Renaissance Studies Vol. 15 No.

War and peace: the description of Ambrogio

Lorenzetti’s Frescoes in Saint Bernardino’s 1425
Siena Sermons

NIRIT BEN-ARYEH DEBBY

Discussing the scarcity of records regarding public response to painting in

fifteenth- century Italy, Michael Baxandall concluded:
The difficulty is that it is at any time eccentric to set down on paper a
verbal response to the complex non-verbal stimulation paintings are de
signed to provide: the very fact of doing so must make a man untypical. . . .
There are some fifteenth-century descriptions of the quality of painters,
but there are very few indeed one can confidently see as representative of
some fairly broad collective view. . . . An innocent account of paintings – the
everyday vernacular way of talking about their qualities and differences
happening to be put down on paper – is obviously something that would
only occur under unusual circumstances.1
Bernardino’s ekphrasis – that is, his ‘verbal representation of graphic
representation’2 – of the Lorenzetti frescoes, delivered during a staged peace
ceremony, is one such exception. His description is an instance of the use of
pictures as sermon exempla. The preacher uses the frescoes that Ambrogio
Lorenzetti painted in the Sala dei Nove of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena
between 1338 and 1339 as a tool of persuasion in order to achieve civic
peace in the city, illustrating how this work was viewed by a leading cleric
and his audience in the early fifteenth century. His ekphrasis suggests that
some eighty years after their completion, these Lorenzetti paintings were
being interpreted as representations of the conditions of war and peace
rather than as the complex political allegory favoured by many modern
scholars.
The frescoes that Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted in the Sala dei Nove have
attracted much attention during the past few decades.3 Scholars have usually

I would like to thank Benjamin Z. Kedar for his helpful comments on this paper, and the anonymous readers
for their insights and suggestions. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine.
1
M. Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford, 1988), 24–5; my italics.
2
This definition of ‘ekphrasis’ appears in J. Heffernan, ‘Ekphrasis and Representation’, New Literary
History, 22 (1991), 297–319.
3
Works dealing with Lorenzetti’s frescoes include: G. Rowley, Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Princeton, 1958);
N. Rubinstein, ‘Political ideas in Sienese art: the frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Taddeo di Bartolo in the

© 2001 The Society for Renaissance Studies, Oxford University Press

 St Bernadino’s description of Lorenzetti’s frescoes 273

Fig. 1 Sano di Pietro, Saint Bernardino Preaching in the Campo, fifteenth century; panel, Museo dell’Opera del
Duomo, Siena (photo: Alinari)
274 Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
noted a three-line account of the frescoes in a sermon preached by
Bernardino da Siena (1380–1444) in that city in 1427,4 considered to be the
‘second known mention of the work’, the first being an anonymous chronicle
of 1350.5 However, there is another earlier description of the frescoes by
Bernardino which appears not in the famous series of 1427 but in a sermon
delivered in Siena two years earlier.6
In this paper, I would like to draw attention to Bernardino’s earlier descrip-
tion and to comment on its significance. Unlike the few other medieval
reports of the frescoes available to us, this description is long and detailed,
and adds valuable information on the frescoes’ particulars. Moreover, it
concentrates on war, in contrast to the tendency of modern scholars to

