IN a well-known passage in the Commentari, Lorenzo Ghiberti noted that the Sienese considered Simone Martinito be their greatest artist.* Although the sculptor did not share this view, preferring the more Florentine-inspired art of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, he conceded that Simone was 'a most noble painter and very famous'. At the head of his list of Simone's works he cited, not surprisingly, the grandiose Maesta in the Palazzo Pubblico, 'marvellously coloured', and went on to note 'in the same palace a very fine altar-piece' ('una tavola molto buona'). In a ground- breaking study of 1981, Marvin Eisenberg definitively identified this work with a polyptych which was once in the principal chapel of the palace (the Cappella dei Signori) and which, as we know from documents, was furnished between 1448 and 1452 with a predella by Sano di Pietro and an elaborate intarsia frame by the carpenter Giovanni da Magno. Ghiberti had known it in its simpler form.

'). In a ground- breaking study of 1981, Marvin Eisenberg definitively identified this work with a polyptych which was once in the principal chapel of the palace (the Cappella dei Signori) and which, as we know from documents, was furnished between 1448 and 1452 with a predella by Sano di Pietro and an elaborate intarsia frame by the carpenter Giovanni da Magno. Ghiberti had known it in its simpler form.

TWo tondi depicting the Annunciation, widely accepted on stylistic grounds as works of Filippino Lippi, hang in the Museo Civico in San Gimignano (Figs.20-21). Commissioned in 1482 by the government of that city, they were part of a programme of decoration of the Palazzo Comunale during the second half of the fifteenth century which included major construction as well as restoration. Newly discovered documents concerning the frames of the tondi provide valuable data on where and how they were hung and reveal the patrons' concern for their proper setting. Recently, the frames were restored and reunited with the pictures, creating an opportune moment to examine this new information.

provide valuable data on where and how they were hung and reveal the patrons' concern for their proper setting. Recently, the frames were restored and reunited with the pictures, creating an opportune moment to examine this new information.

IN 1981 Michael Hirst published in this Magazine documents relating to the commissioning from Michelangelo of an altar- piece for the church of S. Agostino in Rome. The documents show that in September 1500 Michelangelo received sixty ducats to paint a panel for a chapel in the church, endowed through the legacy of Giovanni Ebu, the deceased bishop of Crotone. In the following spring he abandoned the project, returned the money, and the commission passed to another painter, 'maestro Andrea', who delivered a finished panel to the church in June 1502. Hirst proposed that the panel begun for the commission and then abandoned was the unfinished panel of Christ carried to the tomb now in the National Gallery in London (Fig.25).

now in the National Gallery in London (Fig.25).

ON 13th October 1536 Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called II Sodoma, resolved a dispute with two of his patrons, the brothers Arduino and Giovanni di Matteo Arduini, before the tribunal of the Mercanzia in Siena. The grounds for their disagreement evi- dently lay in the fee for two works which Sodoma had painted for them, a large altar-piece for the family chapel of the Three Magi in the Sienese church of S. Agostino and a painted tondo for private devotion. Vannoccio Biringucci, who had succeeded Baldassarre Peruzzi in the office of Architetto del Pubblico and Capomaestro dell'Opera del Duomo, ruled that the Arduini had already paid the painter in full for the altar-piece and all else that he had done in the chapel. Biringucci thus allowed the Arduini brothers to keep the altar-piece but ordered them to re- turn to Sodoma a roundel with the Madonna, St Elisabeth and St Joseph in its carved and gilded frame immediately upon re- ceiving seven scudi from the artist (see the Appendix below).The Adoration of the Magi is still in the church of S. Agostino (Fig.30) and has since the time of Vasari been considered as one of Sodoma's principal works. The 1536 dispute constitutes the only documented reference to the painted tondo, and biogra- phers of Sodoma have considered it to be lost. Nevertheless this second painting for the Arduini can be identified with a work now in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, which has hitherto received little attention (Fig.27).

is still in the church of S. Agostino (Fig.30) and has since the time of Vasari been considered as one of Sodoma's principal works. The 1536 dispute constitutes the only documented reference to the painted tondo, and biogra- phers of Sodoma have considered it to be lost. Nevertheless this second painting for the Arduini can be identified with a work now in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, which has hitherto received little attention (Fig.27).