The Allegory Of Good And Bad Government Analysis

In the year of 1337, Amborgio Lorenzetti was tasked to paint a series of frescoes covering the the walls of the Sala Dei Nove in the Plazzo Pubblico called “The Allegory of Good and Bad Government”. As with other frescoes in secular buildings of the Renaissance era, Lorenzetti’s Good and Bad Government was meant to serve a political purpose1. These murals that showed Siena’s goals and views were to be viewed by the Council of Nine, Siena’s ruling council whose members were chosen from the elite of the city’s oligarchy2. Lorenzetti’s allegory shows that justice and the common good lie at the heart of an ideal civic life. Before addressing the frescoes’ figures and meanings, it is better to lay out the arrangement of the paintings. Occupying
The scene depicting distributive and commutative justice links to Aristotle’s justice book Nicomachean Ethics and Thomas Aquinas’ book Summa Theologica who adopted the concepts of distributive and commutative justice. In the allegory, commutative justice can be seen resolving a dispute between two men. To its left lies the scale of justice while on the left appears instruments of capital punishment. On the other hand, distributive justice can be seen giving out money and goods to two people while looking at bars labeled i, ii. iii, iv which are successive integers representing the concept of Proportionate Equality of Aristotle and Thomas4. This distinction between distributive and commutative justice represents that
In the right fresco, Lorenzetti is presenting us with a kind of a utopia. In the city, the people are living in harmony with each other and we can observe justice and order between the people and their interactions. Some people are engaging in commerce, others are attending a lecture, on top of a building is group of construction workers who are actively building and in the bottom right a group of women with elaborate dresses can be seen dancing. The city is lively and full of people. Just like the city, the country side is also filled with people living their daily lives peacefully. At the entrance of the city, a group of people on horseback are leaving the city probably for hunting (one of them is holding a falcon), in front of him is peasant walking a pig into the city for sale. Before the city entrance, a group of donkeys are carrying grains into the city from the fields. This fresco is an allegory showing the effects on the state of a just government ruling for the common good. However, in the absence of the justice and common good, the city and the country side represent a dystopia. We can see the city being actively destroyed, instead of the neat architecture and paintings we see damaged buildings. In the bottom, a woman is being carried away by two men which below her lies another woman on the floor. In the country side, the fields