To mature his style Duccio needed only to intensify the qualities of sweetness and grace which are evident already in the Rucellai Madonna. The stages of his growth are represented in minor works at Siena and in British and Roman collections. But his fame, for the layman, is associated with the magnificent altar-piece which he executed for the Cathedral of Siena, and only the special student need look beyond it. On the 9th of October, 1309, Duccio contracted with the trustees of the Cathedral to do a great altar-piece wholly with his own hands, at the rate of sixteen soldi a day and expenses. He promised to take no other work during the painting. It was finished in June of 1311 and carried in solemn procession from the bottega outside the Porta a Stalloreggi to the Cathedral. A chronicler describes the cortege “parading about the Campo, as is usual, all the bells pealing a glory in devotion for so noble a picture as this is.... And all that day they kept praying with many alms which were given to poor folk, praying to God and His Mother, who is our advocate, that she defend us in her infinite mercy from every adversity and every ill, and save us from the hands of traitors and foes of Siena.” Most characteristic of the febrile patriotism of Siena is this constant dread of the traitor. About a year before this ceremony the trustees enlarged the scheme for the picture, making an additional contract for thirty-eight stories to be paid at the rate of two florins and a half each. These were put on the back of the altar-piece, covering very fully the life of Christ and that of the Virgin. Thus the front of the altar-piece represents the decorative and monumental ideals of Sienese painting while the back exemplifies its feeling for narrative. Everything that Sienese painting was to be is already in germ in this marvellous work. In depicting the Virgin “in Majesty,” Figure 37, Duccio has magnified the theme. Earlier pictures show only a handful of angels in attendance. Here we have a cloud of celestial witnesses, the four patrons of Siena kneeling in the foreground, at the sides charming alternation of grim, bearded evangelists, orientally soft girl martyrs, and youthful archangels. Seven years earlier Cimabue had conceived a similar great Majesty for the Church of Santa Chiara at Pisa.[19] Doubtless Duccio had seen it, and, though it is lost to us, we may assume, that the Sienese artist outdid his prototype both in sweetness and splendor.