Sala d'Arte San Giovanni

The Sala d'Arte San Giovanni displays a small collection of Sienese painting in the former oratory of Castiglione d'Orcia. Its panels include Madonnas associated with Simone Martini, Vecchietta and Giovanni di Paolo, alongside devotional objects from churches across the area.

Why it matters

Parish churches in Castiglione d'Orcia and Rocca d'Orcia once held the panels and furnishings now gathered in the gallery. Created by the commune, the parish of Santi Stefano e Degna and the local Pro Loco, the museum opened in 2006 in the former oratory of the confraternity of San Giovanni Battista. Its collection traces Sienese painting from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries through later works. Several panels had previously spent years at the Museo di Montalcino.

What to notice

The Madonna and Child associated with Simone Martini is dated to around 1320–1325; the child holds a small swallow. Nearby are the Madonna and Child with angels by Lorenzo di Pietro, known as Vecchietta, and a Madonna and Child with angels by Giovanni di Paolo. Works from Neri di Bicci's workshop include a Lamentation over the Dead Christ, a fragmentary Trinity with Saints Sebastian, John the Evangelist and Roch, and a Madonna del Latte. The collection also includes two thirteenth-century processional crosses, sacred vessels and furnishings from the lay confraternities, and moulds for pressing blessed bread and altar hosts. Pietro Lorenzetti's Madonna delle Grazie remains in the parish church of Santi Stefano e Degna.

Context and history

The oratory of the confraternity of San Giovanni Battista was built between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. After decades of disuse, it passed to the commune for conservation and restoration. The restored interior combines maple panelling, pre-oxidised iron details and fibre-optic lighting with the historic stucco altar and its original columns. The gallery is part of the Fondazione Musei Senesi circuit of Castiglione d'Orcia, alongside the town's fortresses.