Palazzo Pubblico’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 21 (1959), 179–207; U. Feldges-Henning, ‘The
pictorial program of the Sala della Pace: a new interpretation’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 35
(1972), 145–62; E. Carter Southard, The Frescoes in Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico 1289–1539 (New York and London,
1979); E. C. Southard, ‘Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s frescoes in the Sala della Pace: a change of names’, Mitteilungen
des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 24 (1980), 361–5; W. Bowsky, A Medieval Italian Commune: Siena under
the Nine 1287–1355 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981), 197–201; C. Frugoni, Una lontana città: Sentimenti e
immagini nel Medioevo (Turin, 1983), 136–210; Q. Skinner, ‘Ambrogio Lorenzetti: the artist as political
philosopher’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 72 (1986), 1–56; R. Starn, ‘The republican regime of the “Room
of Peace” in Siena 1338–1340’, Representations, 18 (1987), 1–32; J. Greenstein, ‘The vision of peace: meaning
and representation in Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Sala della Pace cityscapes’, Art History, 11 (1988), 492–510;
C. Frugoni, A Distant City: Images of Urban Experience in the Medieval World, trans. W. McCuaig (Princeton,
1991), 118–88; B. Kempers, Painting, Power and Patronage: The Rise of the Professional Artist in Renaissance Italy,
trans. B. Jackson (London, 1992), 133–41; R. Starn and L. Partridge, Arts of Power: Three Halls of State in Italy,
1300–1600 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992), 11–59; R. Starn, Ambrogio Lorenzetti: The Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
(New York, 1994); M. Donato, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Il Buon Governo, ed. E. Castelnuovo (Milan, 1995);
D. Norman, ‘ “Love justice, you who judge the earth”: the painting of the Sala dei Nove in the Palazzo Pubblico,
Siena’, in Siena, Florence and Padua: Art, Society and Religion 1280–1400 (New Haven and London, 1995), II,
145–67; D. Norman, ‘Pisa, Siena, and the Maremma: a neglected aspect of Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s paintings in
the Sala de Nove’, Renaissance Studies, 11/4 (1997), 310–42; N. Rubinstein, ‘Le allegorie di Ambrogio
Lorenzetti nella Sala della Pace e il pensiero politico del suo temp’, Rivistica Storica Italiana, 109/3 (1997),
781–802. All subsequent references are to these works, unless otherwise stated.
4
Bernardino da Siena, Prediche volgari sul campo di Siena 1427, ed. C. Delcorno (Milan, 1989), II, 1254. For a
short discussion of the scenes from the frescoes in the sermons of Bernardino from Siena 1427, see Starn,
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 74–5.
5
On the early references to the Lorenzetti frescoes, see Southard, The Frescoes, 273, 276. For further details
on the anonymous chronicle from 1350, see Southard, ‘Ambrogio Lorenzetti’, 361–5. The chronicle is Cronaca
Senese, anon. manuscript, c. 1350, Bibl. Comunale di Siena, A. III, 26, published in Cronache senesi, ed. A. Lisini
and F. Iacometti, in the series Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. L.A. Muratori (Bologna, 1931–9), XV, 6. For
further clarifications regarding this chronicle, see Norman, ‘Pisa, Siena, and the Maremma’, 311, note 2: ‘it is
generally agreed that the “Cronaca senese dei fatti riguardanti la città ed il suo territorio” – although covering
the timespan 1202–1362 and with later entries to 1391 by other writers – was written by an unknown
fourteenth-century author’.
6
See Bernardino da Siena, Le prediche volgari – predicazione del 1425 in Siena, ed. C. Cannarozzi (Florence,
1958), II, 266–7. Bernardino’s description was mentioned in a footnote in the English translation of Frugoni’s
A Distant City, 159 (it was not mentioned in the original Italian version), and was brief ly discussed by Maria
Donato, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Il Buon Governo, 346. Bernardino’s description appears in the revised Italian
anthology of C. E. Gilbert, L’arte del Quattrocento nelle testimonianze coeve (Florence and Vienna, 1988), 172. (It
does not appear in the original popular English version that includes translated passages: C. E. Gilbert, Italian
Art 1400–1500: Sources and Documents [Englewood Cliffs, 1980].) Carlo Delcorno in a survey on the image of
the city in Franciscan preaching discussed brief ly the rhetorical aspects of the description. See C. Delcorno,
‘La città nella predicazione francescana del Quattrocento’, Alle origini dei Monti dei Pietà: Studi in occasione delle
Celebrazioni nel V Centenario della morte del B. Michele Carcano (Bologna, 1984), 33–4. Yet Bernardino’s earlier
description has not been analysed in detail and has so far not been commented on at length.
 St Bernadino’s description of Lorenzetti’s frescoes 275
emphasize the allegory of good government or the figure of peace as focal
points of the cycle. Bernardino’s description is shaped by the historical
setting of Siena in 1425, and plays an intriguing role in the sermon itself as a
rhetorical device to persuade his listeners to make peace.

I
In his sermons, Bernardino refers to a series of three frescoes painted in
the Sala dei Nove, the meeting hall of the council of the Sienese republic.
The layout of the Sala dei Nove is as follows: when we turn our backs to the
window we find on the left wall the fresco War or, to use its other title, the
Allegory of Bad Government and Its Effects depicting scenes of destruction and
violence, the reign of fire and death over city and country. On the far wall
facing us is the Allegory of Good Government with allegorical representations
of the Virtues. And on the wall to our right is Peace or the Effects of Good
Government, showing scenes of calm and prosperity. It should perhaps be
pointed out that the present condition of the fresco War/Bad Government
is particularly poor, which may explain why this painting has received less
critical attention from modern scholars.
The description of Lorenzetti’s frescoes appears in Bernardino’s thirtieth
sermon in the 1425 quaresimale, a series of sermons for each day of Lent. The
sermon is entitled ‘Questa è la predica de la concordia e unione che doviamo
avere insieme’, and the passage in question reads as follows:

Secondo. Distruzione e consumazione de la guerra. Io ò considerato

quando so’ stato fuore di Siena, e ò predicato de la pace e de la guerra che
voi avete dipenta, che per certo fu bellissima inventiva. Voltandomi a la
pace, vego le mercanzie andare atorno; vego balli, vego racconciare le
case; vego lavorare vigne e terre, seminare, andare a’ bagni, a cavallo, vego
andare le fanciulle a marito, vego le grege de le pecore etc. E vego impicato
l’uomo per mantenere la santa giustizia. E per queste cose, ognuno sta
in santa pace e concordia. Per lo contrario, voltandomi da l’altra parte,
non vego mercanzie; non vego balli, anco vego uccidare altrui; non
s’acconciano case, anco si guastano e ardono; non si lavora terre; le vigne
si tagliano, non si semina, non s’usano a bagni nè altre cose dilettevoli,
non vego se no’ quando si va di fuore. O donne! O uomini! L’uomo morto,
la donna sforzata, non armenti se none in preda; uomini a tradimento
uccidare l’uno l’altro; la giustizia stare in terra, rotte le bilance, e lei legata,
co’ le mani e co’ piei legati. E ogni cosa che altro fa, fa con paura. E però
l’Apocalisse, decimoterzo capitolo, dimostra figurata la guerra in una
bestia che esce del mare con dieci corna e con sette teste, simile al pardo,
e piei dell’orso. Che significa le dieci corna, se no’ che è contra a’ dieci
Comandamenti de la Legge? Con sette teste, cioè con sette peccati mortali;
276 Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
simile al pardo, cioè tradimenti; piei d’orso, cioè pieno di vendette. E però,
perdonando, finisci e distruggi la guerra.7
Let us first examine the significance of the entire cycle as it appeared to
Bernardino. There is an ongoing debate concerning the titles of the three
frescoes and their overall message. Rowley defines the cycle as ‘a pictorial
Summa of government’, while Rubinstein considers the fresco known as the
Allegory of Good Government to be the key element of the composition,
arguing that ‘evidently it is on this allegory that the composition turns’.
Feldges-Henning calls the frescoes, respectively, The Allegory of Good Govern-
ment, The Effects of Good Government on the City and Country; and The Allegory
of Bad Government, the Effects of Bad Government on the City and Country.
Southard, on the other hand, claims that these titles date from ‘no earlier
than the late eighteenth century’, and prefers the names Good Government,
Peace, and War. Greenstein, however, stresses the centrality of the figure of
Peace and concludes that ‘Peace, not the Good Government or the social
fabric of Siena, constituted the frescoes’ subject’.8 I will follow Southard and
call the frescoes Good Government, Peace, and War (Figs 2–5).
Bernardino’s definition of the frescoes is ‘la pace e la guerra’. It is war,
however, that he emphasizes, both in his opening statement when he evokes
‘Distruzione e consumazione de la guerra’ and in the concluding exhortation
to ‘finisci e distruggi la guerra’.9 Bernardino gives a comparatively short
description of Peace and ignores completely the fresco Good Government, the
one modern scholars tend to discuss most. His reasons for omitting the
discussion of the Good Government fresco and its allegories may be that he
considered it too complex for his purpose, too difficult, or perhaps simply
inappropriate for his sermon audience.
Bernardino begins with a straightforward description of the fresco Peace,
which pictures commerce and agriculture, dancing, and grazing sheep,

7
‘This is the sermon on concord and unity that we must have together.’ ‘Second. The destruction and waste
of war. When I was outside of Siena, and preached about peace and war, I ref lected on the beautiful
inventiveness of the [frescoes Peace and War] that you painted. When I turn to peace, I see commercial activity;
I see dances, I see houses being repaired; I see vineyards and fields being cultivated and sown, I see people
going to the baths, on horses, I see girls going to marry, I see f locks of the sheep, etc. And I see a man being
hanged in order to maintain holy justice. And for this [reason] everyone lives in holy peace and concord. On
the other hand, when I turn to the other [fresco], I do not see commerce; I do not see dances, [I see] killing; no
houses being repaired, [they are] damaged and burnt; the fields are not being cultivated; the vineyards are cut
down; there is no sowing, the baths are not used nor [are there] other delights, I do not see anyone going out.
Oh women! Oh men! The man is dead, the woman raped, the herds are prey [to predators]; men treacherously
kill one another; Justice lies on the ground, her scales broken, she is bound, her hands and legs are bound. And
everything is done with fear. But the Apocalypse, in the thirteenth chapter, presents war in the figure of a beast
coming out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads, like a leopard, and with the feet of a bear. What do these
ten horns signify, if not to be in opposition to the Ten Commandments? [The beast] with seven heads, for the
seven mortal sins, appears as a leopard, for treachery; [with the] feet of a bear, that is full of revenge. Yet [by]
forgiving, you end and eliminate the war.’
8
Rowley, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 99; Rubinstein, ‘Political ideas’, 180; Feldges-Henning, ‘The pictorial
program’, 146; Southard, The Frescoes, 276–7; Greenstein, ‘The vision’, 498.
9
See Bernardino da Siena, Siena 1425, II, 266–7: ‘peace and war. . . . the destruction and waste of war. . . .
finish and destroy war’.
 St Bernadino’s description of Lorenzetti’s frescoes 277

Fig. 2 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Good Government (1338–9); fresco, north wall, the Sala dei Nove, Palazzo
Pubblico, Siena (photo: Alinari)

Fig. 3 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Peace – The Country (1338–9); detail of east wall fresco, the Sala dei Nove,
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena (photo: Alinari)
278 Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby

Fig. 4 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Peace – The City (1338–9); detail of east wall fresco, the Sala dei Nove, Palazzo
Pubblico, Siena (photo: Alinari)

