[1] In the Pinacoteca in Siena. An Armenian miniature of ca. 1274 also shows a variant of the motif. Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century, Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Sylvia Agémian, Annemarie Weyl Carr, Dumbarton Oaks, p. 159, 1993, ISBN 0884022021. A South German chalice may also be older, see Vasilake, 307, note 17.


[2] Benvenuto di Giovanni was an Italian painter. His full name Benvenuto di Giovanni di Meo del Guasta. He was the son of a bricklayer and lived and worked in or near Siena all his life. He is first recorded working as an artist in 1453 when he was painting in the Siena Baptistery, probably with il Vecchietta, who may have been his teacher. In his early years he was also influenced by Matteo di Giovanni, Francesco di Giorgio and Neroccio de' Landi. His style changed considerably in the 1480s.
In a tax return of 1465, Benvenuto declared himself to be without property or relations and to be living near the baptistery. The following year he married Jacopa di Tommaso da Cetona with whom he had seven children. They owned a vineyard, and Benvenuto served at least two terms in public office. Among his extant works, nine are signed and dated altarpieces, four are identifiable through documents and many others can be attributed to him on stylistic grounds. Their dates span 43 years, and they include panel paintings, frescoes, manuscripts and designs for the decorative pavement of Siena Cathedral.


[3] Constructed along the Via Francigena, Santa Maria della Scala was one of the first hospitals in Europe, with its own organization set up to care for pilgrims, assist the poor and provide for abandoned children.
The Hospital was instituted by the canons of the Duomo, although a Sienese medieval legend speaks of a mythical founder named Sorore, a cobbler who died in the year 898.
Initially managed by the canons of the Duomo and later by the friars of the Hospital, in the Fifteenth century the important complex was placed, after long disputes, under direct control of the Municipality.
From the beginning of the Fourteenth century, a statute regulated Santa Maria’s operation and autonomy, and it proved to be so efficacious that it was taken as model by Gian Galeazzo Visconti and the Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza, who sent their emissaries to Siena to study its management and organisation.
Following bequests and donations between the late Thirteenth and the early Fourteenth centuries, the Hospital began to divide and organise its own landed property into large agricultural estates known as grance. They represented a huge patrimony that covered extensive areas of the Val d’Orcia, Val d’Arbia, Masse, Crete and Maremma, and, as a whole, represented the largest concentration of land of the Sienese state. For nearly five centuries, they constituted the main source of sustenance of Santa Maria’s economic structure, until the property was alienated in the second half of the Eighteenth century.
Santa Maria della Scala also played a major cultural role and could be well regarded as Siena’s third artistic pole along with the Palazzo Pubblico and the Cathedral. The effort of the clients of this prestigious institution also in the artistic field proved from the beginning to be constant, almost always at very high level, embracing the manifold aspects of the millennial activity performed by the Hospital, from the great cycle of frescoes with the Stories of the Virgin painted on the external façade (unfortunately lost) by Simone Martini, Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti (1335), to the series of frescoes of the great Pilgrims’ Hall and the decoration of the vast apse area of the church painted in the Eighteenth century by Sebastiano Conca.
Santa Maria della Scala is no longer in use as a hospital and the City Council has been recovering the old complex that is recognised as one of the most significant multivalent projects at a European level, which can effectively answer the needs of the great Sienese art collections as well as the growing demands in the fields of education, research and tourism.
www.santamariadellascala.com

[4] The Museum of the Bigallo. This small collection of works of art that belonged to the Company of the Bigallo was first put on display in 1976. The museum is situated in the Loggia, the oratory and some of the ground and first floor rooms of the palace that stands on the corner between Via Calzaiuoli and Piazza San Giovanni.
The Loggia of Bigallo, built in the mid 14th century for the Compagnia della Misericordia together with the neighbouring oratory, became in 1425 the seat of the Compagnia del Bigallo, named after the hospital it directed at Santa Maria a Fonteviva that was known as Hospital of Bigallo.
The works directly purchased by the Brotherhood or donated to it, dispersed due to several vicissitudes, were reunited in this museum in 1904.
The collection, reorganised in 1976, comprises both religious and historical works that offer us further evidence on the life of the Brotherhood between the 14th and 16th centuries.
The most remarkable pieces are the Crucifix of the "Master of Bigallo", the works of Bernardo Daddi and his pupils and those of Niccolò di Pietro Gerini.
In addition, it contains a series of devotional works that form a homogenous collection and illustrate the life of the Confraternity over the centuries. Some of the more important works include a painted Crucifx by the Maestro del Bigallo (mid 13th century), a portable triptych by Bernardo Daddi dated 1333 (Madonna and Child with 14 Saints), a Madonna and Child by Alberto Arnoldi (1361), the coat of arms of the Altoviti family carved by Desiderio da Settignano (1450 circa), a Madonna by Jacopo del Sellaio (1480 circa) and paintings by Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio (1515). The oratory contains the remains of sinopites and frescoes, carried out in 1363-64 by Nardo di Cione and his workshop, which were found behind the carved altar (the work of Noferi d'Antonio) that in 1515 covered most of the wall. However the most famous work in the museum is a fresco of 1342 dedicated to the Madonna of the Misericordia, carried out by the workshop of Bernardo Daddi, pupil of Giotto. This fresco, painted on a wall of the Room of the Captains, is the oldest known representation of Florence, showing its mediaeval towers and monuments, including the Baptistery and an interesting view of the Cathedral during the construction of Santa Maria del Fiore. The old cathedral of Santa Reparata was still standing so that here we can pick out its saddle roof, two belltowers and lateral single light windows. Parts of Giotto's Belltower and the facade of Santa Maria del Fiore, as it had been conceived and left by Arnolfo at the time of his death in 1302, can also be seen.

Images | www.umilta.net/bigallo