After Ambrogio Lorenzetti, the Museum of San Pietro all’Orto, in Massa Marittima, proposes 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 ferments 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 Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Siena, the Diocese of Massa Marittima – Piombino, the National Picture Gallery of Siena, and the Soprintendenza Archeologica, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the Provinces of Siena, Grosseto and Arezzo.

As was already the case with the exhibition event on Lorenzetti, this exhibition takes its cue from a work permanently on display at the Museo di San Pietro all’Orto: Sassetta’s Archangel Gabriel, a small panel once placed between the cusps of an altarpiece.

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

Among the many works by Sassetta granted by national museums and institutions, the exhibition presents a very important ‘first’, which was discovered by the exhibition curator. Only the fine eye of a skilful art historian such as Alessandro Bagnoli could recognise under a heavy repainting a masterpiece by Sassetta, which Barbara Schleicher’s excellent restoration has restored to full legibility. It is a Madonna and Child, from the parish church of San Giovanni Battista in Molli (Sovicille) but originally painted for a Sienese church, probably San Francesco.

This work of extraordinary beauty and delicacy is juxtaposed with a further Madonna and Child, from the Museo dell’Opera in Siena and recently restored by the FAI, as well as the peculiar Madonna of the Cherries, from the Grosseto Museum, so called because of the presence of these unusual fruits in the Virgin’s hand. From the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Siena come the Four Protectors of Siena, the Four Doctors of the Church, the marvellous panel of St. Anthony clubbed by devils, the Last Supper, all fragments of the famous altarpiece commissioned to Sassetta by the Arte della lana, for which a new and more convincing reconstruction is proposed in the exhibition.

While a Saint Anthony Abbot comes from the Monte dei Paschi Bank Collection. From the Chigi Saracini Collection come a Sorrowful Madonna and St. John, a St. Martin and the Pauper and the refined Adoration of the Magi. From the Diocesan of Cortona comes a large polyptych. Other works by the painter come from the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena, the Museo dell’Opera in Siena and the already mentioned Chigi Saracini Collection.

Although the Madonna and Child from the parish church of San Giovanni Battista in Molli (Sovicille) is the masterpiece unveiled in this exhibition, it is not the only new work: the exhibition brings together the fruit of years of work by the curator in the area. In fact, two new profiles of artists from the Sassetta culture are presented for the first time: Nastagio di Guasparre, hitherto known as the ‘Master of Sant’Ansano’ and the ‘Master of Monticiano’.

Also on show will be works that have never been exhibited to the public, such as a gentle Saint Ansano, drawn in the codex of the chapters of the Company of the same name, a Flagellation painted on the cover of a volume of the Ufficio della Gabella of the Municipality of Siena, which was recently reacquired to the public heritage and lent exceptionally for the Massa Marittima exhibition by the State Archives of Siena. Finally, a small sculpture depicting the Stigmata of St. Francis, which can be recognised 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 15th century. He died in 1450 at the height of his activity, leaving his ‘unfortunate widow with three poor pupils, the eldest of whom is seven years old, et Idio sa sa in che stato’.

The exhibition will be open from 15 March to 30 June from Tuesday to Sunday 9.30 a.m. – 1 p.m. \ 2.30 p.m. – 6 p.m. and from 1 to 15 July every day 9.30 a.m. – 1 p.m. \ 2.30 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Info and reservations:
Museo di San Pietro all’Orto, Corso Diaz 36 – Massa Marittima
+39 0566 906525; accoglienzamuseimassa@gmail.com