# Reception of Pilgrims and Distribution of Alms [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [DOMENICO DI BARTOLO]() - Date: 1401-1450 - Technique: Fresco, height c. 450 cm ## Commentary Reception of Pilgrims and Distribution of Alms 1442 Fresco, height c. 450 cm Pellegrinaio, Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala, Siena This fresco is located in the 4th bay on the west wall of the Pellegrinaio in the Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala. The Pellegrinaio, situated on the ground floor of the hospital, is a fourteenth-century room which took the form of a long vaulted hall. In the four scenes on the west wall, painted by Domenico di Bartolo, we find large numbers of figures gathered in a stagelike foreground and engaged in the various good works assigned to the hospital by statute in 1305. The settings for these depictions of everyday work of the hospital may reproduce actual spaces within the complex. For all their realism, the scenes are highly idealised. The scene of the Reception of Pilgrims is set in the interior of the hospital-church, which is reproduced with great realism. Pilgrims are streaming into the church through the right-hand door, whereas the open centre door allows us to see the portal of the cathedral just across the street. ## Related artworks - [Birth of the Baptist]() - [Caring for the Sick \(detail\)]() - [Caring for the Sick \(detail\)]() - [Caring for the Sick \(detail\)]() - [Caring for the Sick]() - [Enlargement of the Hospital \(detail\)]() - [Enlargement of the Hospital]() - [Extension of the Privileges by Celestine III \(detail\)]() - [Extension of the Privileges by Celestine III]() - [Feeding of the Poor \(detail\)]() - [Feeding of the Poor]() - [Madonna of Humility]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()