which was passing good, he returned to Florence, where, in the year
1383, he painted the stories of S. John the Evangelist in the Chapel of
the Beccuti, in S. Maria Maggiore. On the wall of the church beside this
chapel, which is on the left hand of the principal chapel, there follow
six stories of the same Saint by the same man's hand, very well composed
and ingeniously ordered, wherein, among other things, there is very
vividly depicted a S. John who is causing his own garment to be placed
by S. Dionysius the Areopagite over some corpses, which are returning to
life in the name of Jesus Christ, to the great marvel of some who, being
present at this deed, can scarce believe their own eyes. In the figures
of the dead, likewise, there is seen very great mastery in some
foreshortenings, whereby it is clearly demonstrated that Lippo knew, and
in part grappled with, certain difficulties of the art of painting. It
was Lippo, likewise, who painted the folding leaves in the Church of S.
Giovanni--namely, those of the shrine wherein are the angels and the S.
John in relief by the hand of Andrea; and on them he wrought very
diligently in distemper stories of S. John the Baptist. And because he
also delighted in working in mosaic, in the said S. Giovanni, over the
door that leads to the Misericordia, between the windows, he made a
beginning, which was held very beautiful and the best work in mosaic
which had been made in that place up to that time; and he also restored
some works in that church, likewise in mosaic, which were spoilt.
Without Florence, too, in S. Giovanni fra l'Arcora without the Porta a
Faenza, a church which was destroyed in the siege of the said city, he
painted in fresco, beside a Passion of Christ wrought by Buffalmacco,
many figures which were held very beautiful by all who saw them. In
like manner, in certain little hospitals at the Porta a Faenza, and in
S. Antonio within the said gate, near the hospital, he painted certain
beggars in fresco, in diverse beautiful manners and attitudes; and
within the cloisters, with beautiful and new invention, he painted a
vision wherein he represented S. Anthony gazing on the snares of the
world, and beside these the will and the desires of men, who are drawn
by both the first and the second to the diverse things of this world;
and all this he painted with much thought and judgment. Lippo also
wrought works in mosaic in many parts of Italy, and in the Palace of the
Guelph party in Florence he made a figure with the head glazed; and in
Pisa, also, there are many of his works. But none the less it can be
said that he was truly unfortunate, not only because the greater part of
his labours are now thrown down, having gone to ruin in the havoc of the
siege of Florence, but also because he ended the course of his life very
unhappily; for Lippo being a litigious person and fonder of discord than
of peace, and having one morning used very ugly words towards an
adversary at the tribunal of the Mercanzia,[4] he was waylaid by this
man one evening when he was returning to his house, and stabbed in the
breast with a knife so grievously, that a few days afterwards he died
miserably. His pictures date about 1410.
[Footnote 4: The Tribunal of commerce.]
About the same time as Lippo there was in Bologna another painter,
Dalmasi, also called Lippo, who was an able man, and who painted, among
other works, in the year 1407 (as it may be seen in S. Petronio in
Bologna), a Madonna which is held in great veneration; and in fresco,
the arch over the door of S. Procolo; and in the Church of S. Francesco,
in the tribune of the high-altar, he made a large Christ between S.
Peter and S. Paul, with good grace and manner, and below this work there
is seen his own name written in large letters. He drew passing well, as
it may be seen in our book; and he taught the art to M. Galante da
Bologna, who afterwards drew much better than he, as it may be seen in
the said book, in a portrait from the life, a figure in a short coat
with puffed sleeves.
DON LORENZO MONACO
LIFE OF DON LORENZO MONACO
OF THE ANGELI IN FLORENCE, PAINTER
For a good and religious person, I believe, there must be great
contentment in having ready to his hand some honourable exercise,
whether that of letters, or of music, or of painting, or of any other
liberal or mechanical arts, such as are not blameworthy, but rather
useful and helpful to other men; for the reason that after the divine
offices the time passes honourably with the delight that is taken in the
sweet labours of these pleasant exercises. And to this it may be added
that not only is he esteemed and held in price by others the while that
he lives, provided that they be not envious and malign, but that he is
also honoured after death by all men, by reason of his works and of the
good name that he leaves to those who survive him. And in truth one who
spends his time in this manner, lives in quiet contemplation and without
being molested by those ambitious desires which are almost always seen,
to their shame and loss, in the idle and unoccupied, who are for the
most part ignorant. And even if it comes about that our virtuous man is
sometimes smitten by the malign, so powerful is the force of virtue that
time covers up and buries the malice of the wicked, and the virtuous
man, throughout the ages that follow, remains ever famous and
illustrious.
