The Effects of Good Government in the Countryside

Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Effects of Good Government in the Countryside (1338–1339) forms part of his revolutionary fresco cycle in Siena's Palazzo Pubblico, one of the most important works of secular art in the entire Gothic period. Commissioned by the ruling Nine of Siena, the cycle allegorically depicts the benefits of just governance and the horrors of tyranny. The countryside scene shows a prosperous landscape with farmers, travelers, and hunters—an unprecedented celebration of civic virtue expressed through landscape painting.

Fresco on the walls of the Sala dei Nove, not tempera on panel as sometimes catalogued. Ambrogio employs a remarkably expansive panoramic view with aerial perspective, depicting rolling Tuscan hills with naturalistic detail that was unparalleled in European painting until the fifteenth century.