 Simone Martini
Simone Martini’s Biography
Simone Martini was a Sienese painter, one the most important in the development of early Italian painting and international Gothic style too. Simone Martini was a pupil of Duccio di Buoninsegna (aggiungi link alla landing di Duccio) , the leading Sienese painter of his time. As others Medieval art (aggiungi link alla landing di Medieval art) artist, not lot of documentation survives about his life and art historians often debated regards Martini’s works attribution. Born in Siena (c. 1280), he lived in Assisi where he produced one of his most famous fresco; at the request of Pope Benedict XII, Simone Martini move to Avignon where he died (c. 1344) after executing a cycle of frescoes in the cathedral and papal palace. Francis Petrarch became a friend of Simone's while in Avignon, and two of Petrarch's sonnets make reference to a portrait of Laura de Noves Simone supposedly painted for the poet.
Simone Martini’s Style
Simone's art owes much to the three-dimensional space technique developed by his master Duccio di Buoninsegna (aggiungi link alla landing di Duccio) and to French manuscript illumination and ivory carving. But Martini was noted for its soft, stylized, decorative features, sinuosity of line, and unsurpassed courtly elegance: he added a refined contour of line, grace of expression, and serenity of mood, contrasting with the sobriety and monumentality of Florentine art. He painted many frescoes, introducing the fresco technique into the Sienese school, and he also painted altarpiece panels.
Simone Martini’s Works
Simone's major works include the Maestà (1315) in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, St Louis of Toulouse Crowning the King at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples (1317), the S. Caterina Polyptych in Pisa (1319) and the Annunciation - considered one of the greatest achievements of the Sienese school - and two Saints at the Uffizi in Florence (1333). During the period in Assisi he produced a cycle of frescoes in the Chapel of St. Martin in the lower church of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, illustrating scenes from the life of St. Martin.
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