5. Duccio di Buoninsegna. The Coronation of the Virgin, The Assumption of the Virgin, and The Burial of the Virgin, with Saints John the Evangelist, Matthew, B artholomew, Crescentius, Savinus, Luke, and Mark, 1287 – 88. Rose window of stained and painted glass, diam. 18 ft. 4 in. (5.6 m). Duomo, Siena
6. Interior of Siena Cathedral, looking down the nave toward the altar and the rose window. Duomo, Siena
high altar of the cathedral, below the great rose window in the apse that Duccio had designed more than two decades earlier (figs. 5 and 6). In that dimly lit interior dominated by the black and white stripes of the marble revetment, the gold background would have come alive in the flickering candlelight. As the local historian Sigismondo Tizio observed two centuries after the altarpiece was made, the Virgin “seemed to gaze [at the people] in whatever place they were standing.” Worshipers and art lovers alike were mesmerized. Great attention was lavished on the altarpiece, the key ornament of the cathedral, which itself was greatly enlarged in an ambitious building campaign that began in 1317. Inventories drawn up in 1420 and 1423 relate that a baldachin supported on wrought iron poles was built over the painting. From three little tabernacles carved and gilded angels could be made to descend with the utensils for Mass. Four flying angels, each with a single candle kept burning day and night, were hung two in front and two behind, together with three lamps, two in front and one behind, and two ostrich eggs (a symbol of the Virgin Birth). Four further candle-bearing angels stood on the altar, at the sides of which were wrought 14