The Allegory of Good and Bad Government

The city half of Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Effects of Good Government, in the Sala dei Nove of Siena's Palazzo Pubblico, the hall where the Nine who ran the republic met. Painted in the late 1330s, it shows Siena at peace: shops open, builders at work on the rooftops, and a ring of dancers in the street. What makes this wall special is its subject. Instead of saints, Lorenzetti painted politics, a lesson for the city's rulers on what wise government looks like, with bad government's effects on the facing wall as the warning. It is still in the room it was painted for, so you can stand where those magistrates sat.