The World of the Early Sienese Painter: With a Translation of the Sienese Breve dell'Arte dei Pittori by Gabriele Erasmi (review)

212 Reviews Parergon 20.2 (2003) The book appears to be intended for the classroom, perhaps for an advanced Old English seminar, as well as for scholars. Given this orientation, the reasonable price and correspondingly inexpensive, uncluttered format seem appropriate. It is a pity, though, that the layout is at times slightly ungainly: the left-hand gutter is too small for easy opening; the last row of characters is missing on page x; the list of manuscripts unnecessarily goes over pp. xi-xii where it might have all gone on to p. xii; and there is only one line of text after the section title on p. 43.These physical flaws do not, however, detract from the value of this highly useful and extremely welcome volume which rightly focuses our attention on the literary biography of this important and rather racy saint’s life. Antonina Harbus Department of English University of Sydney Maginnis, Hayden B. J., The World of the Early Sienese Painter: With a Translation of the Sienese Breve dell’Arte dei Pittori by Gabriele Erasmi, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001; cloth; pp. 310; 108 b/w illustrations, 16 colour plates; RRP US$65.00; ISBN 0271020040. Maginnis is working on a substantial scale. This is volume two of a three volume set, intended to describe and provide a new understanding of early Sienese art. Volume I, Painting in the Age of Giotto: A Historical Re-evaluation (1997), called into question the account of Vasari, that Florence was the source of the stylistic developments which led to the Renaissance, and instead drew attention to the achievements of Siena. Volume III will give a history of Sienese painting between 1260 and 1363. The present volume seeks to put artists of the Duecento and Trecento in a social context using archival and unpublished secondary sources. Maginnis laments the relative paucity of original documentation from Florence, and in an inversion of the usual process suggests that because of the wealth of material on early Sienese art it may be used as a case study to understand the situation in other parts of central Italy. The resulting book is close to quarto size and contains 198 pages of text by Maginnis, extensively footnoted; a 22 page translation of the statutes of the painters’guild of Siena of 1356, giving their regulations, behaviour, and conditions of work; 62 pages of appendices, detailing evidence for where the painters lived, what primary archival sources are available, and records of payments, and 12 Reviews 213 Parergon 20.2 (2003) pages of bibliography. In addition the book is lavishly illustrated with sixteen full-page colour plates and 108 black and white illustrations, almost all fullpage . The images provide a resource for discussions in the text, so where for example on page 95 Maginnis refers to fresco a secco, he is able to refer the reader to nine examples in black and white and two in colour. Assuming that his choice of illustration is broken up according to the needs of each of the three volumes, the completed trilogy should provide a comprehensive illustration of Sienese art at a reasonable price, unmatched in the English language for its scope. The five chapters are coherently organised while containing a bower-bird trove of information on such matters as where the painters lived (mostly to the north of the Campo), whether their contracts were for salary or costs, how much property they had, what fines they paid for professional misconduct, and the rising price of bricks. It seems that Maginnis has left out no piece of information that he came across. Such inclusiveness makes the book a great resource, while the immediate relevance might not be obvious. Maginnis himself concedes after a discussion of how much painters received from their brides in dowry that is not possible to say what, if anything, the figures mean. The present volume does not altogether prove Sienese artistic ascendency, though that is not its point. By Maginnis’s own reckoning only a handful of artists, Duccio, Simone Martini, and the Lorenzetti brothers, were of the first rank. They were not necessarily influential and the closed nature of the profession in Siena restricted the intercourse...