Abstract: Part Three focuses on the artist's connections with the ‘frati minori’ in Siena and the reconstruction and refurbishment work carried out by the officials of the Fraternita di Santa Maria degli Angeli e Compagnia di San Francesco around the middle of the fifteenth century. Chapter One considers the history and background of the Franciscan fraternity, detailing its increasing importance following the death and canonisation of the Beato Bernardino Albizzeschi. Records about building work expanding the company's old hospital (a structure initiated by Aldobrandino di Galgano Tolomei) are set against evidence of the role assumed by a second sponsor, Antonio di Francesco di Jacopo di Lapo; including that individual's involvement in a commission to Giovanni di Paolo and Sano di Pietro to produce a new altarpiece for the confraternity.

Keywords: San Francesco; the Beato Bernardino Albizzeschi; hospitals; patronage and sponsorship; refurbishment work.

The close relationship that was formed between different groups of lay religious and the ‘frati minori’ as the latter constructed their new conventual complex and basilical church of San Francesco in Siena takes centre stage in my current research. Tracking records about foundations, tituli, membership lists, and the various spaces in which lay religious assembled over time I am engaged in showing how the fifteenth-century Fraternita di Santa Maria degli Angeli e Compagnia di San Francesco could trace its origins back to the earliest group of Franciscans who assembled outside the walls of Siena in the early thirteenth century. I am also attempting to show how the various furnishings and fittings (including the ‘Master of San Bernardino’ altarpiece of the Virgin and Child) that accompanied different groups of lay religious as they moved from one part of the conventual complex of San Francesco to another over time reflected individual confraternity histories. I argue that exploration of this kind helps us understand not only the circumstances under which Giovanni di Paolo and Sano di Pietro were commissioned to paint a new altarpiece for the Fraternita di Santa Maria degli Angeli e Compagnia di San Francesco around the middle of the fifteenth century, but also the significance of the parallel brief to Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei to fresco the same company's chapel. Some of the key findings of that research are summarised here.