Don Lorenzo, then, a painter of Florence, was a monk of the Order of
Camaldoli in the Monastery of the Angeli, which monastery was founded in
the year 1294 by Fra Guittone d'Arezzo, of the Militant Order of the
Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ, or rather, as the monks of that Order
were vulgarly called, of the Joyous Friars; and he applied himself in
his earliest years to design and to painting with so great zeal, that he
was afterwards deservedly numbered among the best of the age in that
exercise. The first works of this painter-monk, who held to the manner
of Taddeo Gaddi and his disciples, were in his Monastery of the Angeli,
where, among many other things, he painted the panel of the high-altar,
which is still seen to-day in their church, and which was completely
finished, as it may be seen from letters written below on the ornament,
in the year 1413, when it was set in place. On a panel, likewise, which
was in the Monastery of S. Benedetto, of the same Order of Camaldoli,
which was outside the Porta a Pinti and was destroyed in 1529, in the
siege of Florence, Don Lorenzo painted a Coronation of Our Lady, even as
he had also done in the panel for his own Church of the Angeli; and this
panel, painted for S. Benedetto, is to-day in the first cloister of the
said Monastery of the Angeli, in the Chapel of the Alberti, on the right
hand. About the same time, or perchance before, in S. Trinita at
Florence, he painted in fresco the Chapel of the Ardinghelli, with its
panel, which was much praised at that time; and there he made from
nature the portraits of Dante and of Petrarca. In S. Piero Maggiore he
painted the Chapel of the Fioravanti, and the panel in a chapel in S.
Piero Scheraggio; and in the said Church of S. Trinita he painted the
Chapel of the Bartolini. In S. Jacopo Sopra Arno, also, there is seen a
panel by his hand, very well wrought and executed with infinite
diligence according to the manner of those times. In the Certosa without
Florence, likewise, he painted some pictures with good mastery; and in
S. Michele in Pisa, a monastery of his Order, he painted some panels
that are passing good. And in Florence, in the Church of the Romiti[5]
(also belonging to the Order of Camaldoli), which, being in ruins
together with the monastery, has to-day left no memory but the name to
that quarter on the other side of the Arno, which is called Camaldoli
from the name of that holy place, among other works, he painted a
Crucifix on panel, with a S. John, which were held very beautiful.
Finally, falling sick of a cruel imposthume, which kept him suffering
for many months, he died at the age of fifty-five, and was honourably
buried by his fellow-monks, as his virtues deserved, in the
chapter-house of their monastery.
[Footnote 5: Church of the Hermits.]
And because it often happens, as experience shows, that from one
single germ, with time and by means of the study and intelligence of
men, there spring up many, in the said Monastery of the Angeli, where in
former times the monks ever applied themselves to painting and to
design, not only was the said Don Lorenzo excellent among them, but many
men excellent in the matters of design also flourished there for a long
space of time, both before and after him. Wherefore it appears to me by
no means right to pass over in silence one Don Jacopo, a Florentine, who
lived long before the said Don Lorenzo, for the reason that, even as he
was a very good and very worthy monk, so was he a better writer of large
letters than any who lived either before or after him, not only in
Tuscany, but in all Europe, as it is clearly proved not only by the
twenty very large volumes of choral books that he left in his monastery,
which are the most beautiful, as regards the writing, as well as the
largest that there are perchance in Italy, but also by an infinity of
others which are to be found in Rome, in Venice, and in many other
places, and above all in S. Michele and in S. Mattia di Murano, a
monastery of his Order of Camaldoli; for which works this good father
well deserved, very many years after he had passed to a better life, not
only that Don Paolo Orlandini, a very learned monk of the same
monastery, should celebrate him with many Latin verses, but that his
right hand, wherewith he wrote the said books, should be preserved with
much veneration in a shrine, as it still is, together with that of
another monk called Don Silvestro, who, according to the standard of
those times, illuminated the said books no less excellently than Don
Jacopo had written them. And I, who have seen them many times, remain in
a marvel that they were executed with so much design and with so much
diligence in those times, when the arts of design were little less than
lost; for the works of these monks date about the year of our salvation
1350, more or less, as it may be seen in each of the said books. It is
said, and some old men still remember it, that when Pope Leo X came to
Florence he wished to see the said books and examine them carefully,
remembering that he had heard them much praised to Lorenzo de' Medici
the Magnificent, his father; and that after he had looked at them with
attention and admiration, as they all lay open on the desks of the
choir, he said, "If they were according to the Roman Church, and not,
as they are, according to the monastic use and ordering of Camaldoli, we
would be pleased to take some volumes of them for S. Pietro in Rome,
giving just recompense to the monks"; in which church there were
formerly, and perhaps there still are, two others of them by the hand of
the same monks, both very beautiful. In the same Monastery of the Angeli
there are many ancient embroideries, wrought with very beautiful manner
and with much design by the ancient fathers of that place, while they
were living in perpetual enclosure under the name not of monks but of
hermits, without ever issuing from the monastery, in such wise as do the
sisters and nuns of our own day; which enclosure lasted until the year
1470.
