Night view of Piazza del Campo with torchlight and procession for the arrival in Siena of Francis I of Lorena and Maria Teresa of Austria on April 3, 1739

These two canvases show the salient moments of the festivities held for the visit to Siena of the Grand Duke of the House of Lorraine, who arrived in the city between 2 and 3 April 1739. The canvases come from the Sansedoni collection in Siena, where it is certain they were in 1751, since they both appear in an inventory drawn up during that year. Documents found in the Sansedoni Archives, now the property of Monte dei Paschi, testify vividly to the air of euphoria surrounding the preparations for the arrival from Florence of the two illustrious personages.

As early as March 23, work began on the decorations of the Campo with “pictures representing a colonnade, with a railing above, [which] promise to do very well, both in the evening for the illumination and in the daytime for the Pallonata de’ Rozzi [a ball game] and for the running of the Palio.” On the 2 and 3 of April “this Palio was run… That same evening great illumination was made of the said Contradas [the Oca and the Lupa] with torches and banners unfurled.” Despite the fact that the two scenes painted by Zocchi correspond in large part to the report of the festivities contained in the documents just cited, some elements suggest that the painter was not a personal witness to the events in the city on April 2 and 3. Scholars have determined that Zocchi painted his views from two engravings of the same subject commissioned from the Roman Domenico Rossi in 1717 on the occasion of the festivities held in Siena for the visit of Princess Violante of Bavaria. As in Rossi’s print, the scene of the Palio painted by Zocchi shows the jockey of the contrada of the Bruco on the ground. In his nocturne of the Campo square, however, Zocchi includes the façade of the new Palazzo Chigi-Zondadari, built only after 1726. Evidently, Zocchi had been able to visit Siena and observe the Campo directly as it appeared after the new construction.

The derivation from Rossi’s engravings, nonetheless, does not detract from the richness of the description of the scenes; the meticulous, accurate rendering of the details gives a wonderful synthesis of the urban and social reality of Siena in the middle of the eighteenth century.