Italy Guide
Tuscany
Pinacoteca Nazionale
Address: Via San Pietro
Opening time: Mon 8.30am–1.30pm, Tues– Sat 8.15am–7.15pm, Sun 8.15am–1.30pm
Price: €4
The Pinacoteca Nazionale's collection is a roll of honour of Sienese Gothic painting. The first rooms – two storeys up – hold a host of gilded, thirteenth-century Madonnas; in rooms 7–8, two tiny panels recently attributed to Sassetta – City by the Sea and Castle by a Lake – are described as the first-ever landscape paintings entirely devoid of religious purpose. Down one flight are Renaissance works by such as Sodoma, whose panel of the Deposition (room 32) and frescoes from Sant'Agostino (room 37) show his characteristic drama and delight in costume and landscape. The gallery's topmost storey is devoted to the Collezione Spannocchi, a miscellany of Italian, German and Flemish works, including the only painting in the museum by a female artist – Bernardo Campi Painting Sofonisba's Portrait by Sofonisba Anguissola, a neat little joke in which the artist excels in her portrait of Campi, but depicts his portrait of her as a flat stereotype.