Sienese Funeral Effigies: A Case Study in Cross-Cultural Exchange in Central Italy

• In Event: Lying in State: The Effigy in Early Modern Italian Funerary Art ca. 1400–1600 II

Abstract

Scholars often frame Siena as isolationist, yet from its beginning the republic was internationally vital, sending artists to work abroad and calling upon foreign artists to work in Siena. The diverse style of funeral effigies by Sienese sculptors, honoring patrons and high-ranking ecclesiastics, illustrates the cross-cultural transfer between Siena and Central Italy. Sienese Jacopo della Quercia’s unprecedented all’antica tomb for the Giunigi in Lucca, Ilaria del Carretto; Florentine Donatello’s groundbreaking perspectival effigy of Sienese Bishop Pecci; and, Sienese Giovanni di Stefano’s bronze naturalistic effigy of Venetian Cardinal Foscari for Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome demonstrate the demand for Sienese sculptors across Italy and the reception of foreign artists such as Donatello in Siena. Sienese sculptors assimilated elements derived from ancient Rome and humanist Florence, while retaining their native Sienese artistic traditions. In sum, I examine the overall importance of cross-cultural exchange in Sienese tomb design throughout the Italian peninsula.

Author

• Maria Lucca, The Graduate Center, CUNY