PIETRO LORENZETTI (C. elder brother of Ambro gio, called Pietro Laurati by Vasari, son of Lorenzo Laurati, was probably a pupil of Duccio. According to Vasari he worked in Florence, Pisa, Pistoia and Arezzo, as well as in his native town; he may have visited Assisi. The earliest work of which docu mentary evidence exists is the altarpiece of 1320 in S. Maria della Pieve at Arezzo. In 1328 he painted the Madonna for S. Ansano at Dofana outside Siena; and one year later the altarpiece for the church of the Carmine, of which the centrepiece is lost, and of which parts of the predella are in the Siena academy and in the Vatican gallery. We know from documentary evidence that in 1333 he painted a Madonna over one of the doors of the cathe dral ; and that two years later, in co-operation with his brother Ambrogio, he decorated the façade of the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala with scenes from the life of the Virgin. Un fortunately, both of these works have been destroyed. In 1340 he painted the "Madonna with Angels" for the church of San Francesco at Pistoia, which is in the Uffizi at Florence; in 1342 the "Nativity of the Virgin" in the Opera del Duomo, one of his most pleasant works. Both these pictures are signed. This closes the list of authenticated works.
The Siena gallery possesses a number of paintings which have been ascribed to the master on stylistic evidence. Among these
the "Assumption" is the most important. To Pietro's early period is ascribed an altarpiece in the Academy of Florence rep resenting St. Humility of Faenza, and scenes from her life. Two panels thereof are in the Berlin museum. This picture was painted for the convent at Vallombrosa in 1316. Moreover, Crowe and Cavalcaselle have attributed to him the frescoes of the Passion in the Lower church of San Francesco at Assisi and of the Crucifixion in San Francesco at Siena, a scene full of dramatic power. This attribution has been generally accepted; and on these works Pietro's fame as a great artist rests, for they are extremely fine and expressive paintings. The famous frescoes representing the "Triumph of Death," the "Last Judgment" and the "Hermits of the Thebaid," in the Campo Santo at Pisa, have also been ascribed to him by some authorities; they are some times given to a follower of the Lorenzetti.
See Vasari, Vite (edit. Milanesi) ; Ghiberti, I Commentari (1912); Milanesi, Documenti per la Storia dell Arte Senese (1854) ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, History of Italian Painting (edit. L. Douglas, 1911) ; Langton-Douglas, History of Siena (1902); Raimond van Marle, The Italian Schools of Painting, ii. (1924). (I. A. R.)