_School of Taddeo Gaddi_ (Florentine: 1300-1366).
_See also_ (p. xix)
Taddeo Gaddi was the godson and pupil of Giotto, with whom he
lived twenty-four years, and whose tradition he faithfully
carried on: art had "gone back," he used to say, "since his
master's death." His most extensive works were the frescoes
in the Spanish Chapel in Santa Maria Novella (described in
ch. iv. of Ruskin's _Mornings in Florence_). Taddeo was also
distinguished as an architect. "He built the Ponte Vecchio, and
the old stones of it were so laid by him that they are unshaken
to this day."
There is an air of settled peace, of abstract quietude, about this
company of saints which is very impressive--something fixed in the
attitude and features recalling the conventual life as described by St.
Bernard and paraphrased by Wordsworth in his _Ecclesiastical Sonnets_--
Here Man more purely lives, less oft doth fall,
More promptly rises, walks with stricter heed,
More safely rests, dies happier, is freed
Earlier from cleansing fires, and gains withal
A brighter crown.