Santa Maria della Scala

Museum paths

The construction of this huge ward dates back to the third decade of the 15th century, although the nearly definitive structure was ready around 1380. At the beginning of the 15th century, the unsafe wooden vault was restructured and replaced with the current one. Some original capitals were also made; they were clearly inspired, like the longitudinal development of the hall, by foreign models.
The last span near the large window overlooking the valley – the Fosso di Sant’Ansano – was added in the second half of the 16th century, along with the related decoration of the two lateral walls, of the inner facade and of the ceiling.
The cycle was painted on four of the six 15th-century spans of the Pellegrinaio, although some traces of fresco can still be seen in the first one, probably referable to earlier paintings depicting the Storie di Tobia. These paintings were executed before 1440 by Lorenzo Vecchietta and Luciano di Giovanni da Velletri, but were later destroyed because they were deemed obsolete and unsuitable to adequately represent the history of Santa Maria, which in the meantime was acquiring growing prestige and power. The iconographic programme was conceived by rector Giovanni di Francesco Buzzichelli (1434–1444), who wanted to mark a significant change in a strongly humanistic sense, creating new compositions governed by a strict perspective, revolutionary for that time. The reference model was no longer based on religious fresco cycles on many registers, but on profane compositions that illustrated mostly cycles of chivalry or in any case, ‘civil’ histories on the walls of the representation halls of private houses or in the halls of the public buildings. This revision according to the Renaissance models was aimed at releasing the subjects of the frescoes from the religious themes and concentrate the attention on the illustration of lay myths of the foundation of the institution or on the realistic representation of the acts and works of piety that marked the daily life of the hospital.

Lorenzo Vecchietta, Episodes from the Life of the Blessed Sorore (ca. 1441)In this fresco the painter portrayed the dream experienced by the Hospital’s mythical founder’s mother who, even before the birth of her son, predicted his charitable vocation and responsibility for the foundation of the prestigious welfare institution. The gettatelli, abandoned children entrusted to the care of the Hospital, are portrayed while going up a stair leading before the Virgin Mary, to emphasise the religious education they received at Santa Maria. In fact, Sorore is shown on the right as he receives the first gettatello foundling.
Besides Masolino, Vecchietta’s references for this painting should be traced in the Florentine culture of the early 15th century, particularly in Paolo Uccello and Masaccio.
This is the only scene painted by Vecchietta for the Pellegrinaio cycle, although the painter continued to work for the Hospital’s clients and in particular executed the decoration of the cycle of the Old Sacristy.

Domenico di Bartolo, The Bishop’s Charity (1442-1443)The painter began his work on the opposite wall, probably replacing Vecchietta when the latter suspended his decoration in the Pilgrims’ Hall. This scene of the limòsina (charity) represents the magnificent procession with in the centre a bishop on a horse that is about to trample on a workman engaged in the construction of the hospital. Particularly interesting is the painter’s scrupulous inquiry on the organisation of the building yard, situated on the right, and the updated repertoire of the characters’ clothing.
At the same time the massive central building and other architectural features seem to show off a range of Gothic elements along with typically Renaissance-style ones, perhaps a reminiscence of Domenico’s experience in the North.

Priamo della Quercia, The Investiture of the Rector of the Hospital (1442)
This episode depicts the investiture of the Rector of the Hospital by the Blessed Agostino Novello, traditionally believed to have written the first statutes of Santa Maria della Scala, drawn up in 1305.
As a matter of fact, the Hospital had already been electing its Rectors for a long time, thus the representation should be considered purely symbolic and aimed at representing with dignity this illustrious blessed Sienese figure linked to the Hospital, who became immediately very popular.
Priamo della Quercia’s fresco – one of the painter’s few known works – brother of the great sculptor Jacopo, is the most modest of the whole Pellegrinaio cycle. The painter in fact tries to adjust his own style that lingered on a sterile ornamentalism, to Domenico di Bartolo and Vecchietta’s Renaissance novelty.
The scene of the investiture takes place in front of the Cathedral – clearly visible in the background – inside a Renaissance portico, in the presence, besides the invested Rector with his large mantle, of a sumptuously dressed figure on the left, who may be identified as Emperor Sigismund who spent a long time in Siena in 1432 or, more likely, as the Greek Emperor John Palaeologus who attended the Council of Florence in 1439.

