After Ambrogio Lorenzetti, the Museum of San Pietro all’Orto, in Massa Marittima, offers another great appointment with Sienese art. The protagonist of the exhibition, from 15 March to 15 September, will be Stefano di Giovanni, better known as Sassetta (active in Siena from 1423 to 1450), the artist who introduced the ferment of the Renaissance into the great fourteenth-century Sienese tradition.

The exhibition, curated by Alessandro Bagnoli, is promoted by the Municipality of Massa Marittima, in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Siena – Colle Val d’Elsa – Montalcino, the Cultural Heritage Department of the University of Siena, the Diocese of Massa Marittima – Piombino , the National Art Gallery of Siena, the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Provinces of Siena, Grosseto and Arezzo.

As already happened with the exhibition event on Lorenzetti, this exhibition also takes inspiration from a work permanently exhibited at the Museum of San Pietro all’Orto: the Archangel Gabriel by Sassetta, a small panel once placed between the cusps of a altarpiece.

Accompanying the Angel will be around fifty works of which twenty-six by the Sienese master, the others belong to artists active in those years in the same context. Among them the ‘Master of Observance’, Sano di Pietro, Giovanni di Paolo, Pietro Giovanni Ambrosi and Domenico di Niccolò dei Cori.

The exhibition presents, among the many works by Sassetta granted by museums and national institutions, a very important “first”, which was discovered by the curator of the exhibition. Only the fine eye of a talented art historian like that of Alessandro Bagnoli could recognize a masterpiece by Sassetta under a heavy repainting, which Barbara Schleicher’s excellent restoration has returned to full legibility. It is a Madonna with Child, coming from the parish church of San Giovanni Battista in Molli (Sovicille) but originally created for a Sienese church, probably San Francesco.

This work of extraordinary beauty and delicacy is accompanied by a further Madonna with Child, from the Siena Opera Museum and recently restored by the FAI, to which is added the particular Madonna of the cherries, from the Grosseto Museum, so called due to the presence of these unusual fruits in the hand of the Virgin. The Four Protectors of Siena, the Four Doctors of the Church, the marvelous panel of Saint Anthony beaten by devils, the Last Supper, all fragments of the very famous altarpiece commissioned to Sassetta by the Wool Guild, for which in the exhibition offers a new and more convincing reconstruction.

While a Saint Anthony the Abbot comes from the Banca Monte dei Paschi Collection. From the Chigi Saracini Collection come a sorrowful Madonna and Saint John, a Saint Martin and the poor man and the refined Adoration of the Magi. A large polyptych comes from the Diocesan of Cortona. Other works by the painter come from the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, the Museo dell’Opera di Siena and the aforementioned Chigi Saracini Collection.

The Madonna and Child from the parish church of San Giovanni Battista in Molli (Sovicille), despite being the masterpiece revealed in this exhibition, is not the only novelty: the exhibition brings together the fruit of years of work by the curator in the area. In fact, for the first time two new profiles of artists of Sassette culture are presented: Nastagio di Guasparre, until now known as the ‘Master of Sant’Ansano’ and the ‘Master of Monticiano’. Furthermore, there will be works never exhibited to the public such as a gentle Saint Ansan, drawn in the chapter code of the Company of the same name, a Flagellation painted on the cover of a volume of the Gabelle Office of the Municipality of Siena, which was recently reacquired to the heritage public and loaned on a completely exceptional basis for the Massa Marittima exhibition by the State Archives of Siena. Finally, a small sculpture depicting the Stigmata of Saint Francis, which can be recognized as an element of a wooden choir carved by Domenico di Niccolò dei Cori.

Stefano di Giovanni known as Sassetta was undoubtedly the most important and original Sienese painter of the first half of the fifteenth century. He died in 1450 at the height of his activity, leaving the “unfortunate widow with three poor pupils, the eldest of whom is seven years old, and God knows in what state”.

The exhibition will be open from 15 March to 30 June from Tuesday to Sunday 9.30 – 1.00 \ 14.30 – 18.00 and from 1 to 15 July every day 9.30 – 13.00 \ 14.30 – 18.00.
Info and reservations:
Museum of San Pietro all’Orto, Corso Diaz 36 – Massa Marittima
+39 0566/906525;

e-mail: accoglienzamuseimassa@gmail.com