Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- General preface
- Full contents: Volumes 1–3
- Acknowledgements
- Conventions
- 1 Introduction: The reality of the Renaissance
- 2 The rediscovery of republican values
- 3 Ambrogio Lorenzetti and the portrayal of virtuous government
- 4 Ambrogio Lorenzetti on the power and glory of republics
- 5 Republican virtues in an age of princes
- 6 Machiavelli on virtù and the maintenance of liberty
- 7 The idea of negative liberty: Machiavellian and modern perspectives
- 8 Thomas More's Utopia and the virtue of true nobility
- 9 Humanism, scholasticism and popular sovereignty
- 10 Moral ambiguity and the Renaissance art of eloquence
- 11 John Milton and the politics of slavery
- 12 Classical liberty, Renaissance translation and the English civil war
- 13 Augustan party politics and Renaissance constitutional thought
- 14 From the state of princes to the person of the state
- Bibliographies
- Index
- Plate section
4 - Ambrogio Lorenzetti on the power and glory of republics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- General preface
- Full contents: Volumes 1–3
- Acknowledgements
- Conventions
- 1 Introduction: The reality of the Renaissance
- 2 The rediscovery of republican values
- 3 Ambrogio Lorenzetti and the portrayal of virtuous government
- 4 Ambrogio Lorenzetti on the power and glory of republics
- 5 Republican virtues in an age of princes
- 6 Machiavelli on virtù and the maintenance of liberty
- 7 The idea of negative liberty: Machiavellian and modern perspectives
- 8 Thomas More's Utopia and the virtue of true nobility
- 9 Humanism, scholasticism and popular sovereignty
- 10 Moral ambiguity and the Renaissance art of eloquence
- 11 John Milton and the politics of slavery
- 12 Classical liberty, Renaissance translation and the English civil war
- 13 Augustan party politics and Renaissance constitutional thought
- 14 From the state of princes to the person of the state
- Bibliographies
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
My principal concern in this chapter, as in chapter 3, is with the cycle of frescoes painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena between 1337 and 1339. But whereas in chapter 3 I was mainly interested in Lorenzetti's ideal of virtuous government, and accordingly focused my attention on the central section of the painting, I now want to extend my analysis to take in the organisation of the cycle as a whole. After attempting (in section II) to follow the line of Lorenzetti's narrative, I turn to the two most notorious iconographical puzzles raised by his masterpiece. One of these relates to the mysterious regal figure who dominates the ensemble of the political virtues on the northern wall. I still believe, obstinately perhaps, that the interpretation of this figure I offered in chapter 3 is basically correct. But I have come to see that there are additional complexities and ambiguities to be explored, and these I attempt to address in section III. The other question I want to consider is the significance of the group of dancers who occupy the heart of the cityscape on the eastern wall. Here I believe that some decisive information about these yet more mysterious figures can be gleaned if we turn again to the literary sources, and this is the suggestion I follow up in section IV.
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- Visions of Politics , pp. 93 - 117Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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