Fig. 5 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, War (1338–9); detail of west wall fresco, the Sala dei Nove, Palazzo Pubblico,
Siena (photo: Alinari)
 St Bernadino’s description of Lorenzetti’s frescoes 279
details that we can still see today in the fresco. An additional detail
emphasized by him is that of people going to the baths, a fashionable leisure-
time activity of Bernardino’s society.10 His mention of ‘le fanciulle a marito’
supports the assumption of art historians that a wedding procession is
depicted in the lower left-hand corner of the fresco. Certainly this stress on
marriage was typical of the preacher’s campaign to promote family life in the
Tuscan cities.11
Bernardino now focuses on a tiny detail of the fresco, the hanged man,
with the figure of Security depicted above the city appearing to hold the
gallows in his hand. It is intriguing that he chooses to highlight this feature.
His focus, however, ref lects the recurrent exhortation in his sermons that, in
order to maintain peace, criminals should be treated severely rather than
forgiven. In one of his sermons he argues: ‘Se non fussino le forti leggi contro
a’ mali fattori non ci si potrebbe vivere’.12 This small but graphic figure
powerfully transmits Bernardino’s message of a rule of law that shows no
mercy of criminals. Justice, he concludes, is in fact the key to peace and
union: ‘E vego impicato l’uomo per mantenere la santa giustizia. E per queste
cose, ognuno sta in santa pace e concordia’.13
Turning to the opposite wall, Bernardino begins with a series of contrasts
between War and Peace. The repetitious ‘non vego’ echoes the modern art
historian’s emphasis on the negative correspondences between the two
frescoes. His rhetorical outburst ‘O donne! O uomini!’ rivets his listeners’
attention on the figures depicted there. He then notes the effects of war as
shown in the fresco: rape, murder, and betrayal. Bernardino now points to
the bound figure of Justice, her scales broken, which appears below Tyranny
and the Vices on the right-hand side of the painting. He emphasizes its state
of terror, thus hinting at the allegorical figure of Timor, the counterpart
of the figure of Securitas depicted in Peace.14 While Bernardino, in general,
ignores the frescoes’ allegorical elements, preferring to focus on their more
naturalistic elements, he implies that when Justice is rendered helpless, the
10
The preacher may have been referring to the couple on horseback outside the city gates, who are
generally seen as hunters. See Starn, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 82–3.
11
Ibid. 74–5. Starn mentions Bernardino’s description of a wedding procession in Bernardino’s 1427 Siena
sermon. See also Frugoni, A Distant City, 159. For Bernardino’s campaign to promote marriage and family life,
see D. Herlihy and C. Klapich-Zuber, Tuscans and Their Families (New Haven, 1985), 228–31, 250–3.
12
Bernardino da Siena, Le prediche volgari – Quaresimale Fiorentino del 1424, ed. C. Cannarozzi, (Pistoia,
1934), II, 85: ‘Without severe laws against criminals, it is impossible to live’. Bernardino’s attention to justice
and its correspondence with his political ideals is noted in Delcorno, 33–4.
13
Bernardino da Siena, Siena 1425, II, 266 : ‘And I see a man being hanged in order to maintain holy justice.
And for this [reason] everyone lives in holy peace and concord.’ Bernardino’s message fits also the inscription
attached to Security: ‘Senza paura ogn’uom franco cammini/ e lavorando semini ciascuno,/ mentre che tal
comuno/ manterrà questa donna in signoria,/ ch’ ell’ha levata a’ rei ogni balia’. (‘Without fear every man may
travel freely and each may till and sow, as long as this commune shall maintain this lady [justice] sovereign for
she has stripped the wicked of all power’. The translation is from Starn, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 101.)
14
The inscription attached to War echoes Bernardino’s message: ‘Per voler el ben propio, in questa terra/
sommess’è la giustizia e tirannia,/ unde per questa via/ non passa alcun senza dubbio di morte,/ ché fuor si
róbba e dentro dalle porte’. (‘Because each seeks only his own good, in this city, Justice is subjected to Tyranny;
wherefore, along this road nobody passes without fearing for his life, since there are robberies outside and
inside the city gates’. The translation is from Starn, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 100.)
280 Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
result is war. This stress on justice is echoed in many of Bernardino’s ser-
mons, in such statements as ‘che molto meglio si può vivere sanza pane, che
sanza la giustizia’.15 Finally, departing from the painted details, the preacher
associates the series of frescoes with the beast of the Apocalypse. He graphic-
ally evokes the monster, explaining its symbolic meanings, and concludes
with a command to his listeners to be forgiving and thus eliminate war.16

II
Let us now compare Bernardino’s description to other early ones. In 1350,
an anonymous Sienese chronicle, in a section on the construction of the
Palazzo Pubblico entitled ‘Come si comiciò a fare el Palazzo del Comune,
e questo si fece per la tranquilla pace che l’ comune ebe parecchie copie
d’anni dal MCCLXXXXIIII per infino MCCLXXXXVIII’, referred thus to
the Lorenzetti frescoes:
E così deliberato si misse in esechuzione e fatto el palazzo si deliberò di
dipegniervi dentro la Pace e la Ghuerra e molti uomini rei e’ quai erano
stati già gran tenpo e fatto male, et anco tutti quegli e’ quali avesseno
operato bene per la republica di Siena, e anco furo dipente le IIII virtù
teologiche co’ molti segni di prudenza e d’asercizio e d’igegnio. E questo
edifichamento di detta dipinture fece maestro Ambruogio Lorenzetti. E
queste dipinture sono in nel detto palazzo del comuno salito le schale al
primo uscio a mano sinistra; e chi vi va el può vedere.17

