Piccolomini Spannocchi Collection
Officially established in 1774 following the marriage between Caterina Piccolomini di Modanella and Giuseppe Spannocchi, the collection is the result of three distinct nuclei and boasts a much older origin, whose history is intertwined with the great historical and political events that shook the whole of Europe during the seventeenth century.
Officially established in 1774 following the marriage between Caterina Piccolomini di Modanella and Giuseppe Spannocchi, the collection is the result of three distinct nuclei and boasts a much older origin, whose history is intertwined with the great historical and political events that shook the whole of Europe during the seventeenth century.
Officially established in 1774 following the marriage between Caterina Piccolomini di Modanella and Giuseppe Spannocchi, the collection is the result of three distinct nuclei and boasts a much older origin, whose history is intertwined with the great historical and political events that shook the whole of Europe during the seventeenth century. The first group of 60 paintings, including works by Lorenzo Lotto, Giovanni Battista Moroni, Sofonisba Anguisola and A l brecht Dürer, came from the famous ' celestial gallery ' of the Gonzaga family in Mantua, sacked in 1630 by the lanzichenecchi during the Thirty Years' War. Some of these paintings flowed into the collection of Lidovino Piccolomini di Modanella (1611-1680) before the mid-17th century, a Sienese nobleman and passionate collector of art objects. Lidovino created an important collection inside the Palazzo della Prepositura in Trento. Upon his death, the precious objects kept in the Palazzo della Prepositura were mostly transferred to Siena where those sent by Lidovino during his lifetime were already kept, forming the second core of the collection to which 65 works can be traced. The works finally flow into the dowry of Caterina, daughter of Antonio Piccolomini di Modanella with which the family branch dies out. Thanks to the marriage between the latter and Giuseppe Spannocchi, the Piccolomini collection joins the painting gallery of the groom's family, located in the Palazzo Spannocchi in via della Sapienza, which will constitute a third of the collection nuclei constituting the collection, represented here by 14 paintings. In 1835, the works were donated by the heirs to the Civic Community of Siena and then transferred to the local Gallery of Fine Arts. Divided between the Civic Museum and the National Art Gallery, the collection was the subject of a research project that led to its unification within the Santa Maria della Scala. Among the painters of Northern Italy there are, among others: Ludovico Dondi, Lorenzo Lotto, Correggio, Giovan Battista Moroni and Tintoretto; among the Northern European painters we remember: Alrecht Duerer, Rubens, and Albrecht Altdorfer; Sienese painting is documented by: Sodoma, Cristofano Rustici, Marco Pino and Giuseppe Nicola Nasini.