of Messer Francesco Petrarca and to chance to find that most amorous
poet at the Court of Avignon, desirous of having the image of Madonna
Laura by the hand of Maestro Simone, because, having received it as
beautiful as he had desired, he made memory of him in two sonnets,
whereof one begins:
Per mirar Policleto a prova fiso
Con gli altri che ebber fama di quell'arte;
and the second:
Quando giunse a Simon l'alto concetto
Ch'a mio nome gli pose in man lo stile.
These sonnets, in truth, together with the mention made of him in one of
his _Familiar Letters_, in the fifth book, which begins: "Non sum
nescius," have given more fame to the poor life of Maestro Simone than
all his own works have ever done or ever will, seeing that they must at
some time perish, whereas the writings of so great a man will live for
eternal ages. Simone Memmi of Siena, then, was an excellent painter,
remarkable in his own times and much esteemed at the Court of the Pope,
for the reason that after the death of Giotto his master, whom he had
followed to Rome when he made the Navicella in mosaic and the other
works, he made a Virgin Mary in the portico of S. Pietro, with a S.
Peter and a S. Paul, near to the place where the bronze pine-cone is, on
a wall between the arches of the portico on the outer side; and in this
he counterfeited the manner of Giotto very well, receiving so much
praise, above all because he portrayed therein a sacristan of S. Pietro
lighting some lamps before the said figures with much promptness, that
he was summoned with very great insistence to the Court of the Pope at
Avignon, where he wrought so many pictures, in fresco and on panels,
that he made his works correspond to the reputation that had been borne
thither. Whence, having returned to Siena in great credit and much
favoured on this account, he was commissioned by the Signoria to paint
in fresco, in a hall of their Palace, a Virgin Mary with many figures
round her, which he completed with all perfection to his own great
credit and advantage. And in order to show that he was no less able to
work on panel than in fresco, he painted in the said Palace a panel
which led to his being afterwards made to paint two of them in the
Duomo, and a Madonna with the Child in her arms, in a very beautiful
attitude, over the door of the Office of the Works of the said Duomo. In
this picture certain angels, supporting a standard in the air, are
flying and looking down on to some saints who are round the Madonna, and
they make a very beautiful composition and great adornment.
[Illustration: SIMONE MARTINI: KNIGHTING OF S. MARTIN
(_Assisi: Lower Church of S. Francesco, Chapel of S. Martin. Fresco_)]
This done, Simone was brought by the General of the Augustinians to
Florence, where he painted the Chapter-house of S. Spirito, showing
invention and admirable judgment in the figures and the horses that he
made, as is proved in that place by the story of the Passion of
Christ, wherein everything is seen to have been made by him with
ingenuity, with discretion, and with most beautiful grace. There are
seen the Thieves on the Cross yielding up their breath, and the soul of
the good one being carried to Heaven by the angels, and that of the
wicked one going, accompanied by devils and all harassed, to the
torments of Hell. Simone likewise showed invention and judgment in the
attitudes and in the very bitter weeping of some angels round the
Crucifix. But what is most worthy of consideration, above everything
else, is to see those spirits visibly cleaving the air with their
shoulders, almost whirling right round and yet sustaining the motion of
their flight. This work would bear much stronger witness to the
excellence of Simone, if, besides the fact that time has eaten it away,
it had not been spoilt by those Fathers in the year 1560, when they,
being unable to use the Chapter-house, because it was in bad condition
from damp, made a vaulted roof to replace a worm-eaten ceiling, and
threw down the little that was left of the pictures of this man. About
the same time Simone painted a Madonna and a S. Luke, with some other
Saints, on a panel in distemper, which is to-day in the Chapel of the
Gondi in S. Maria Novella, with his name.
Next, Simone painted three walls of the Chapter-house of the said S.
Maria Novella, very happily. On the first, which is over the door
whereby one enters, he made the life of S. Dominic; and on that which
follows in the direction of the church, he represented the Religious
Order of the same Saint fighting against the heretics, represented by
wolves, which are attacking some sheep, which are defended by many dogs
spotted with black and white, and the wolves are beaten back and slain.