The anonymous author alludes to the frescoes when discussing the begin-
ning of the construction of the communal palace of Siena (1294–8). In
the title he explains that since it was a time of peace, the Sienese decided
to build a palace for their officials, and Lorenzetti was chosen to decorate
it. The author mentions the motifs of peace and war, and that the painter
depicted those people who did good and those who caused damage to the
commune of Siena. He then cites the four theological virtues and gives a
qualitative appraisal, lauding Lorenzetti’s prudence and skill. This anony-
mous observer agrees with Bernardino, then, that the frescoes’ predominant
motifs were peace and war. In contrast with Bernardino’s detailed report,
his description of the frescoes’ content is somewhat vague and general.
Whereas Bernardino praises the ‘bella inventiva’ of the frescoes, this
chronicler notes the ‘molti segni di prudenza e d’asercizio e d’igegnio’ of
the painter. And whereas Bernardino draws a moral lesson from the fresco,
calling on his listeners to make peace, this anonymous chronicler concludes
with practical advice as to where one might see these beautiful frescoes. A
last point worthy of note is that although in the fourteenth-century source
15
Bernardino da Siena, Firenze 1424, II, 85: ‘[a city] could survive better without bread than without justice’.
16
This is an allusion to Apocalypse 13: 1–2.
17
‘Cronaca senese dei fatti riguardanti la città ed il suo territorio’, 78. See also Southard, ‘Ambrogio
Lorenzetti’, 361–2. Southard explains that ‘there are inaccuracies and eighteenth-century interpolations in this
chronicle’s account’.
 St Bernadino’s description of Lorenzetti’s frescoes 281
the frescoes are named Peace and War, as in Bernardino’s description, they
are associated more with peace – a time of tranquillity in which the palace
was constructed – than with war – the theme that dominates Bernardino’s
description.18
Bernardino himself frequently alludes to the Lorenzetti frescoes in his
1427 cycle of sermons from Siena.19 In a sermon entitled ‘Qui tratta come
David profeta cercando in questo mondo per la pace, non la poté trovare’,
Bernardino remarks: ‘Doh, voi l’avete dipenta di sopra nel vostro palazzo, che
a vedere la Pace dipenta è una allegrezza. E così è una scurità a vedere
dipenta la Guerra dall’altro lato’.20 This shows that the frescoes were so
familiar to his Sienese audience that Bernardino could allude to them and
their topics in a quite off hand manner. On other occasions Bernardino even
alludes to specific figures in the frescoes, such as Charity in Peace or Tyranny
in War.21
One can also find passages in the 1427 cycle that recall his 1425 evocation
of the frescoes. In fact, Bernardino transposes exactly a description of the
scenes from Peace, including the merchants who are buying and selling, and
the people working in the fields as depicted in the fresco Peace.22 However, in
another sermon, he describes scenes possibly inspired by the fresco War, such
as burning houses or vineyards that are cut down, in order to demonstrate
the damage of war, but they appear as isolated motifs rather than as a full
description, such as we find in 1425.23 In all these instances, Bernardino used
these verbal pictures to demonstrate to his listeners the benefits of peace and
the evils of war. Comparing Bernardino’s description of 1425 with the ac-
counts found in the cycle of 1427, we find that whereas the earlier ekphrasis
is orderly and detailed, refers explicitly to the frescoes, and emphasizes War,
the allusions in the 1427 sermons are partial and scattered, representing a
catalogue of genre scenes rather than a full description.
From the first half of the fifteenth century comes another short account of
18
Ibid. 364.
19
Bernardino’s allusions to the Lorenzetti frescoes is discussed by Delcorno in his introduction to the 1427
edition of Bernardino’s sermons, see Bernardino da Siena, Siena 1427, 21–2.
20
Bernardino da Siena, Siena 1427, II, 1254. The translation is from C. E. Gilbert, Italian Art, 1400–1500:
Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, 1980), 147: ‘Here is treated the Prophet David seeking peace in this
world, which he could not find it. . . . Lo, you have painted it in your palace, for to see Peace painted is a joy; so
it is a sorrow to see War painted on the other side.’ For comments on this short reference, see Norman, ‘Love
Justice’, 145.
21
Bernardino da Siena, Siena 1427, I, 311, note 76: ‘In ogni modo che tu parli, fa’ che sempre tu parli con
carità . . . E come vedi che l’amore si dipegna tutto focoso perché è caldo’; I, 504, note 150: ‘Sai che ci è detto
per bocca di Dio di questi diavoli incarnati, che non vogliono il ben vivere, ma il tirannesco vivare, ognuno a
furare e sforzare chi eglino possono?’
22
For scenes from Peace, see Bernardino da Siena, Siena 1427, II, 978–9, note 123: ‘Solo per la pace che tu
hai auta le vigne so’ state lavorate e hai del vino in abondanzia. Simile, i poderi per lo lavorare t’hanno renduto
del grano in abondanza e dell’altra biada. Perché si so’ lavorate? Pure per la pace che voi avete auta.’
23
For a typical scene inspired by War see Bernardino da Siena, Siena 1427, I, 670, note 132: ‘Io n’ho veduti
tanti danni! Arse case, sì nella città e sì nel contado, che quasi non è rimasto niuna in luogho etc., e le vigne
tagliate, boschi e selve arse, insino alle chiese; menato via il bestiame, consumate le ricchezze grandissime per
lo mantenere le guerre’.
282 Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
the frescoes, that of Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378–1455), the Florentine sculptor
and writer on art:

Nel palagio di Siena è dipinto di sua mano la pace e lla guerra; evvi quello
[che] s’appartiene alla pace et come le mercatanzie vanno sicure con
grandissime sicurtà e come le lasciano ne’ boschi et come e’ tornato per
esse. E le storsioni [che] si fanno nella guerra stanno perfettamente.24

Bernardino and Ghiberti both wrote lively descriptions of Lorenzetti’s fres-

coes, but they differ in their basic approach. Ghiberti, as an artist, describes
the works for their own sake, as aesthetic objects, selecting certain details to
praise for their artistic perfection.25 Bernardino, on the other hand, presents
a functional approach, choosing elements in the frescoes that help to convey
his moral message, and using art as the transmitter of a religious message.
In 1550, Giorgio Vasari called the frescoes: ‘la Guerra, la Pace, et gli
accidenti di quella’, and in 1568 he named them ‘la pace . . . e gli accidenti di
quella’.26 Thus, this Renaissance commentator underlined the ideas of peace
and war. On the whole, then, while Bernardino agrees with other medieval
and Renaissance sources as to the centrality of the frescoes Peace and War, he
is unique, in his earlier description, in his strong focus on War.

