Care of the Sick

Domenico di Bartolo's Care of the Sick, painted around 1441 and now in the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, is one of a remarkable cycle of fresco-like panels painted for the great Sienese hospital that directly document the actual charitable work performed there — the reception of foundlings, the care of the sick and poor, the feeding of pilgrims. Domenico di Bartolo, one of the most significant Sienese painters of the mid-fifteenth century, received the commission for this cycle as part of a larger decorative program for the hospital's pilgrim hall.

Tempera on panel or fresco secco, with the narrative clarity required of a large-scale institutional decorative commission. The scene is rendered with documentary specificity — hospital beds, medical attendants, patients — prioritizing historical legibility over idealized devotional forms.