Fresco St Clare of Assisi by Simone Martini 1325

On the underside of the entrance arch of the Cappella di San Martino eight full-length saints are painted in four pairs. They are Saints Francis, Clare, and Anthony of Padua - tributes to the Order that administered the Basilica - as well as other saints connected to Robert of Anjou: Louis of Toulouse, his older brother; Elizabeth of Hungary, the aunt of his mother, Mary; Louis IX, King of France, his great-grandfather; Mary Magdalene and Catherine of Alexandria, saints his father Charles II was particularly devoted to.

Simone was doubtlessly apprenticed from an early age, as would have been the normal practice. Perpetuating the Sienese tradition, Simone's style contrasted with the sobriety and monumentality of Florentine art, and is noted for its soft, stylized, decorative features, sinuosity of line, and courtly elegance. Simone's art owes much to French manuscript illumination and ivory carving: examples of such art were brought to Siena in the fourteenth century by means of the Via Francigena, a main pilgrimage and trade route from Northern Europe to Rome.

Simone painted the frescoes in the San Martino Chapel in the lower church of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, and died while in the service of the Papal court at Avignon in 1344.

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