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SIMONE MARTINI (1283-1344)

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 801 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SIMONE MARTINI (1283-1344)  , Sienese painter, called also Simone di Martino, and more commonly, but not correctly, Simon Memmi,' was born in 1283 . He followed the manner of
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painting proper to his native
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Siena, as improved by Duccio, which is essentially different from the stylg of
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Giotto and his school, and the idea that Simone was himself a pupil of Giotto is therefore wide of the mark . The Sienese style is less natural, dignified and reserved than the Florentine; it has less unity of impression, has more tendency to
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pietism, and is marked by exaggerations which are partly related to the obsolescent
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Byzantine manner, and partly seem to forebode certain peculiarities of the fully
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developed
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art which we find prevalent in Michelangelo . Simone, in especial, tended to an excessive and rather affected tenderness in his
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female figures; he was more successful in single figures and in portraits than in large compositions of incident . He finished with scrupulous minuteness, and was elaborate in decorations of patterning,
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gilding, &c . The first known fresco of Simone is the vast one which he executed in the hall of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena—the " Madonna Enthroned, with the Infant," and a number of angels and saints; its date is 1315, at which period he was already an artist of repute throughout Italy . In S . Lorenzo Maggiore of Naples he painted a
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life-sized picture of King Robert crowned by his
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brother Lewis, bishop of Toulouse; this also is extant, but much damaged . In 1320 he painted for the high altar of the church of S . Caterina in Pisa the Virgin and Child between six saints; above are archangels, apostles and other figures . The compartmented portions of this
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work are now dispersed, some of them being in the academy of Siena . Towards 1321 he executed for the church of S .

Domenico in

Orvieto a picture of the bishop of
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Savona kneeling before the Madonna attended by saints, now in the Fabriceria of the
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cathedral . Certain frescoes in Assisi in the
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chapel of
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San Martino, representing the life of that saint, ascribed by Vasari to Puccio Capanna, are now, upon
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internal evidence, assigned to Simone . He painted also, in the south transept of the
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lower church of the same edifice, figures of the Virgin and eight saints . In 1328 he produced for the sala del consilio in Siena a striking equestrian portrait of the victorious general Guidoriccio Fogliani de' Ricci . Simone had married in 1324 Giovanna, the daughter of Memmo (Guglielmo) di Filippuccio . Her brother, named Lippo Memmi, was also a painter, and was frequently associated with Simone in his work; and this is the only reason why Simone has come down to us with the
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family-name Memmi . They painted together in 1333 the "
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Annunciation " which is now in the Uffizi gallery . Simone kept a bottega (or
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shop), undertaking any ornamental work, and his gains were large . In 1339 he settled at the papal court in
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Avignon, where he made the acquaintance of Petrarch and Laura; and he painted for the poet a portrait of his lady, which gave occasion for two of Petrarch's sonnets, in which Simone is eulogized . He also illuminated for the poet a copy of the commentary of Servius upon Virgil, now preserved in the Ambrosian library of Milan . He was largely employed in the decorations of the papal buildings ' The ordinary account of Simone is that given by Vasari, and since repeated in a variety of forms .
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Modern research shows that it is far from correct, the incidents being erroneous, and the paintings attributed to Simone in various
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principal instances not his .

We follow the authority of

Crowe and Cavalcaselle . Some of the
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works with which Simone's name and fame have been generally identified are not now regarded as his . Such are the compositions, in the Campo Santo of Pisa, from the legend of S . Ranieri, and the " Assumption of the Virgin "; and the
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great frescoes in the Cappellone degli Spagnuoli, in S . Maria Novella, Florence, representing the Triumph of Religion through the work of the Dominican order, &c . (W . M .

End of Article: SIMONE MARTINI (1283-1344)
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