Domenico di Bartolo, Il pontefice Celestino III concede privilegi di autonomia all’ospedale (1442)The scene depicts one of the crucial moments in the life of the Sienese welfare institution, namely the settlement – though temporary – of the controversy between the canons of the Cathedral and the lay brothers who worked daily with total devotion inside the Hospital.
In fact Celestine III in one his bulls decided in favour of the lay brothers (1193), allowing them to give the Hospital a new impulse, autonomy, better organisation and the possibility to elect the Rector of Santa Maria.
Also for this scene Domenico di Bartolo preferred a space that could not be precisely identified, despite his clear references to the floor of Siena’s Duomo and a series of architectural elements that directly recall the balconies and the houses of the Good Government in the City Hall.
Domenico, besides his usual, obstinate investigation of the various elements, here appears to focus his attention on the various figures – strongly characterised thus probably contemporary to the painter – and on the refined, precious and above all, strictly fashionable clothing of that time.

Pietro d’Achille Crogi e Giovanni di Raffaele Navesi (ca. 1575-1577)
Pagamento dei ‘baliatici’ con il grano, Pagamento dei ‘baliatici’ con il denaroDue to the downhill extension of the Pilgrim’s Hall, the frescoes of the wall on the side of the window, painted by Pietro di Giovanni d’Ambrogio (1440) were destroyed.
Between 1575 and 1577, the two Florentine painters called by the Hospital also for minor works in the church and in other spaces of Santa Maria, were entrusted with the decoration of the last span of the Pilgrims’ Hall. The quality of the two four-hand paintings, though not particularly notable, is of some iconographic interest. In fact they depict the payment of the salaries to wet-nurses who fed the foundlings of Santa Maria, paid with an amount of wheat from the grance or with the money that the treasurers accurately booked in the registers of the Hospital.
The elongated figures, the big architecture and the general composition in Navesi and Crogi’s painting, directly recall Florentine late manneristic style. The painters’ intention seems to have been to scenographically emphasise Santa Maria’s work in favour of abandoned children.

Domenico di Bartolo, Il “ghoverno” e la cura degli infermi (1440-1441)Among all frescoes in the Pilgrims’ Hall this is certainly the best known and perhaps the one that better illustrates the activity carried out in the Hospital. Critics identified in the two settings that cross each other at the centre of the scene, the current halls of Passeggio and Saint Pious. In fact, through a careful reading of this painting, scholars have provided a precise reconstruction of some parts of the Hospital, accurately documenting daily life in the institution, marked from the beginning of the 14th century by strict statutory provisions.
The Rector, the friar and, next to them, the surgeon stand in the centre. Physical medicine is represented on the left with an assistant who is settling a patient on the stretcher and two doctors examining a urine specimen in a glass container. In the centre, below, a young man with a wound in his leg is washed by an attendant before the operation. On the right a monk is taking confession from a patient, while two attendants are carrying a stretcher.

Domenico di Bartolo, The distribution of alms (1441)This fresco witnesses of another provision of the Hospital’s 13th-century statute, the distribution of bread to the poor and pilgrims.
The scene takes place inside the church of the Santissima Annunziata and Domenico di Bartolo’s precise description of the background and of the details is again systematic, allowing a precise reconstruction of both other Santa Maria interiors and important details of the facade of the Cathedral and of the bishop’s residence.
The distribution of bread and the dressing of a naked man well synthesise the charitable works performed by Santa Maria, with in the centre of the scene, a young man who is putting on the clothes he has been given and an oblate who is distributing bread to children, pilgrims and beggars. The Rector is also portrayed on the right doffing his hat to an elegant personage that is watching the scene.

Domenico di Bartolo, Accoglimento, educazione e matrimonio di una figlia dello spedale (1441-1442)The scene further testifies of the Hospital’s activities, regulated by the 14th-century statutes: the reception, care, education and marriage of the gettatelli , the abandoned children. Therefore, the hospital not only received the foundlings but intended to follow them during their whole life, offering them a chance to choose whether to devote themselves to charitable works or form a family and fully become part of society.
The scene depicts the various moments of children’s life, from the moment they were taken in the wet-nurses’ strong arms, to their weaning, education – the schoolmaster’s severe expression should be noted on the left – play (foreground, left), to the delivery of an infant in arms to an oblate of the Hospital, until their marriage (here celebrated with refined clothes worthy of a court scene).
Domenico di Bartolo here did not confine himself to his usual analysis of the details, but seemed to stress the Florentine lesson of the early Renaissance and the elegant colour suggestions from northern painters.

Domenico di Bartolo, The Banquet of the Poor (1443-1444)The opening of a window (now closed) right in the centre of the lunette unfortunately disfigured this last fresco of the cycle.
Like the other scenes on the same wall, the painting depicts another provision of Santa Maria’s statutes, that was giving shelter to the town’s elderly and to people from the countryside.
Domenico di Bartolo once again dwells upon the refined clothing of some characters, the details of the table and the extremely centralised perspective, emphasised by elegant columns, capitals, large arches and frames.