Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. Hardbound. VG/VG. Light blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine, color pictorial dustjacket. viii, (4), 251 pp., 220 mostly color plates. From dustjacket: "Celebrating the Virgin Mary as both an object of religious devotion and a focus of civic pride, 14th century Sienese artists established within their city a vibrant pictorial tradition that continued into the early decades of the next century. Such celebratory images of the Virgin were also common in Siena"s extensive subject territories, the contado. This richly illustrated book explores late medieval Sienese Marian art - how it was commissioned, created and understood by the Sienese. Drawing extensively from unpublished archive material the author reconstructs the circumstances surrounding commission of Marian art in the three most prestigious location of 14th century Siena: The cathedral, the Palazzo Pubblilco and the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. Casting new light on such topics as the original site for the reliquary tomb of Saint Cerbone and the identity of the patrons of the marian frescoes in the rural hermitage of San Leonardo al Lago, Norman deepens our insights into the origins and the meanings of Sienese art production of the late medieval period.