There are also certain heretics, who, being convinced in disputation,
are tearing their books and penitently confessing themselves, and so
their souls are passing through the gate of Paradise, wherein are many
little figures that are doing diverse things. In Heaven is seen the
glory of the Saints, and Jesus Christ; and in the world below remain the
vain pleasures and delights, in human figures, and above all in the
shape of women who are seated, among whom is the Madonna Laura of
Petrarca, portrayed from life and clothed in green, with a little flame
of fire between her breast and her throat. There is also the Church of
Christ, and, as a guard for her, the Pope, the Emperor, the Kings, the
Cardinals, the Bishops, and all the Christian Princes; and among them,
beside a Knight of Rhodes, is Messer Francesco Petrarca, also portrayed
from the life, which Simone did in order to enhance by his works the
fame of the man who had made him immortal. For the Universal Church he
painted the Church of S. Maria del Fiore, not as it stands to-day, but
as he had drawn it from the model and design that the architect Arnolfo
had left in the Office of Works for the guidance of those who had to
continue the building after him; of which models, by reason of the
little care of the Wardens of Works of S. Maria del Fiore, as it has
been said in another place, there would be no memorial for us if Simone
had not left it painted in this work. On the third wall, which is that
of the altar, he made the Passion of Christ, who, issuing from Jerusalem
with the Cross on His shoulder, is going to Mount Calvary, followed by a
very great multitude. Arriving there, He is seen raised on the Cross
between the Thieves, with the other circumstances that accompany this
story. I will say nothing of there being therein a good number of
horses, of the casting of lots by the servants of the court for the
garments of Christ, of the raising of the Holy Fathers from the Limbo of
Hell, and of all the other well-conceived inventions, which belong not
so much to a master of that age as to the most excellent of the moderns;
inasmuch as, taking up the whole walls, with very diligent judgment he
made in each wall diverse scenes on the slope of a mountain, and did not
divide scene from scene with ornamental borders, as the old painters
were wont to do, and many moderns, who put the earth over the sky four
or five times, as it is seen in the principal chapel of this same
church, and in the Campo Santo of Pisa, where, painting many works in
fresco, he was forced against his will to make such divisions, for the
other painters who had worked in that place, such as Giotto and
Buonamico his master, had begun to make their scenes with this bad
arrangement.
[Illustration: _G. H._
THE ANNUNCIATION
(_After the painting by_ Simone Sanese [Memmi _or_ Martini]. _Antwerp:
Royal Museum, 257, 258_)]
In that Campo Santo, then, following as the lesser evil the method used
by the others, Simone made in fresco, over the principal door and on the
inner side, a Madonna borne to Heaven by a choir of angels, who are
singing and playing so vividly that there are seen in them all those
various gestures that musicians are wont to make in singing or playing,
such as turning the ears to the sound, opening the mouth in diverse
ways, raising the eyes to Heaven, blowing out the cheeks, swelling the
throat, and in short all the other actions and movements that are made
in music. Under this Assumption, in three pictures, he made some scenes
from the life of S. Ranieri of Pisa. In the first scene he is shown as a
youth, playing the psaltery and making some girls dance, who are most
beautiful by reason of the air of the heads and of the loveliness of the
costumes and head-dresses of those times. Next, the same Ranieri, having
been reproved for such lasciviousness by the Blessed Alberto the Hermit,
is seen standing with his face downcast and tearful and with his eyes
red from weeping, all penitent for his sin, while God, in the sky,
surrounded by a celestial light, appears to be pardoning him. In the
second picture Ranieri, distributing his wealth to God's poor before
mounting on board ship, has round him a crowd of beggars, of cripples,
of women, and of children, all most touching in their pushing forward,
their entreating, and their thanking him. And in the same picture, also,
that Saint, having received in the Temple the gown of a pilgrim, is
standing before a Madonna, who, surrounded by many angels, is showing
him that he will repose on her bosom in Pisa; and all these figures have
vivacity and a beautiful air in the heads. In the third Simone painted
the scene when, having returned after seven years from beyond the seas,
he is showing that he has spent thrice forty days in the Holy Land, and
when, standing in the choir to hear the Divine offices, he is tempted by
the Devil, who is seen driven away by a firm determination that is
perceived in Ranieri not to consent to offend God, assisted by a figure
made by Simone to represent Constancy, who is chasing away the ancient
adversary not only all in confusion but also (with beautiful and
fanciful invention) all in terror, holding his hands to his head in his
flight, and walking with his face downcast and his shoulders shrunk as
close together as could be, and saying, as it is seen from the writing
that is issuing from his mouth: "I can no more." And finally, there is
also in this picture the scene when Ranieri, kneeling on Mount Tabor,
is miraculously seeing Christ in air with Moses and Elias; and all the
features of this work, with others that are not mentioned, show that
Simone was very fanciful and understood the good method of grouping
figures gracefully in the manner of those times. These scenes finished,
he made two panels in distemper in the same city, assisted by Lippo
Memmi, his brother, who had also assisted him to paint the Chapter-house
of S. Maria Novella and other works.
