Guido of Siena, was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 Byzantine style

Byzantine art

Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

 painter of the 13th century.

The name Guido is known from the large panel in the church of S. Domenico in Siena

Siena

Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...

 of the Virgin and Child Enthroned. The rhymed Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 inscription gives the painter's name as Guido de Senis, with the date 1221. However, this date cannot relate to the painting of the panel, which is usually dated on the basis of style to the 1270s. The faces of the Virgin and Child were scraped and repainted in the early 14th century in the manner of Duccio

Duccio

Duccio di Buoninsegna was one of the most influential Italian artists of his time. Born in Siena, Tuscany, he worked mostly with pigment and egg tempera and like most of his contemporaries painted religious subjects...

and so are not representative of Guido's original. A Dossal of the Virgin and Child with four saints (accession No. 7) in the Siena Pinacoteca has an identical inscription, but unfortunately the name before "de Senis" has been cut off. It is very often assumed that the missing name is Guido, and gives us some indication of the original appearance of the Madonna at San Domenico.

Beyond this, little is known of Guido da Siena and his place in Sienese painting before Duccio. Because he is the only Sienese painter of the time to have surviving works on panel with a signature, he is often viewed as the most important artistic personality at the time and the first master of the great Sienese school of painting. However, Bellosi has attempted to associate some "Guidesque" works with the names Dietsalvi di Speme and Guido di Graziano, who are documented with the painting of Biccherna book covers for the Sienese commune in the 1270s.

Sources

• Artcyclopedia - Guido da Siena }
• Joanna Cannon. "Guido da Siena." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T035539
• Hayden Maginnis "Everything in a name? Or the Classification of Sienese Duecento Painting" in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento V.M. Schmidt (ed.) (New Haven and London, 2002) pp. 471–485
• Luciano Bellosi "Per un contesto cimabuesco senese a) Guido da Siena e il probabile Dietisalvi" Propsettiva 61, 1991 pp. 6–20 and "Per un contesto cimabuesco senese b) Rinaldo da Siena e Guido di Graziano" Propsettiva 61, 1991, pp. 15–28