"On the day on which it was carried to the Duomo, the shops were locked up . . . and all the populace and all the most worthy were in order next to the said panel with lights lit in their hands, and then behind were women and children with much devotion; and they accompanied it right to the Duomo . . . sounding all the bells in glory out of devotion for such a noble panel as was this."

—Anonymous mid-14th-century description of a procession to carry Duccio’s Maestà from the artist’s studio to the Siena Cathedral (L. A. Muratori, Rerum italiarum scriptores (Bologna, 1931–1939), xv/6, 90)

The small tripartite painting, The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, was once part of a massive wood-paneled altarpiece of nearly 16 by 15 feet—the “noble panel” joyfully paraded through the streets of Siena on a summer day in 1311. Its point of origination was Duccio’s studio where it had been built and painted; its destination, Siena Cathedral, a Gothic edifice distinguished by its horizontal bands of greenish-black and white marble.

Church documentation records the purchase of candles to light the altarpiece within the cathedral’s dim interior: 150 for the front side (visible to the congregation) and 80 for the reverse (seen by church canons who would have sat behind it during a service). In an age when most people had very limited exposure to images, it would have been an awesome sight worthy of the veneration due its subject, the Virgin, Queen of Heaven.

The Virgin Mary held an exalted place in the hearts and devotions of the Sienese; a group of church and city leaders dedicated their city to her in 1260, invoking her power as civic protectress and Mother of God. Her image became omnipresent as an icon of veneration, offering the faithful a tangible intercessor between themselves and God. A Marian cult developed as early as the 5th century within the Byzantine Christian church and her image as a devotional icon was employed extensively in frescos, mosaics, and portable panel paintings from which altarpieces developed. Duccio’s altarpiece carries these traditions forward: strongly associated with Byzantine art are the rich materials and hues used to accentuate the figures’ regal status as monarchs of heaven with visible golden halos and lavish garments; but, the rigid and schematic appearance of the Byzantine Mary is made softer, more fluid, and volumetric in Duccio’s hands. Religious currents of the time may have effected her transformation—increasingly influential mendicant Franciscan and Dominican preachers espoused an empathetic, humanistic understanding of Christ’s life and sufferings. Artists began to evince earthly attributes in their work in addition to the divine. Figures became weightier and gravity-bound, placed in relationship to their settings, which became deeper and enveloping, rather than glittering, decorated space around them.

The Maestà altarpiece remained in place at the high altar of the Siena Cathedral until 1506 when it was partially dismantled, relegated to side chapels and replaced by a 15th-century bronze tabernacle by Vecchietta, which remains there today. In 1771 the entire altarpiece was dismembered. A cathedral inventory details a carpenter’s “work” on it—sawing the whole into seven vertical pieces, and then sawing each of those pieces in half laterally to separate the front scenes from the back. Different pieces were then reassembled to re-form discrete scenes. The overall framing that had separated the different scenes of the main panels was removed and since lost. The front and back predellas were divided into separate scenes and the crown, or upper band of paintings and pinnacles, removed. These fragments were displayed in different areas of the cathedral, and over time, some were lost or sold to collectors and museums. By 1878, the front, back, and other pieces still remaining in possession of the cathedral were reassembled and placed in the adjacent Museo dell’Opera del Duomo. Missing paintings and architectural elements, and lack of documentation by Duccio or others as to the appearance of the whole, have left scholars to make the best-informed guesses they can about the Maestà’s original form. The restored and partially reassembled altarpiece remains on view at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Siena.

The events of Duccio’s life can be only partially drawn through a constellation of points offered by civic records, contracts, and the political and cultural life of Siena, the city in which he was born and worked. The Maestà came towards his life’s end and was the pinnacle of his achievement.

Duccio may have trained with the Italian painters Guido da Siena or Cimabue. His first artistic commissions were to paint ceiling coffers and biccherne covers, small panel paintings that bound the volumes containing Siena’s financial records. Siena’s governors took great pride in their city’s prosperity and their fiduciary responsibilities, and commissioned the best native artists to decorate the books, which were publicly displayed.

Duccio’s approximately 12 existing works include commissions from Siena’s city leaders but also from Florence, where the Dominican church Santa Maria Novella commissioned his Rucellai Madonna, indicating a reputation beyond his home base. Siena, while not a port or river city, was along a major route used by pilgrims traveling from Rome to France during the years of the Avignon papacy, which stimulated cultural and economic activity and competition.

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