Siena

A celebration of Sienese bronzes in Renaissance art

This book celebrates Siena’s brilliant tradition in bronze, a field in which the city reached extraordinary heights, especially in the years marked by two landmark events: Donatello’s stay in the Tuscan town in 1457–61 and the decision of the Sienese ruler Pandolfo Petrucci in 1506 to move Vecchietta’s immense bronze tabernacle to the high altar of the Cathedral of Siena, where Duccio’s Maestà had stood for nearly two hundred years. 

Sienese bronzes are unique in the range of their material texture (from jewel-like finishes to a rough sculptural sfumato), their technical ambition, their iconographical bizarreness, their typological exceptionality, their prominence in both public and private spaces, and their centrality in the liturgy. Essays by an international team of scholars, led by Giulio Dalvit, curator of the exhibition the catalogue accompanies, will present new documentary evidence and subvert longstanding Florentine-centric canons, highlighting the innovation, prestige, and ambition of local bronze production.