Born circa 1255; died circa 1319. Italian painter. Founder of the 14th-century Sienese school of painting.

Duccio di Buoninsegna did not join the masters of the Roman and Florentine schools in their quest for the innovative. Although primarily influenced by Italo-Byzantine painting and French Gothic miniature painting, Duccio’s works do re-veal some characteristics of pre-Renaissance art. His altar-pieces, distinguished by gold ornamental backgrounds and vivid, refined color schemes, are lyrical and possess an emotionally expressive and refined linear rhythm (for example, the Madonna With Saints, National Pinocoteca, Siena, and the Rucellai Madonna, 1285, Ufizzi Gallery, Florence). In his main work, the Maestà altarpiece for the Cathedral of Siena (a double-sided polyptych, 1308-11, main part now in the Cathedral Museum, Siena), Duccio represented the Madonna enthroned with angels and saints on the obverse side and scenes of the passion of Christ on the reverse side. Without totally breaking away from medieval canons, Duccio sought to endow traditional compositional schemes with a more convincing lifelike quality and to convey a sense of volume and space. There are several reconstructions suggesting the original form of the polyptych.