The burning of a heretic

Sassetta's Burning of a Heretic, painted around 1423, depicts a scene of judicial execution that reflects the intersection of religious orthodoxy and civic authority in fifteenth-century Siena. The burning of heretics was both a public spectacle and a demonstration of the Church's power to enforce doctrinal conformity. Sassetta — Stefano di Giovanni — was the dominant painter in Siena during the first half of the fifteenth century, maintaining the city's Gothic tradition of refined spirituality and jewel-like color even as Florentine artists were developing the naturalistic revolution of the Early Renaissance.

The urban setting is rendered with Sassetta's careful attention to architectural detail, the crowd gathered around the execution creating a narrative scene of vivid social observation painted in his characteristic luminous palette.