Simone Martini ( – 1344) was
an Italian
painter born
in Siena
.He
was a major figure in the development of early Italian painting and
greatly influenced the development of the
International Gothic style. It is
thought that Martini was a pupil of
Duccio di
Buoninsegna, the leading Sienese painter of his time. His
brother-in-law was the artist
Lippo
Memmi. Very little documentation survives regarding Simone's
life, and many attributions are debated by art historians.
Simone
Martini died while in the service of the Papal court at Avignon
in
1344.
Simone was doubtlessly apprenticed from an early age, as would have
been the normal practice.
Among his first documented works is the
Maestà of 1315 in the Palazzo Pubblico
in Siena.
A copy of
the work, executed shortly thereafter by Lippo Memmi in San Gimignano
, testifies to the enduring influence Simone's
prototypes would have on other artists throughout the fourteenth
century. Perpetuating the Sienese tradition, Simone's
style contrasted with the sobriety and monumentality of Florentine
art, and is noted for its soft, stylized,
decorative features, sinuosity of line, and unsurpassed courtly
elegance. Simone's art owes much to French
manuscript illumination and ivory
carving: examples of such art were brought to Siena in the
fourteenth century by means of the
Via
Francigena, a main pilgrimage and trade route from Northern
Europe to Rome.
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 and two
Saints at the Uffizi
in Florence (1333), as
well as frescoes in the Chapel of St. Martin in the lower church of
the Basilica of San Francesco
d'Assisi
. 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.
Christ Discovered in the Temple (1342) is in the collections of
Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery.
[31074]
Gallery
Image:Simone Martini - The Annunciation and Two Saints.JPG|The
Annunciation with St. Margaret and St.
Asano, 1333Image:Simone Martini 020.jpg|Christ Discovered in the
Temple, 1342
Image:Simone_Martini_047.jpg|detail depicting
Saint Clare of Assisi from a
fresco (1312–20) in the Lower basilica
of San Francesco, Assisi
Image:Simone Martini 012.jpg|Madonna with the
Holy Ones,
1319Image:Simone_Martini_Maesta.jpg| Maestà
(Madonna with Angels and Saints), 1315 a
fresco from Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
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