Engaging issues of the politicization of art in Sienese painting, sculpture, architecture, and urban design, this volume challenges the still-prevalent myth of Siena's cultural and artistic conservatism after the mid fourteenth century. It explores the evolving relationship between image and politics in Siena. '... valuable for expanding, or perhaps even changing, the lens through which Sienese art is viewed.' CAA Reviews 'Although addressing a wide range of topics, the essays are methodologically similar in their analysis of images, buildings, and forms as instruments of political agendas. The volume is coherent, a pleasure to read, and presents many new ideas about both major monuments and lesser-known works.' The Medieval Review 'Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena makes bold moves. One would not expect a book by that title to steer around perhaps the most famously political images of premodern Europe, the government allegories painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in Siena's Palazzo Pubblico. Further, taking a cue from Chinese painting, editors Timothy Smith and Judith Steinhoff call for a nonlinear view of artistic development in Siena and a turn away from stylistic innovation as a primary qualification for Sienese objects of art historical study.' Studies in Iconography