In the mid-1460s Pope Pius II commissioned four of Siena's leading painters to execute altarpieces for his newly completed cathedral in Pienza. These were the two slightly older painters Sano di Pietro and Giovanni di Paolo, the tried and tested Vecchietta, and a younger painter, Matteo di Giovanni. Each of the four painters executed an altarpiece whose form and subject matter appears to have been closely controlled by their humanist patron.

The cathedral in Pienza was built by the Florentine architect Bernardo Rossellino according to the patron's taste for both Italian renaissance architecture and the tall, luminous interiors of north European churches, it was furnished entirely according to his preferences and wishes.

Giovanni's dual allegiance to the modern and the old can clearly be seen in the four predella panels of Scenes from the Life of Saint John the Baptist at the National Gallery in London, of which Saint John retiring to the Desert is likely to have been the second from the left. The other panels represent the saint's birth, the Baptism of Christ, and the Feast of Herod at which Salome's dance and Herod's reward for it brought about the decapitation of the saint. The story of Saint John the Baptist is told in the Gospels and in legend, and its pictorial tradition was well established by the fifteenth century. The altarpiece of which these panels formed the predella - a box-like supporting element for the main painting - was a large Madonna and Saints perhaps painted for the church of Sant'Agostino in Siena (now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York).

This scene shows the Baptist as a child, carrying his few needs on his shoulder, leaving the familiar city gate to make his way up into the wilderness. Just to his right we see him again, several miles away, but not reduced at all in scale: a giant walking up the steep mountain path. The head and torso of the two figures are almost identical, but as John climbs he slings his bundle over the other shoulder. Thus the spectator has moved with St John, and the foreground landscape becomes the vista opening up below as the child climbs. The picture is about renouncing the city, leaving behind the man-made grid of cultivated fields, its beautiful patchwork of contrasted greens, for a world of wilder forms. Higher up, we glimpse a yet further region - a blue-and-white ice realm, across a dark river, extending to the curved rim of the horizon - all laid in with a scintillating economy of mark.

Charming are the borders of roses painted entirely realistically on either side. Curiously, these are seen from below, as by a viewer at eye level with the lower bud on each branch.

Giovanni di Paolo | Art in Tuscany | Six Scenes for the Life of Saint John the Baptist

The panel St Catherine Exchanging her Heart with Christ is from a series of ten scenes from the life of Saint Catherine of Siena. Giovanni di Paolo was already in his mid-sixties when he embarked on ten scenes from the Life of St Catherine, commissioned by the Hospital immediately after the Sienese Pope Pius II had secured her controversial canonization in 1461. Giovanni would have known her story intimately: working at San Domenico as a young man, he must have met many of her surviving friends and followers. Catherine had prayed to Christ to give her a new, pure heart. A few days later, 'elevated in rapture... her heart leapt out of her body, entered Christ's side, and was made one with his heart'. Here, Catherine levitates outside her greenish grey convent with its pink roofs; the operation is under way, as she holds her left hand to her bosom, and stretches forth her right, her scarlet heart spurting blood. Christ rears up behind his own image as the Man of Sorrows above the open church door.[1]

This series is usually associated with an altarpiece commissioned from Giovanni di Paolo by the guild of the Pizzicaiuoli (purveyors of dry goods) in 1447 for the church of the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena. The central panel of the altarpiece is a "Purification of the Virgin" ["Presentation of Christ in the Temple"] now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena.

These three panels are from a series of ten scenes that originally formed the predella of an altarpiece painted by Giovanni di Paolo for the hospital church of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena. This was among the artist's most important commissions, and the predella, painted soon after Saint Catherine's canonization in 1460, was the first extensive pictorial cycle of her life. A mystic as well as minister to the poor and plague-stricken, Saint Catherine was one of the outstanding figures of the fourteenth century. A biography was written by her confessor, Raymond of Capua, and this work provided the source for Giovanni di Paolo's scenes.

