Duccio's Maesta Unveiled in Siena: Early Renaissance Masterpiece
Thousands of Sienese citizens carried it through the streets singing. Not metaphorically — the entire city stopped working. Duccio di Buoninsegna had spent three years painting the Maestà, a double-sided altarpiece so large it required dozens of hands to move. The front showed the Virgin enthroned in gold. The back told Christ's Passion across 26 separate panels. Siena treated it like a saint had arrived. And in a way, one had — because Duccio's soft, human faces quietly made the rigid Byzantine style look suddenly ancient.
June 9, 1310
716 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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