[Illustration: THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN
(_After the polyptych by_ Don Lorenzo Monaco. _Florence: Uffizi, 1309_)
_Anderson_]
But to return to Don Lorenzo; he taught Francesco Fiorentino, who, after
his death, painted the shrine that is on the Canto di S. Maria Novella,
at the head of the Via della Scala, on the way to the Sala del Papa; and
he taught another disciple, a Pisan, who painted a Madonna, S. Peter, S.
John the Baptist, S. Francis, and S. Ranieri, and three scenes with
little figures on the predella of the altar, in the Church of S.
Francesco at Pisa, in the Chapel of Rutilio di Ser Baccio Maggiolini;
and this work, painted in 1315, was held passing good for something
wrought in distemper. In my book of drawings I have, by the hand of Don
Lorenzo, the Theological Virtues done in chiaroscuro with good design
and beautiful and graceful manner, insomuch that they are peradventure
better than the drawings of any other master whatsoever of those times.
A passing good painter in the time of Don Lorenzo was Antonio Vite of
Pistoia, who, besides many other works--as it has been said in the Life
of Starnina--painted, in the Palace of the Ceppo at Prato, the life of
Francesco di Marco, founder of that holy place.
[Illustration: DON LORENZO MONACO: THE ANNUNCIATION
(_Florence: Accademia, 143. Panel_)]
TADDEO BARTOLI
[Illustration: TADDEO BARTOLI: MADONNA, CHILD, AND ANGELS
(_Perugia: Pinacoteca. Panel_)]
LIFE OF TADDEO BARTOLI
PAINTER OF SIENA
It is the due of those craftsmen who, in order to acquire a name, put
themselves to much fatigue in painting, that their works should be
placed, not in a dark and dishonourable position, wherefore they may be
blamed by those who have no more understanding than this, but in some
spot where, through the nobility of the place, through the lights, and
through the air, they can be rightly seen and studied by all, as was and
still is the public work of the chapel that Taddeo Bartoli, painter of
Siena, wrought in the Palazzo della Signoria in Siena.
Taddeo, then, was the son of Bartolo di Maestro Fredi, who was a
mediocre painter in his day and painted the whole wall (on the left hand
as one enters) of the Pieve of San Gimignano with stories of the Old
Testament; in which work, which in truth was not very good, there may
still be read in the middle this epitaph:
A.D. 1356, BARTOLUS MAGISTRI FREDI DE SENIS ME PINXIT.
At this time Bartolo must have been young, because in a panel containing
the Circumcision of Our Lord, together with some saints, wrought
likewise by him in the year 1388 in S. Agostino, in the same territory,
on the left hand as one enters the church through the principal door, it
is seen that he had a much better manner both in drawing and in
colouring, seeing that some heads therein are beautiful enough, although
the feet of those figures are in the ancient manner. In short, there are
seen many other works by the hand of Bartolo in those parts.
