Pietro Lorenzetti

Pietro Lorenzetti (c. 1280–1348) was a Sienese painter, active from about 1306 to 1345 and the elder brother of Ambrogio Lorenzetti; together they introduced a new naturalism into Sienese painting. Little is known of his life. Vasari misread his surname as Laurati on a painting in Pistoia, and so missed the relationship between the brothers. He probably died in Siena in 1348, possibly of the Black Death. His work shows the influence of Duccio, in whose studio he may have trained, and of Giotto and Giovanni Pisano. He worked in Assisi, Florence, Pistoia, Cortona and Siena. His most ambitious undertaking is the Passion cycle in the left transept of the Lower Church of San Francesco at Assisi, which recent research places in a single campaign between 1316 or 1317 and 1319; his last documented work, the Nativity of the Virgin, is in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Siena. Here: Madonna and Child, from the church of Santi Stefano e Degna in Castiglione d'Orcia.