a stroke what Cimabue and his pupil had
achieved for the Florentines, and bequeathed to the succeeding painters of
Siena a tradition of art beyond which they rarely passed.

Far more than their neighbours at Florence, the Sienese remained fettered
by the technical methods and the pietistic formulae of the earliest
religious painting. To make their conventional representations of
Madonna's love and woe and glory burn with all the passion of a fervent
spirit, and to testify their worship by the oblation of rich gifts in
colouring and gilding massed around her, was their earnest aim. It
followed that, when they attempted subjects on a really large scale, the
faults of the miniaturist clung about them. I need hardly say that
Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti form notable exceptions to this general
statement. It may be applied, however, with some truth to Simone Martini,
the painter, who during his lifetime enjoyed a celebrity only second to
that of Giotto.[152] Like Giotto, Simone exercised his art in many parts
of Italy. Siena, Pisa, Assisi, Orvieto, Naples, and Avignon can still
boast of wall and easel pictures from his hand; and though it has been
suggested that he took no part in the decoration of the Cappella degli
Spagnuoli, the impress of his manner remains at Florence in those noble
frescoes of the "Church Militant" and the "Consecration of S.
Dominic."[153] Simone's first undisputed works are to be seen at Siena and
at Assisi, where we learn what he could do as a _frescante_ in competition
with the ablest Florentines. In the Palazzo Pubblico of his native city he
painted a vast picture of the Virgin enthroned beneath a canopy and
surrounded by saints;[154] while at Assisi he put forth his whole power in
portraying the legend of S. Martin. In all his paintings we trace the
skill of an exquisite and patient craftsman, elaborately careful to finish
his work with the utmost refinement, sensitive to feminine beauty, full of
delicate inventiveness, and gifted with a rare feeling for grace. These
excellent qualities tend, however, towards affectation and over-softness;
nor are they fortified by such vigour of conception or such majesty in
composition as belong to the greatest _trecentisti_. The Lorenzetti alone
soared high above the Sienese mannerism into a region of masculine
imaginative art. We feel Simone's charm mostly in single heads and
detached figures, some of which at Assisi have incomparable sweetness.
"Molles Senae