But to return to Taddeo: the painting of the Chapel of the Palazzo della
Signoria in his native city being entrusted to him, as it has been said,
as the best master of those times, it was wrought by him with so great
diligence, and so greatly honoured with regard to its situation, and
paid for by the Signoria in such a manner, that Taddeo largely increased
his glory and fame thereby; wherefore not only did he afterwards paint
many panels in his own country, to his great honour and infinite profit,
but he was invited with great favour and sought for from the Signoria of
Siena by Francesco da Carrara, Lord of Padua, to the end that he might
go, as he did, to paint certain works in that most noble city; where,
particularly in the Arena and in the Santo, he wrought some panels and
other works with much diligence, to his own great honour and to the
satisfaction of that Lord and of the whole city. Returning afterwards to
Tuscany, he wrought a panel in distemper, which inclines to the manner
of Ugolino Sanese, in San Gimignano; and this panel is to-day behind the
high-altar of the Pieve, and faces the choir of the priests. Going next
to Siena, he did not stay there long before he was invited by one of the
Lanfranchi, the Warden of Works of the Duomo, to Pisa; and betaking
himself thither, he made in fresco, in the Chapel of the Nunziata, the
scene when the Madonna ascends the steps of the Temple, at the head of
which the priest is awaiting her in full canonicals--a highly-finished
work. In the face of this priest he portrayed the said Warden of Works,
and beside him his own self. This work finished, the same Warden of
Works made him paint over the chapel in the Campo Santo a Madonna being
crowned by Jesus Christ, with many angels in very beautiful attitudes
and very well coloured. In like manner, for the Chapel of the Sacristy
of S. Francesco in Pisa Taddeo made a Madonna and some saints on a panel
painted in distemper, placing thereon his name and the year when it was
painted, which was the year 1394. And about this same time he wrought
certain panels in distemper at Volterra, and a panel at Monte Oliveto,
with a Hell in fresco on a wall, wherein he followed the invention of
Dante in so far as relates to the division of the sins and to the form
of the punishments, but in the place itself he either could not or would
not imitate him, or knew not how. He also sent to Arezzo a panel that
is in S. Agostino, wherein he portrayed Pope Gregory XI--namely, the
Pope who brought the Court back to Italy after it had been so many
decades of years in France.
[Illustration: POLYPTYCH
(_After the panel by_ Taddeo Bartoli. _Perugia: Gallery 9_)
_Anderson_]
Returning after these works to Siena, he made no very long stay there,
because he was called to work at Perugia in the Church of S. Domenico,
where, in the Chapel of S. Caterina, he painted in fresco all the life
of that Saint; and in S. Francesco, beside the door of the sacristy, he
made some figures which, although to-day little can be discerned of
them, are known to be by the hand of Taddeo, who held ever to one
unchanging manner. A little time afterwards there befell the death of
Biroldo, Lord of Perugia, who was murdered in the year 1398; whereupon
Taddeo returned to Siena, where, labouring continually, he applied
himself so zealously to the studies of his art, in order to become an
able painter, that it can be affirmed, if perchance he did not realize
his intention, that this was certainly not by reason of any defect or
negligence that he showed in his work, but rather through indisposition
caused by an internal obstruction, which afflicted him in a manner that
he could not attain to the fulness of his desire. Having taught the art
to one his nephew, called Domenico, Taddeo died at the age of
fifty-nine; and his pictures date about the year of our salvation 1410.
He left, then, as it has been said, Domenico Bartoli, his nephew and
disciple, who, following the art of painting, painted with greater and
better mastery, and in the scenes that he wrought he showed much more
fertility, varying them in diverse ways, than his uncle had done. In the
pilgrim's hall of the great hospital at Siena there are two large
scenes, wrought in fresco by Domenico, wherein are seen perspectives and
other adornments very ingeniously composed. Domenico is said to have
been modest and gentle, and a man of singular amiability and most
liberal courtesy; and this is said to have done no less honour to his
name than the art of painting itself. His works date about the year of
our Lord 1436, and the last were a panel containing an Annunciation in
S. Trinita in Florence, and the panel of the high-altar in the Church of
the Carmine.
There lived at the same time and painted in almost the same manner,
although he made the colouring more brilliant and the figures lower, one
Alvaro di Piero, a Portuguese, who made many panels in Volterra, and one
in S. Antonio in Pisa, and others in other places, whereof, seeing that
they are of no great excellence, there is no need to make further
record. In our book there is a drawing made with great mastery by
Taddeo, wherein are Christ and two angels.