In the first scene, Catherine miraculously receives communion from Christ while her confessor, officiating at another chapel in the church, raises his hand in astonishment at the consecrated wafer, from which a piece has disappeared. In the second, Catherine is mystically united with Christ. Christ's mother presides over the event, and music is provided by the Israelite King David. In the third, Catherine is shown elevated in rapture, holding her heart, which leapt out of her body to be united with Christ's.

Among the most notable features of these pictures is the way space is manipulated to underscore the mystical nature of the stories. Two further scenes are in the Metropolitan (Robert Lehman Collection).

Art in Tuscany | Giovanni di Paolo | The life of St. Catherine of Siena

Though Giovanni's primary concern is not the appearance of the natural world, it is clear that he was aware of contemporary developments in the realistic depiction of space. Note how the floor tiles appear to recede, a technique adopted by Florentine artists experimenting with the new science of perspective.

This Annunciation panel comes from the Gabella Generale (general tax office). It shows the Virgin Mary, seated on a chest with her hands joined in prayer and wrapped in a voluminous cloak. The Archangel Gabriel stands before her with his arms crossed and holding an olive branch in one hand, symbolizing peace. In the middle of the painting, between the figures of Mary and the archangel, is a finely worked vase holding a bunch of lilies. They symbolize Mary's purity and virginity. Above the vase, God's blessing hand sends out rays of light that carry the dove of the Holy Spirit toward Mary.

Art in Tuscany | Sienese Biccherna Covers | Biccherne Senesi

Sala d'Arte San Giovanni, (Via San Giovanni 10), housed in the former residence of the religious brotherhood of the same name, holds paintings by some of the major representatives of the Sienese school: Simone Martini, Lorenzo di Pietro known as Il Vecchietta and Giovanni di Paolo.
"La Madonna col Bambino di Giovanni di Paolo, eseguita più di un secolo dopo, verso il 1445, rappresenta, per la sofisticata stesura dei colori trasparenti su campiture dorate, la soffice pittura degli incarnati e l’eleganza delle vesti e delle ali degli angeli, una ennesima felice interpretazione della pittura tardogotica del grande Gentile da Fabriano, che tanto affascinò il maestro senese. Guarda invece al Rinascimento la tavola del Vecchietta, pure degli stessi anni; forte dell’esperienza maturata al fianco di Masolino a Castiglione Olona, il maestro senese accorda, con le cromie delicate e i modi cortesi delle figure, una inclinazione per l’arte nuova di Masaccio che appare ben evidente nella fuga prospettica del trono e nella corporatura robusta del Bambino."

The city-state of Siena, a large Italian hill town some 70km south of Florence, had its golden age in the early trecentro under the artistic genius of Duccio (c.1260–1319) and Simone Martini (c.1285–1344). They developed a rich courtly style dependent on a dancing line rather than the naturalistic concerns of Florentine painters such as Giotto. Giovanni di Paolo’s Crucifixion pays homage to this legacy, to which he was bound by a continuous workshop tradition. The stylised scalloping of the figures’ cascading drapery is a hallmark of this regional inheritance. The artist seems to have been enormously popular in his own lifetime and over two hundred generally-accepted autograph works survive.

The painting shows the Virgin Mary, Mary Madgalen, a donor and St John the Evangelist below the crucified Christ. Tempera and gold leaf have been applied to a ground of white gesso, onto a support of three poplar planks. Suspended from the cross, Christ’s limp, ashen-coloured body is uncompromising against the gilded background. Giovanni di Paolo has contrasted the silent dignity of the dead Saviour with the intense grief of the terrestrial mourners. The exquisitely painted, almost transparent veil of Christ’s loin-cloth is a dramatic counterpoint to the heavy drapery of the figures below, while His wax-like flesh accentuates the pinks and reds of the other faces. Key witnesses to the Crucifixion, the Virgin Mary and St John are conventionally colour-coded in blue and red respectively, although the blue of Mary’s robe now appears green. The Magdalen is shown with blond hair flowing over her scarlet garment, hands crossed and clutching the cross. Her fingers are shown clutching the edge of the suppedaneum (the block to which Christ’s feet are nailed), while his blood is shown streaming down the cross.

Giovanni di Paolo | Crucifixion

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