View of the Oratory

Frescoes in the oratories of brotherhoods are found throughout Italy. In 1516 to 1518 the Sienese brotherhood of Mary and Bernardino commissioned Girolamo del Pacchia, Sodoma, and Domenico Beccafumi to fresco the walls of their oratory with a cycle on the life of Mary, The artists painted two stories each: Pacchia, the Birth of Mary and the Annunciation; Sodoma, the Presentation of the Virgin and the Coronation of Mary; and Beccafumi, the Betrothal of Mary and the Death of the Virgin. The missing scenes on the right-hand longitudinal wall, the Visitation and the Assumption of the Virgin were not painted by Sodoma until the late 1520s, and Baccafumi’s altarpiece still later, between 1535 and 1537. The cycle begins on the left wall (The Birth of Mary to THe Betrothal of Mary), and continues above the altar wall (Annunciation) and the right longitudinal wall (Visitation to Assumption of the Virgin) through the second of the short walls (The Coronation of Mary). In addition to the stories from the life of Mary, there are four frescoed standing figures of Franciscan saints in the corners of the longitudinal walls.