Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena

Timothy B. Smith is an Associate Professor of Art History at Birmingham-Southern College, USA. Judith B. Steinhoff is an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Houston, USA.

• Contents: Introduction; Urban images and civic identity in medieval Sienese painting, Judith B. Steinhoff; Cistercian Gothic in a civic setting: the translation of the pointed arch in Sienese architecture, 1250-1350, Ann Johns; 'Vedete come è bella la cittade quando è ordinata': politics and the art of city planning in republican Siena, Berthold Hub; Images of the Virgin and power in late-duecento Siena, Rebecca W. Corrie; Iconography and identity in a Renaissance republic, Andrea W. Campbell; 'Santi cittadini': Vecchietta and the civic pantheon in mid-15th-century Siena, Diana Norman; Politics and antiquity in the Baptist's chapel façade, Timothy B. Smith; 'Armet se duritia': Domenico Beccafumi and the politics of punishment, Jennifer Sliwka; Sodoma at Porta Pispini and the pictorial decoration of Sienese city gates, Machtelt Israëls; Select bibliography; Index.

'... valuable for expanding, or perhaps even changing, the lens through which Sienese art is viewed.' CAA Reviews 'Although addressing a wide range of topics, the essays are methodologically similar in their analysis of images, buildings, and forms as instruments of political agendas. The volume is coherent, a pleasure to read, and presents many new ideas about both major monuments and lesser-known works.' The Medieval Review 'Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena makes bold moves. One would not expect a book by that title to steer around perhaps the most famously political images of premodern Europe, the government allegories painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico. Further, taking a cue from Chinese painting, editors Timothy Smith and Judith Steinhoff call for a nonlinear view of artistic development in Siena and a turn away from stylistic innovation as a primary qualification for Sienese objects of art historical study.' Studies in Iconography