III
Why did Bernardino include this unusual and detailed description as part
of his sermon in 1425 and why, in contrast with other medieval reporters
and all modern scholars, did he choose to focus on War? The fundamental
explanation is to be found in the historical context. Bernardino was preach-
ing during a period of political instability and civic strife in Siena; he thus
concentrated on the most urgent problem of the day, that of internal con-
f lict.27 His interpretation differed significantly from the original intention
of the frescoes. When the Council of the Nine commissioned Ambrogio
24
Lorenzo Ghiberti, I Commentarii, ed. J. Schlosser (Berlin, 1912), I, 41. The translation is from Greenstein,
‘The vision’, 492: ‘In the palace of Siena are painted by his hand [Lorenzetti] Peace and War, and that which
pertains to peace, how merchants’ caravans travel . . . in utmost safety, how they leave their goods in the woods,
and how they return for them. Also the extortions made during war are perfectly indicated.’
25
On Ghiberti as a writer on art see R. Krautheimer and T. Krautheimer-Hess, Lorenzo Ghiberti (Princeton,
1970), 306–14.
26
G. Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccelente architetti, pittori, e scultori italiani, ed. C. Ricci (Milan and Rome, c. 1900),
168: ‘War, Peace and their results’; G. Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccelente architetti, pittori, e scultori italiani, ed.
G. Milanesi (Florence, 1878–85), I, 523: ‘Peace and its results’. For an English translation of the 1568 edition,
see G. Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. M. Aronberg-Lavin (New York, 1966), I, 59–60:
‘In one of the large halls of the palace of the Signoria in Siena, Ambrogio represented the War of Asinalunga,
with the various events of the Peace which succeeded’. The translator explains that the war refers to the victory
gained by the Sienese over the Compagnia del Cappello in the year 1363. Vasari’s reference to the frescoes then
is vague and imprecise.
27
On the internal division and general decline of Siena in the late fourteenth century and early fifteenth
century see B. Paton, ‘ “Una Città Fatticosa”: Dominican preaching and the defence of the republic in late
medieval Siena’, in City and Countryside in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy, ed. T. Dean and C. Wickham
(London, 1990), 109–13; B. Paton, Preaching Friars and the Civic Ethos: Siena 1380–1480 (London, 1992),
87–132.
 St Bernadino’s description of Lorenzetti’s frescoes 283
Lorenzetti to decorate the council chamber in the Palazzo Pubblico between
1338 and 1339, they did so for reasons of political propaganda: the frescoes
were intended to show the strength and prosperity of Siena, to extol the
greatness of its government.28
When Bernardino described the frescoes in 1425, preaching before the
same Palazzo Pubblico, he did so in a completely different context. For Siena
in the early fifteenth century was, on the whole, a commune in decline,
undergoing increasing subordination to Florence. Since the Black Death and
the fall of the Nine in 1355, the commune had suffered a series of unstable
political regimes, social division, and economic deteroration. In the early
fifteenth century, an attempt had been made to create a coalition among the
rival factions, but its unity had proved fragile and the internal conf licts con-
tinued. Bernardino’s focus on the tragic scenes of War was thus undoubtedly
inf luenced by Siena’s difficulties at that period. In tune with his society’s ills
and identifying with its problems, he concentrated on the War fresco since it
was the one that corresponded most closely with the current situation in
Siena and with the concerns of its citizens.29
Bernardino, however, used the frescoes not just to ref lect the problems of
his society but also to try to solve them. His description was an effective
device to represent in his preaching the evils of internal conf licts and to
advocate civic peace. Bernardino da Siena, the most popular Franciscan
preacher of the fifteenth century, was considered by his contemporaries to be
a professional peacemaker, one who continued the mendicant tradition of
promoting civic peace in the Italian cities. There is evidence in local chron-
icles of the reconciliation achieved by Bernardino in such places as Cremona,
Vicenza, and Pavia.30 According to his biographer, Vespasiano da Bisticci, ‘Di

