The “Massacre of the Innocents” at the Servite church in Siena: new proposals for a complex palimpsest

Abstract

This study continues the research on the fourteenth-century wall painting arrangement in the Petroni Chapel, located in the right ale of the transept of the Church of the Servites of Siena, focusing on the clearly identifiable modern-age interventions on the painted wall. The aim was to contextualize these later additions within the architectural production spanning the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the building was still one of the main places of worship in the city, largely funded by public institutions. Stylistic considerations have suggested associating some of the refurbishments with the artistic output of Domenico Beccafumi, placing them chronologically at the beginning of the second decade of the sixteenth century.