di Niccolò carved the chapel choir so well that he was nicknamed "dei Cori".
• In the Sala del Concistoro, Beccafumi's virtues are drawn mostly from Valerius Maximus, a Roman historian.
Here the frescoes the Nine wanted on the walls of the halls have survived, among them Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Good and Bad Government, one of the most famous secular paintings of fourteenth-century Europe.
The largest and best-known room is the Sala del Mappamondo. Simone Martini painted the Maestà here, between 1312 and 1315, and the condottiero Guidoriccio da Fogliano at the siege of Montemassi, from 1330.
Beneath the Guidoriccio is the Capture of a Castle, dated 1314: the oldest certain decoration in the palace.
The name comes from a revolving world map that Ambrogio Lorenzetti attached to the wall and that has been lost. The pivot and the marks of its rotation can still be seen.
Next door is the Sala dei Nove, also called the Sala della Pace. Between 1338 and 1339 Lorenzetti painted here the effects of Good and Bad Government: a city and its countryside when those in charge are just, and when they are not.
It is the largest secular cycle of the Middle Ages; the virtues and vices have their names written beneath them, and the wall of Bad Government is the most damaged.
In the Sala del Concistoro Domenico Beccafumi painted on the vaults, from 1529 to 1535, the public virtues of the ancient Greeks and Romans: love of country, justice and concord. The Sala di Balia has the life of Pope Alexander III, the Sienese pope, by Spinello Aretino and his son Parri.
The chapel is frescoed by Taddeo di Bartolo with the life of the Virgin; the wooden choir with twenty-one stalls is the work of Domenico di Niccolò, who for this work was nicknamed "dei Cori". In the antechapel a display case holds the Golden Rose given by Pope Pius II, made by the goldsmith Simone da Firenze in 1462.
Then you climb to the second floor, to the Loggia, for the view over Piazza del Mercato and the southern half of the city. The museum also includes the Sala del Risorgimento, with nineteenth-century paintings and sculptures by Tuscan artists, almost all Sienese.
Don't miss
• Good and Bad Government.
• Simone Martini's Maestà.
• Guidoriccio da Fogliano.
• The Loggia.
Did you know?
• Domenico di Niccolò carved the chapel choir so well that he was nicknamed "dei Cori".
• In the Sala del Concistoro, Beccafumi's virtues are drawn mostly from Valerius Maximus, a Roman historian.