He, although he had not the excellence of Simone, none the less followed
his manner as well as he could, and made many works in fresco in his
company for S. Croce in Florence; the panel of the high-altar in S.
Caterina at Pisa, for the Preaching Friars; and in S. Paolo a Ripa d'
Arno, besides many very beautiful scenes in fresco, the panel in
distemper that is to-day over the high-altar, containing a Madonna, S.
Peter, S. Paul, S. John the Baptist, and other Saints; and on this Lippo
put his name. After these works he wrought by himself a panel in
distemper for the Friars of S. Augustine in San Gimignano, and thereby
acquired so great a name that he was forced to send to Arezzo, to Bishop
Guido de' Tarlati, a panel with three half-length figures which is
to-day in the Chapel of S. Gregorio in the Vescovado.
While Simone was at work in Florence, one his cousin, an ingenious
architect called Neroccio, undertook in the year 1332 to make to ring
the great bell of the Commune of Florence, which, for a period of
seventeen years, no one had been able to make to ring without twelve men
to pull at it. He balanced it, then, in a manner that two could move it,
and once moved one alone could ring it without a break, although it
weighed more than six thousand libbre; wherefore, besides the honour, he
gained thereby as his reward three hundred florins of gold, which was
great payment in those times.
[Illustration: LIPPO MEMMI: MADONNA AND CHILD
(_Berlin: K. Friedrich Museum 1081A. Panel_)]
But to return to our two Memmi of Siena; Lippo, besides the works
mentioned, wrought a panel in distemper, with the design of Simone,
which was carried to Pistoia and placed over the high-altar of the
Church of S. Francesco, and was held very beautiful. Finally, both
having returned to their native city of Siena, Simone began a very large
work in colour over the great gate of Camollia, containing the
Coronation of Our Lady, with an infinity of figures, which remained
unfinished, a very great sickness coming upon him, so that he, overcome
by the gravity of the sickness, passed away from this life in the year
1345, to the very great sorrow of all his city and of Lippo his brother,
who gave him honourable burial in S. Francesco.
Lippo afterwards finished many works that Simone had left imperfect, and
among these was a Passion of Jesus Christ over the high-altar of S.
Niccola in Ancona, wherein Lippo finished what Simone had begun,
imitating that which the said Simone had made and finished in the
Chapter-house of S. Spirito in Florence. This work would be worthy of a
longer life than peradventure will be granted to it, there being in it
many horses and soldiers in beautiful attitudes, which they are striking
with various animated movements, doubting and marvelling whether they
have crucified or not the Son of God. At Assisi, likewise, in the lower
Church of S. Francesco, he finished some figures that Simone had begun
for the altar of S. Elizabeth, which is at the entrance of the door that
leads into the chapels, making there a Madonna, a S. Louis King of
France, and other Saints, in all eight figures, which are only as far as
the knees, but good and very well coloured. Besides this, in the great
refectory of the said convent, at the top of the wall, Simone had begun
many little scenes and a Crucifix made in the shape of a Tree of the
Cross, but this remained unfinished and outlined with the brush in red
over the plaster, as may still be seen to-day; which method of working
was the cartoon that our old masters used to make for painting in
fresco, for greater rapidity; for having distributed the whole work over
the plaster, they would outline it with the brush, reproducing from a
small design all that which they wished to paint, and enlarging in
proportion all that they thought to put down. Wherefore, even as this
one is seen thus outlined, and many others in other places, so there are
many others that had once been painted, from which the work afterwards
peeled off, leaving them thus outlined in red over the plaster.
But returning to our Lippo, who drew passing well, as it may be seen in
our book in a hermit who is reading with his legs crossed; he lived for
twelve years after Simone, executing many works throughout all Italy,
and in particular two panels in S. Croce in Florence. And seeing that
the manner of these two brothers is very similar, one can distinguish
the one from the other by this, that Simone used to sign his name at the
foot of his works in this way: SIMONIS MEMMI SENENSIS OPUS; and Lippo,
leaving out his baptismal name and caring nothing about a Latinity so
rough, in this other fashion: OPUS MEMMI DE SENIS ME FECIT.
