Lorenzetti, Pietro and Ambrogio

Lorenzetti, Pietro and Ambrogio

(born c. 1280/90, Siena?, Republic of Siena—died c. 1348, Siena) (born c. 1290, Siena, Republic of Siena—died c. 1348, Siena) Italian painters. Both brothers were possibly pupils of Duccio di Buoninsegna, whose influence is seen in Pietro's altarpiece in the Pieve di Santa Maria at Arezzo and in Ambrogio's early works. Ambrogio's works reveal an individualistic realism and preoccupation with three-dimensional space and form, most evident in his fresco series in Siena's Palazzo Pubblico (1338–39). These most important of Sienese frescoes reveal him to be an explorer of perspective and a political and moral philosopher. Pietro's dramatic frescoes in the lower church of San Francesco at Assisi (c. 1315) show his relation to the art of Giotto, though he departs from Giotto in his attention to detail. His Birth of the Virgin and Ambrogio's Presentation in the Temple, for Siena Cathedral (1342), are notable for their handling of perspective. With Simone Martini, the brothers were the principal exponents of Sienese art in the years before the Black Death, in which both presumably died.