Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Good and Bad Government Reconsidered: Painting the Politics of Renaissance Siena

A new examination of Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Good and Bad Government through the lens of the Hymn to Justice.

In 1338 Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted three huge frescoes, known today as Good and Bad Government, on the walls of the Sala dei Nove, the Room of the Nine, in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, where the city’s nine executive magistrates presided over the destiny of this famous commune. The frescoes were meant to be strong visual reminders of the Nove’s duties and an admonishment of the nef...