Description
The Palazzo del Magnifico was the residence of Pandolfo Petrucci, lord of Siena. It stands in Piazza San Giovanni, at the corner with Via dei Pellegrini, and it was one of the most sumptuous palaces of its time, even if its treasures are now scattered among museums around the world.
It was built in 1508 by Domenico di Bartolomeo to a design by Giacomo Cozzarelli. The facade was decorated with numerous bells and refined bronze bracelets, which are now kept in the Palazzo Pubblico.
The heart of the palace was the main hall on the piano nobile, almost square, with a ceiling painted by Pinturicchio and his workshop: panels with mythological scenes, reworking the Golden Vault of Nero's Domus Aurea, which the painter had visited in person in Rome.
On the walls there were eight frescoed scenes, with ancient heroes and classical stories, by Luca Signorelli, Pinturicchio and Girolamo Genga. All around ran a wooden structure carved by the Barili workshop, and on the floor majolica tiles with grotesques.
Today that hall can be seen only in pieces. The ceiling has been in the Metropolitan Museum in New York since 1814. Three frescoes are in the National Gallery in London (Love Defeated by Chastity, the Return of Ulysses, the Reconciliation of Coriolanus), another two, by Genga, in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena.
Pandolfo was de facto lord of the city from 1487 to 1512, and his power brought him enemies and charges of tyranny. Yet he was called il Magnifico, for having pacified the city's factions, taking Lorenzo the Magnificent of Florence as his model.
Like Lorenzo, who had gathered the greatest painters at the villa of Spedaletto, he wanted the best artists active in Siena around him. The occasion for the decoration, completed in 1509, was probably the wedding of his son Borghese to Vittoria Piccolomini, celebrated on September 22.
The paintings were a message: the Return of Ulysses alluded to Pandolfo's return from exile and later his son's, the Flight of Aeneas to the Petrucci of three generations, the Calumny of Apelles to a good administration of justice.
Like the Medici, the Petrucci had their ups and downs. A few months after Pandolfo's death, in 1512, Borghese was driven out of the city, and from then on the decorations were gradually broken up, until the frescoes were detached in the 1840s.
It was built in 1508 by Domenico di Bartolomeo to a design by Giacomo Cozzarelli. The facade was decorated with numerous bells and refined bronze bracelets, which are now kept in the Palazzo Pubblico.
The heart of the palace was the main hall on the piano nobile, almost square, with a ceiling painted by Pinturicchio and his workshop: panels with mythological scenes, reworking the Golden Vault of Nero's Domus Aurea, which the painter had visited in person in Rome.
On the walls there were eight frescoed scenes, with ancient heroes and classical stories, by Luca Signorelli, Pinturicchio and Girolamo Genga. All around ran a wooden structure carved by the Barili workshop, and on the floor majolica tiles with grotesques.
Today that hall can be seen only in pieces. The ceiling has been in the Metropolitan Museum in New York since 1814. Three frescoes are in the National Gallery in London (Love Defeated by Chastity, the Return of Ulysses, the Reconciliation of Coriolanus), another two, by Genga, in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena.
Pandolfo was de facto lord of the city from 1487 to 1512, and his power brought him enemies and charges of tyranny. Yet he was called il Magnifico, for having pacified the city's factions, taking Lorenzo the Magnificent of Florence as his model.
Like Lorenzo, who had gathered the greatest painters at the villa of Spedaletto, he wanted the best artists active in Siena around him. The occasion for the decoration, completed in 1509, was probably the wedding of his son Borghese to Vittoria Piccolomini, celebrated on September 22.
The paintings were a message: the Return of Ulysses alluded to Pandolfo's return from exile and later his son's, the Flight of Aeneas to the Petrucci of three generations, the Calumny of Apelles to a good administration of justice.
Like the Medici, the Petrucci had their ups and downs. A few months after Pandolfo's death, in 1512, Borghese was driven out of the city, and from then on the decorations were gradually broken up, until the frescoes were detached in the 1840s.