Pietro Lorenzetti (; – 1348) or Pietro Laurati was an Italian painter, active between and 1345. Together with his younger brother Ambrogio, he introduced naturalism into Sienese art. In their artistry and experiments with three-dimensional and spatial arrangements, the brothers foreshadowed the art of the Renaissance.

Overview Little is known of Lorenzetti's life other than that he was (putatively) born in Siena in the late 13th century (), died there (possibly) in 1348 a victim of the first Black Death pandemic then devastating Europe, and had a younger brother, Ambrogio, also an artist. That the men were brothers was unknown to Vasari because he misread Pietro's surname on a painting in Pistoia's church of San Francesco as "Laurati".Frugoni, Chiara. Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Florence: Scala Books, 1988: p. ?. Thus the kinship between the artists was missed. Pietro was known to have been a young man in 1306 as he was still being referred to as Petruccio di Lorenzo. However, he was at least 25 at the time because he was paid directly.Frank Magill's Dictionary of World Biography: The Middle Ages, pg 595.

Pietro worked in Assisi, Florence, Pistoia, Cortona, and Siena, although the precise chronology is unknown.Norman, Diana. Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena (1260–1555). New Haven: Yale University Press 2003: p. 35. His work suggests the influence of Duccio (in whose studio he may have worked, possibly alongside Simone Martini), Giotto, and Giovanni Pisano.Polzer, Joseph. “Pietro Lorenzetti's Artistic Origin and His Place in Trecento Sienese Painting.” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 35, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1993: p. 103.

According to Vasari, it was Pietro's frescoes which adorned the façade of Siena's Ospedale della ScalaSmart, Alastair. The Dawn of Italian Painting 1250–1400. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978: p. 101. that first bought him to the attention of his contemporaries. The frescoes – now believed to be the work of both Lorenzetti brothers – were destroyed in 1720 and subsequently whitewashed over.

Many of his religious works may still be seen in churches and museums in the Tuscan towns of Arezzo, Assisi, and Siena (e.g., his last documented work, the Nativity of the Virgin (), is displayed in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo).

Although Lorenzetti's integration of frame and painted architecture in the Nativity of the Virgin is usually thought to be unique, it is evident in the frescoes of Assisi some decades earlier.Maginnis, Hayden B. J. "Assisi Revisited: Notes on Recent Observations". The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 117, No. 869, Special Issue Devoted to the Italian Trecento in Memory of Millard Meiss (Aug., 1975): p. 517. One probable conclusion can be made that he did not read Latin, as there was documentation of a translator being paid in association with his work on the Birth of the Virgin.Maginnis, Hayden B. J. "Pietro Lorenzetti: A Chronology." Art Bulletin 66, No. 2 (June 1984): p. 183.

His masterwork is a fresco decoration of the lower church of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, where he painted a series of large scenes depicting the Crucifixion, the Deposition from the Cross, and the Entombment. The massed figures in these pieces display emotional interactions, unlike many prior depictions which appear to be iconic agglomerations, as if independent figures had been glued onto a surface, with no compelling relationship to one another. The narrative influence of Giotto's frescoes in the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapels in Santa Croce (Florence) and the Arena Chapel (Padua) can be seen in these and other works of the lower church. The Lorenzetti brothers and their contemporary competitor from Florence, Giotto (but also his followers Bernardo Daddi and Maso di Banco) seeded the Italian pictorial revolution that extracted figures from the gilded ether of Byzantine iconography into pictorial worlds of towns, land, and air. Sienese iconography, generally more mystical and fantastic than that of the more naturalistic Florentines, sometimes resembles a modern surrealist landscape.

Works

Castiglione d'Orcia Madonna

The Madonna of Castiglione d'Orcia was painted prior to 1300 and is as such Lorenzetti's earliest extant work. In it, the figures are restrained, the mood reflective. The Child's dress is contemporary and elegant; the Virgin wears a deep blue cloak boarded by a Byzantine gold-striated band.Polzer 1993, p. ?.

Much about the piece is traditional: the Virgin's head sits along the vertical axis which crosses her right eye, itself gazing at the viewer (the same arrangement is found in Duccio's Rucellai Madonna), the tilts of the Virgin's and Child's faces (the Child gazes up at his mother whose head tilts toward her son but whose eyes remain steadfastly fixed toward the viewer) echo Duccio's earlier Madonnas such as his Madonna and Child in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And yet there is something new in Lorenzetti's Madonna, for it has a realism largely absent in Duccio. Here, the Virgin's body responds 'realistically' to the weight of the Child. In earlier depictions of the Virgin and Child by Duccio the Virgin's posture remains unaffected by the realistic influences of weight and poise. The type of secure holding that Lorenzetti depicts in this painting is unprecedented in a painting, but it can be found in previous sculptures of Virgin and Child, from where Lorenzetti could have adapted it.

Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi

Perhaps Lorenzetti's most ambitious work is the Passion fresco cycle in the left transept of the Lower Church of San Francesco in Assisi. These seventeen well-preserved frescoes – the highpoint of his early career – show "the influence of Giotto's monumentality, the impulse of Pisano, thirteenth century Expressionism ... and the teachings of Duccio".Bellosi, Luciano. Pietro Lorenzetti at Assisi. Assisi: DACA Publications, 1988: p. 2. The conditions for the execution of the frescoes must have been difficult as very little natural light would be available and the lower church would be near darkness.Maginnis, Hayden B. J. "The Passion Cycle in the Lower Church of San Francesco, Assisi: The Technical Evidence". Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, Vol. 39, 2/3 (1976): p. 196. The exact timeline of the frescoes is in question; some scholars have believed that the cycle was painted in sections over several years as the style had some similarities to Lorenzetti's Carmelite Altarpiece (commissioned in 1329).Dini, Giuletta Chelazzi. Angelini, Alessandro. Sani, Bernardina. Sienese Painting: From Duccio to the Birth of the Baroque. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998: p. 124. The reasons are varied, from painting only in the dry season to the bloody skirmishes in the area at the time. The more recent technical and stylistic evidence presented by Maginnis poses strong arguments that Lorenzetti's Passion Cycle was completed in one campaign between the years 1316 or 1317 and 1319.Maginnis 1975, p. 515.

Believed to be one of his earliest works is the Madonna and Child with Saints Francis and John the Baptist, in the chapel of Saint John the Baptist.According to Dini, it might have been begun as early as 1310. Dini 1998, p. 128. According to Maginnis the "finest and most complete realization of the ambition to conjoin real and painted space was left to Pietro Lorenzetti, working in the left transept. There, his well-known fictive altar-piece is, in reality, much more."Maginnis 1975, p. 516.

Lorenzetti's fresco cycle begins with the Entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the Washing of the Feet, the Capture of Christ, the Flagellation and the Way to Calvary. As usual with frescoes, these first scenes were painted beginning at the top of the vaulted roof and working to the bottom so as to avoid dripping from above onto a freshly painted scene.Bellosi 1988, p. 2.

The Last Supper has Christ and his disciples seated around an awkwardly angled table within a refulgent rotunda under a night sky festooned with shooting stars and a crescent moon. To the left of the holy diners is a narrow kitchen and in it is a man doing dishes, a woman at his shoulder, a dog licking the last scraps from a plate, and a cat asleep. The pets and plates cast shadows at angles determined by their relation to the fire.Maginnis 1976, p. 198.

Two scenes on the end wall, the Deposition from the Cross and the Deposition in the Tomb, show the mourners lovingly removing Christ from the cross and placing, with slow measured movements, his lifeless body in the tomb. This demonstrates Lorenzetti's technical ability and maturity, resembling Giotto's use of naturalistic human emotions.Dini 1998, p. 124.

The Suicide of Judas is painted on the facing wall, at the corner between the entrance to the transept at the top of the stairs, where it is painted as to appear part of the architecture of the transept. This is the only fresco with an inscription ().Frugoni 1988, p. 21.

In front of the Crucifixion is the Stigmata of Saint Francis. The portrayal of the life of Saint Francis appears in the nave of the church, suggesting a parallel between the life of Christ and that of Francis. Lorenzetti carries the idea further by placing Saint Francis next to the Capture of Christ, replacing the Agony in the Garden from the original Passion story with a scene of the Saint.Frugoni 1988, p. 23.

The upper scenes on the same wall and the final two stories of the Passion cycle, the Descent of Christ to Limbo and the Resurrection are horn-shaped in a small difficult space. The two scenes represent examples of similar styles to the first six scenes, especially the face of Christ.Bellosi 1988, p. 6.

The Madonna dei Tramonti ("Madonna of the Sunsets") below the Crucifixion in a painted frame shows the Madonna and Child, Saint John the Evangelist, and Saint Francis. Mary has a unique gesture, holding her thumb up pointing back to Saint Francis, raising his hand to accept his calling.Frugoni 1988, p. 28.

The last image of Lozenzetti's Assisi frescoes, portraits of Saints Rufinus of Assisi, Catherine of Alexandria, Clare of Assisi, and Margaret the Virgin, appear above a bench with an artistic illusion, appearing three-dimensional. The end of the bench casts a shadow following the form of the painted moldings. There is only one light source and the painted shadow appears to be cast by it.Maginnis 1975, p. 516.

Monticchiello Altarpiece

The Monticchiello Altarpiece is a hypothetical altarpiece of for the parish church of Santi Leonardo e Cristoforo in Monticchiello, Tuscany. It is thought to have consisted of the Monticchiello Madonna (Diocesan Museum of Pienza), Saint Margaret or Saint Agatha (Musée de Tessé, Le Mans) and Saint Leonard or Benedict, Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Agatha or Saint Margaret (Museo Horne, Florence).Catalogo fondazionezeri.unibo.it

Arezzo Polyptych

The gilded three-story altarpiece, the Arezzo (or Aretine or Tarlati) Polyptych, was commissioned in 1320 by Bishop Guido Tarlati for the Santa Maria della Pieve in Arezzo.Maginnis, Hayden B. J. “Pietro Lorenzetti: A Chronology.” The Art Bulletin Vol. 66, No. 2 (Jun., 1984): 184. College Art Association. JSTOR. Web. 24 April 2012. At its centre is the Madonna (draped in a magnificent ermine-lined robe) and Child, flanked by the saints John the Evangelist, John the Baptist, Matthew, and Donatus (Arezzo's patron saint, martyred in 361 CE). The rich colours, graceful lines, decorative detail, and supple figures (suggestive of Martini's influence), endow the piece with "a vivacity rare in contemporary Sienese art".