28
The reasons which motivated the Nine to commission the frescoes are explained by most historians as an
attempt to represent their ideal of government, and as a sign of political power. The frescoes are considered a
symbol of Siena’s patriotism and of the civic ideal of the ruling oligarchy. On this see Bowsky, A Medieval
Italian Commune, 287–91. Judith Hook claims, based on archival evidence, that the ‘primary function of the
frescoes at the time they were painted was a decorative and a celebratory one. They were to add to the glories
of Siena which were being created by the beneficent rule of the Nine.’ She adds that ‘the frescoes were also
intended to be didactic . . . a fourteenth-century statement about the obligations of the governed to the
governing’, Siena: A City and its History (London, 1983), 83–4. See also Norman, ‘Love justice’, 164–5: ‘It
appears plausible to argue that in commissioning the paintings for the Sala dei Nove the Nine intended to
secure a pictorial manifesto for their political regime, therby providing both reassurance of its beneficial
effects and a warning to those who considered attempting to replace it’.
29
On Siena under the Nine and after the Black Death see W. Bowsky, ‘The impact of the Black Death
upon Sienese government and society’, Speculum, 39 (1964), 1–34. See also R. Barzanti, G. Catoni, and
M. De Gregorio (eds), Storia di Siena: dalle origini alla fine della repubblica (Siena, 1995), I.
30
On Bernardino da Siena see C. Delcorno, ‘L’ars praedicandi di Bernardino da Siena’, in Atti del simposio
internazionale Cateriniano-Bernardiniano, ed. D. Maffei and P. Nardi (Siena, 1980), 419–49; J. C. Maire-Viguere,
‘Bernardino et la vie citadine’, in Bernardino predicatore nella società del suo tempo – Atti del Convegno (Todi, 1976),
251–82; G. Miccoli, ‘Bernardino predicatore: problemi e ipotesi per un’interpretazione complessive’, in
Bernardino predicatore nella società del suo tempo – Atti del Convegno (Todi, 1976), 11–37; F. Mormando, The
Preacher’s Demons: Bernardino da Siena and the Social Underworld of Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1999); I. Origo,
The World of San Bernardino (London, 1963); R. Rusconi, ‘Escatologia e povertà nella predicazione di
Bernardino da Siena’, in Bernardino predicatore nella società del suo tempo (Todi, 1976), 213–50. On Bernardino’s
activity as a peacemaker, see C. Polecritti, Preaching Peace in Renaissance Italy: San Bernardino and his Audience
284 Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
molte nimicizie e di morte d’uomini fece fare pace, e levare odi mortali;
a infiniti principi che avevano nimicizie capitali, santo Bernardino si mise
di mezzo, e tutte le compose, e pacificò molte città; e molti popoli, avendo
differenza insieme, santo Bernardino gli unì ed accordògli. Mai attendeva ad
altro che a fare pace, dove vedeva alcuna discordia.’31
His most renowned activities as a peacemaker, however, were in Siena in
1425 and 1427. Paolo di Tommaso Montauri, in his late fifteenth-century
chronicle, illustrates Bernardino’s major success in Siena when on one
occasion more than forty thousand people came to hear him preach.32
Bernardino was a native of the Sienese contado – he came from Massa
Marittima – so his involvement in his patria’s internal affairs was thus greater
there than in other cities. One can sense, for instance, his civic pride as he
commends the beauty of the frescoes ‘che voi avete dipenta’33 as if consider-
ing them to be the achievement of an entire city rather than the work of
an individual master painter. ‘Questa è la predica de la concordia a unione
che doviamo avere insieme’ is essentially an effort to bring peace to Siena.
Bernardino himself testifies to this: ‘ogni volta ch’io mi so’ per partire d’una
terra a un’altra, fare quello che ora fo a voi’.34
The sermon includes a description of an actual peace ceremony that is to
follow the preaching. Bernardino sends his women listeners to be reconciled
in the Church of San Martino (they are to enter the church from one side and
exit from the other as a sign of concord), while the men are to go to the
Duomo. The description of the frescoes, then, is used in the context of a
sermon whose aim was to achieve unity and which culminated in a ritual.35
However, a paradox emerges: if Bernardino’s intention was to promote
civic peace, why did he concentrate on War? In part, the emphasis on War
is grounded in the physical arrangement of the room housing the frescoes.
Whenever a visitor entered the room from the original door, now blocked,
(Berkeley, CA, PhD diss., 1988); C. Polecritti, Preaching Peace in Renaissance Italy. Bernardino of Siena and his
Audience (Washington, DC, 2000). Polecritti concentrates in her works on Bernardino’s famous sermon cycle
preached in Siena in 1427.
31
Vespasiano da Bisticci, ‘Vita di San Bernardino’, Operette volgari, ed. Dioneso Pacetti (Florence, 1938), 38.
The English translation is from Vespasiano da Bisticci, The Vespasiano Memoirs, Lives of Illustrious Men of the XV
Century, trans. William Waters (London, 1926), 165: ‘St. Bernardino removed mortal hatred after the murders
of many, reconciled an infinite number of princes and made peace in numerous cities; he reunited many men
who quarrelled, and never paid any attention to anything other than making peace when he was at a place of
much discord’.
32
‘Cronaca di Paolo di Tommaso Montauri’, in Cronache senesi, ed. A. Lisini and F. Iacometti, in the series
Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. L. A. Muratori (Bologna, 1931–9), XV, 6/2, 803: ‘Frate Bernardino da Siena
era nipote d’Agniolino di Cristofano Arduini, predicò in sul Canpo di Siena a dì 25 d’aprile, e poi tutto magio
predicò molte prediche in sul Canpo con grandisima gente che lo venivano a udire, che alcuna volta fu stimato
più che 40 milia persone’.
33
Bernardino da Siena, Siena 1425, II, 266: ‘you have painted’.
34
Ibid. II, 268: ‘I say that every time I leave one land or another, I do what I am doing now for you [making
peace]’.
35
Ibid. II, 263: ‘E se fusse niuno che non potesse trovare colui col quale à l’odio, vada in segno di volere
perdonare, al Duomo, a l’altare, e poi, quando trovarà el suo avversario, facci pace co’ lui e perdoni l’uno a
l’altro. E a voi, donne, tutte andate costì a la chiesa di santo Martino, e intrate dall’una parte e uscite da l’altra,
in segno che voi perdoniate a ogni persona’.
 St Bernadino’s description of Lorenzetti’s frescoes 285
36
it was War that confronted him/her. Today we are drawn to the better-
preserved fresco of Good Government. Yet Bernardino and his audience might
have been drawn more to the horrors on the other wall, and describing the
terrors of War might well have complemented Bernardino’s technique of
promoting civic peace. When not using a work of art, Bernardino drew on his
own imagination to evoke the horror caused by civic discord:

Quanti mali sonno proceduti da queste parti, quante donne so’ state
amazzate nelle città proprie, in casa loro; quante ne so’ state sbudellate!
Simile, quanti fanciulli morti per vendetta de’ padri loro! Simile, i fanciulli
del ventre delle proprie madri tratti e messo lo’ i piei ne’ corpi, e presi I:
fanciullini e dato lo’ del capo nel muro; venduta la carne del nimico suo
alla beccaria come l’altra carne; tratto lo’ il cuore di corpo e mangiatolo
crudo crudo. Quanti mortaghiadi, e poi sotterrati nella feccia! Egli ne so’
stati arostiti e poi mangiati; egli ne so’ stati gittati giù delle torri; egli ne so’
stati gettati su de’ ponti giù nell’acqua; egli è stata presa la donna e sforzata
innanzi al padre e ‘l marito, e poi amazzatoli lì innanzi.37

Appalling descriptions of civil strife with the aim of creating peace and
harmony – the contrast is striking. The preacher seemed to consider fear
and horror more efficient means to pacify an audience than virtuous bland-
ness. Additionally, the choice to concentrate on War may have ref lected
either Bernardino’s own interest in the subject or his desire to pander to
the interest of his listeners: he needed to attract an audience, and probably
chose the fresco that fascinated them most. Just as in the case of Dante’s La
Divina Commedia, of which the Inferno, rather than the Paradiso, became the
most famous and most frequently quoted part, so too did the fresco War
prove to be more appealing than Peace.
Finally, Bernardino’s description was inf luenced not only by his own visual
experience of the Lorenzetti paintings but by various literary sources. From
the literary perspective, Bernardino is considered a part of the Tuscan
literary tradition of ‘merchant-authors’, starting with Giovanni Villani and
Giovanni Boccaccio in the fourteenth century, and continuing with Giovanni
Morelli and Paolo da Certaldo into the fifteenth century.38 These authors
presented a religious view on the course of world events, arguing that war was
36
See Starn, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 24–5.
37
Bernardino da Siena, Siena 1427, I, 335: ‘How many evils have resulted from these factions, how many
women have been murdered in their own cities, in their own homes; how many, I know, have been
disemboweled. Similarly, how many children have died for the blood feud of their fathers! Similarly, children
have been torn from their mothers’ womb and having stepped over their bodies, and then the children have
been taken and their heads have been dashed against the wall; the f lesh of the enemy sold in the butchery like
other meat; the heart torn from the body and eaten whole, raw. How many have fallen by the sword and been
buried in the rubble! Some have been roasted and then eaten. Some have been thrown down from the towers,
and some have been thrown from the tops of bridges into the water. Sometimes a woman has been taken and
has been raped before her father and husband, and then they were murdered in front of her’.
38
For the literary tradition of the ‘mercanti scrittori’ see C. H. Bec, Les marchands écrivains (Paris, 1967);
V. Branca, ‘Mercanti – Scrittori fra Trecento e Quattrocento’, in Dizionario critico della letteratura italiana, ed.
V. Branca (Turin, 1973), II, 598–9.
286 Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
a punishment for sins. Hence, in his famous descriptions of the Black Death
in Florence, Villani explained that ‘Tutte le pestilenze e battaglie, ruine e
diluvi . . . avvengono per permissione della divina giustizia per punire i
peccati’, while Boccaccio argued that ‘la mortifera pestilenza . . . per le nostre
inique opere da giusta ira di Dio a nostra correzione mandata sopra i
mortali’.39 In this established Tuscan tradition there was a literary convention
for cataloguing the disasters and misfortunes of war, the divine punishment,
as opposed to the benefits and virtues of peace, the divine gift. The
Lorenzetti frescoes were an iconographic manifestation of this tradition.
These genre descriptions of the outcomes of peace and war were often
presented in the context of a moral address extolling civic peace and con-
demning political strife. They exemplified a common emphasis on the
centrality of justice as the crucial factor in maintaining peace in the city.40 It
seems plausible to trace Bernardino’s description to this rhetorical tradition.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem & Haifa University

39
For these quotations see V. Branca, Mercanti scrittori: Ricordi nella Firenze tra Medioevo e Rinascimento
(Milan, 1986), 23. Villani quote is from G. Villani, Cronica, ed. F. G. Dragomanni and I. Moutier (Florence,
1844–5), II, 131 (book XII, ch. 84): ‘all the plagues, wars, destruction and f loods . . . came through the
permission of divine justice to punish sins’. Boccaccio quote is from G. Boccaccio, Decameron, ed. V. Branca
(Turin, 1984), 8: ‘God’s just anger with our wicked deeds sent [deadly plague] as a punishment to mortal men’.
40
For the topos of scenes illustrating the advantages of peace and the disadvantages of war, see Delcorno
1984, 29–39; Delcorno, ‘Introduction’, in Bernardino da Siena, Siena 1427, 21.