Featured Graduate Student Research: Danny Smith
In Siena his research focused on the cycle itself – a tripartite sequence of allegorical paintings commissioned to decorate the audience chamber of The Nine, the democratically elected body who ruled Siena from 1287-1355. The frescoes depict two opposing scenes: in one, a depiction of the effects of good government, an idealized city bustles and farmers till a fertile countryside; in the other, a parable of the effects of bad government, a city is ruinous and crime-ridden and neighboring fields lie fallow. Between the two scenes a third panel depicts a council of good governors: personifications of virtues and a panoply of allegorical figures. Danny’s research focused in particular on the prominence of windows and carefully constructed vistas within the two depicted cities to underscore a uniquely political message embedded within the frescos to the government of Siena: that just as they could observe the citizens they governed, they too were subject to the gazes of the people. Commissioned barely a decade after the Sienese constitution had been translated into vulgate Italian and was widely read among citizens for the first time, this visual emphasis reflected a largely unprecedented interest, by the citizens of Siena, in observing and even supervising the workings of their government.