Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good Government frescoes

Timeline

1. 1337–1338Sala dei Nove, Siena town hall · SienaSiena's Council of Nine commissioned large frescoes for the town hall's council chamber, requiring the contrast of communal justice, peace, and tyranny to be written as a viewable political lesson. Ambrogio Lorenzetti was appointed to lead, bringing secular themes into a fresco tradition previously dominated by religious narratives.
2. 1338–1339Sala dei Nove, Siena town hall · SienaIn 1338–1339 Lorenzetti completed the allegory of good government, the effects of good government in city and countryside, and the allegory of bad government. The scenes form a continuous landscape of personified virtues, shops, craftsmen, hunting, and travelers, and are widely regarded as a milestone of 14th-century Italian secular fresco.
3. 1339–1355Sala dei Nove, Siena town hall · SienaOnce completed, the frescoes became the visual backdrop of the Council of Nine's daily deliberations, contrasting the urban prosperity brought by good government with the ruins of tyranny, continually reminding the magistrates of communal ethics. Their visual language also influenced civic decorations in other Tuscan cities.
4. 1348Sala dei Nove, Siena town hall · SienaLorenzetti died around 1348 during the Black Death, and the frescoes remained in place. Later restorations and art-historical scholarship have treated them as the most complete secular political allegory on the eve of the early Renaissance; the original walls remain open to the public today.