Editing Maestà (section)

==Examples of ''Maestà'' in painting==
{{main|Maestà (Duccio)}} 
The most famous example of the ''Maestà'' is the ''Maestà with Twenty Angels and Nineteen Saints'', an [[altarpiece]] comprising many individual paintings commissioned by the city of [[Siena]] in 1308 from the artist [[Duccio di Buoninsegna]]. The painting was installed in the [[Siena Cathedral|city's cathedral]] on June 9, 1311. Although it took a generation for its effect truly to be felt, Duccio's ''Maestà'' set Italian painting on a course leading away from the hieratic representations of Byzantine art towards more direct presentations of reality.{{Cn|date=August 2021}}

Creating this altarpiece assembled from many wood panels bonded together before painting was an arduous undertaking. The work was not only large, the central panel was 7 by 13 feet, but it had to be painted on both sides since it could be seen from all directions when installed on the main altar at the centre of the sanctuary.<ref>Stockstad, Marilyn</ref>

On the back of the ''Maesta'' were episodes from the life of Christ, focusing on his Passion. Sacred narrative unfolds in elegant episodes enacted by graceful figures who seem to dance their way through these stories while still conveying emotional content.<ref>Stokstad, Marilyn</ref>

Because the ''Maesta'' was dismantled in 1771, its power and beauty can only be imagined from scattered parts, some still in Siena, Italy, but others elsewhere.<ref>Stokstad, Marilyn</ref>

Other noted examples of the ''Maestà'' are [[Simone Martini]]'s ''Maestà'' in the [[Palazzo Pubblico]], Siena, or [[Cimabue]]'s fresco in the [[Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi]].{{Cn|date=August 2021}}