Next to Cimabue, Duccio's Madonna looks almost tender.
Duccio was the founder of the Sienese school — Siena's rival to Florence, equally brilliant and slightly more ornate.
Where Cimabue is severe, Duccio curves.
The Madonna's robe falls in delicate folds.
The angels turn toward each other, beginning to interact.
It was commissioned for the church of Santa Maria Novella, where it remained for 663 years before coming to the Uffizi in 1948.
You are looking at a painting that hung in one church, in one city, for six centuries before anyone thought to move it.
It makes it feel less like an object and more like a presence.
The comparison with Cimabue is entirely deliberate.
Florence vs. Siena, severity vs. grace, two great medieval traditions displayed side by side as they approach their end simultaneously.
Both cities thought they would dominate the Italian Renaissance.
Florence won.
Fun fact: Siena's position was fatally weakened by the Black Death of 1348, which killed two-thirds of its population.
Siena never fully recovered.
Florence did.