[Illustration: DOMENICO BARTOLI: MADONNA ORANS
(_Siena: Refugio. Panel_)]
LORENZO DI BICCI
LIFE OF LORENZO DI BICCI
PAINTER OF FLORENCE
When men who are excellent in any honourable exercise whatsoever
accompany their ability in working with gentle ways and good habits, and
particularly with courtesy, serving readily and willingly all who have
need of their assistance, they secure without fail, together with much
praise and profit for themselves, everything that in a certain sense is
desirable in this world; as did Lorenzo di Bicci, painter of Florence,
who, being born in Florence in 1400, precisely when Italy was beginning
to be harassed by the wars which shortly afterwards brought her to an
evil pass, was in very good credit almost from his childhood, for the
reason that, having learnt good ways under the discipline of his father
and the art of painting from the painter Spinello, he had ever the name
not only of an excellent painter, but of a most courteous and honourable
and able man. Lorenzo, then, young as he was, having made some works in
fresco both within and without Florence for the sake of practice,
Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, seeing his good manner, caused him to
paint in the hall of the old house of the Medici--which afterwards came
into the possession of Lorenzo, brother of Cosimo the Elder, when the
great palace was built--all those famous men that are still seen there
to-day, very well preserved. This work finished, seeing that Lorenzo di
Bicci wished to exercise himself in his study of painting in places
where work was not so minutely examined, as the doctors still do, who
make experiments in their art on the hides of needy countrymen, for some
time he accepted all the work that came to his hand, and therefore
painted a shrine on the bridge of Scandicci, without the Porta a S.
Friano, in the manner wherein it is still seen to-day, and at Cerbaia,
on a wall below a portico, he painted many saints very creditably,
together with a Madonna. Next, being commissioned by the family of the
Martini to paint a chapel in S. Marco in Florence, he wrought in fresco
on the walls many stories of the Madonna, and on the panel the Virgin
herself in the midst of many saints; and in the same church, over the
Chapel of S. Giovanni Evangelista, belonging to the family of the Landi,
he painted in fresco an Angel Raphael with Tobias. And afterwards, in
the year 1418, for Ricciardo di Messer Niccolo Spinelli, on the facade
of the Convent of S. Croce facing the square, he painted a large scene
in fresco of S. Thomas looking for the wound in the side of Jesus
Christ, and beside him and round him all the other Apostles, who,
kneeling reverently, are watching this event. And beside the said scene
he made, likewise in fresco, a S. Christopher twelve braccia and a half
high, which is something rare, because up to then, excepting the S.
Christopher of Buffalmacco, there had not been seen a greater figure,
nor, for something so large, any image more creditable or better
proportioned in all its parts than that one, although it is not in a
good manner; not to mention that these pictures, both the one and the
other, were wrought with so much mastery, that, although they have been
exposed to the air for many years and buffeted by the rains and
tempests, being turned to the North, yet they have never lost their
vividness of colouring, nor have they been injured in any part. Within
the door, moreover, which is between these figures, called the Martello
door, the same Lorenzo, at the request of the said Ricciardo and of the
Prior of the convent, made a Crucifixion with many figures, and, on the
walls around, the confirmation of the Rule of S. Francis by Pope
Honorius, and beside it the martyrdom of certain friars of that Order,
who went to preach the Faith among the Saracens. On the arches and on
the vaulting he made certain Kings of France, friars and devout
followers of S. Francis, and he portrayed them from nature; and likewise
many learned men of that Order, and men distinguished for dignity of
rank, such as Bishops, Cardinals, and Popes, among whom are portraits
from nature, in two medallions on the vaulting, of Pope Nicholas IV and
Pope Alexander V. In all these figures, although Lorenzo made their
garments grey, he varied them, nevertheless, by reason of the good
practice that he had in working, in a manner that they are all different
one from the other; some incline to reddish, others to bluish, while
some are dark and others lighter, and in short, all are varied and
worthy of consideration; and what is more, it is said that he wrought
this work with so great facility and readiness, that being called once
by the Prior, who was bearing his expenses, to his dinner, at the very
moment when he had made the intonaco for a figure and had begun it, he
answered: "Pour out the soup. Let me finish this figure, and I'm with
you." Wherefore it is with good reason that men say that Lorenzo had so
great rapidity of hand, so great practice in colouring, and so great
resolution, that no other man ever had more.