Good and Bad Government: The Lorenzetti Brothers in Siena

Excellent online lecture from ArtScapades on the Allegory of Good and Bad Government fresco in Siena.

This is one of my favourite frescos and rooms so I was delighted to spend time listening to Richard Stemp explain the iconography of this secular work by Ambrogio Lorenzetti from 1338. I think last time I was in Siena I spent nearly two hours just sitting and looking at all the wonderful details.

I had recently done a three week course with Richard on the Arena Chapel in Padua by Giotto and he drew parallels in this work with the figures of the virtues and vices there. I particularly enjoyed his detailed walk thought the Allegory of Good Government which leads for a figure of Wisdom, though images of Justice and Concord to the Common Good. He explained the iconography in this work of the different virtues and matched it later with that of the vices in Bad Government.

I hadn’t realised before that the images of the city and countryside on the side walls match the geography of the city. The room in the Town Hall where the fresco is sited has open field on one side and faces the town square, well crescent, on the other. Oh dear another place I need to revisit when we are let out!

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