A case of mistaken identity: Ambrogio Lorenzetti's <i>Saint Dorothy</i> from the Church of Santa Petronilla, Siena

This article, based on extensive research work in the state archives of Siena and on detailed knowledge of local historical sources, proposes a radical re-identification of the subject matter and significance of a group of panel paintings by the fourteenth-century Sienese painter, Ambrogio Lorenzetti. These paintings variously depict the Virgin and Christ Child, a number of saints (including a hitherto unidentified depiction of the early Christian Saint Martha) and a narrative painting of the lamentation over the dead Christ after the Crucifixion. The article offers a reconstruction of how these paintings once fitted together as a multi-panelled altarpiece and traces its long and complex history, which took it to a number of different locations within Siena. The article also puts forward a series of hypotheses as to who the original patron of the altarpiece was, the likely date of the commission, the specific Sienese church for which it was designed and how the paintings’ imagery was peculiarly apt for the proposed original location and religious function of this highly innovative altarpiece