On the wall of the Chapter-house of S. Maria Novella--besides Petrarca
and Madonna Laura, as it has been said above--Simone portrayed Cimabue,
the architect Lapo, his son Arnolfo, and himself, and in the person of
that Pope who is in the scene he painted Benedetto XI of Treviso, one of
the Preaching Friars, the likeness of which Pope had been brought to
Simone long before by Giotto, his master, when he returned from the
Court of the said Pope, who had his seat in Avignon. In the same place,
also, beside the said Pope, he portrayed Cardinal Niccola da Prato, who
had come to Florence at that time as Legate of the said Pontiff, as
Giovanni Villani relates in his History.
Over the tomb of Simone was placed this epitaph:
SIMONI MEMMIO PICTORUM OMNIUM OMNIS AETATIS CELEBERRIMO.
VIXIT ANN. LX, MENS. II, D. III.
As it is seen in our aforesaid book, Simone was not very excellent in
draughtsmanship, but he had invention from nature, and he took much
delight in drawing portraits from the life; and in this he was held so
much the greatest master of his times that Signor Pandolfo Malatesti
sent him as far as Avignon to portray Messer Francesco Petrarca, at the
request of whom he made afterwards the portrait of Madonna Laura, with
so much credit to himself.
[Illustration: _M. S._
MADONNA AND CHILD
(_After the painting by_ Lippo Memmi. _Altenburg: Lindenau Museum, 43_)]
TADDEO GADDI
LIFE OF TADDEO GADDI,
PAINTER OF FLORENCE
It is a beautiful and truly useful and praiseworthy action to reward
talent largely in every place, and to honour him who has it, seeing that
an infinity of intellects which might otherwise slumber, roused by this
encouragement, strive with all industry not only to learn their art but
to become excellent therein, in order to advance themselves and to
attain to a rank both profitable and honourable; whence there may follow
honour for their country, glory for themselves, and riches and nobility
for their descendants, who, upraised by such beginnings, very often
become both very rich and very noble, even as the descendants of the
painter Taddeo Gaddi did by reason of his work. This Taddeo di Gaddo
Gaddi, a Florentine, after the death of Giotto--who had held him at his
baptism and had been his master for twenty-four years after the death of
Gaddo, as it is written by Cennino di Drea Cennini, painter of Colle di
Valdelsa--remained among the first in the art of painting and greater
than all his fellow-disciples both in judgment and in genius; and he
wrought his first works, with a great facility given to him by nature
rather than acquired by art, in the Church of S. Croce in Florence, in
the chapel of the sacristy, where, together with his companions,
disciples of the dead Giotto, he made some stories of S. Mary Magdalene,
with beautiful figures and with most beautiful and extravagant costumes
of those times. And in the Chapel of the Baroncelli and Bandini, where
Giotto had formerly wrought the panel in distemper, he made by himself
in fresco, on one wall, some stories of Our Lady which were held very
beautiful. He also painted over the door of the said sacristy the story
of Christ disputing with the Doctors in the Temple, which was afterwards
half ruined when the elder Cosimo de' Medici, in making the noviciate,
the chapel, and the antechamber in front of the sacristy, placed a
cornice of stone over the said door. In the same church he painted in
fresco the Chapel of the Bellacci, and also that of S. Andrea by the
side of one of the three of Giotto, wherein he made the scene of Jesus
Christ taking Andrew and Peter from their nets, and the crucifixion of
the former Apostle, a work greatly commended and extolled both then when
it was finished and still at the present day. Over the side-door, below
the burial-place of Carlo Marsuppini of Arezzo, he made a Dead Christ
with the Maries, wrought in fresco, which was very much praised; and
below the tramezzo[16] that divides the church, on the left hand, above
the Crucifix of Donato, he painted in fresco a story of S. Francis,
representing a miracle that he wrought in restoring to life a boy who
was killed by falling from a terrace, together with his apparition in
the air. And in this story he portrayed Giotto his master, Dante the
poet, Guido Cavalcanti, and, some say, himself. Throughout the said
church, also, in diverse places, he made many figures which are known by
painters from the manner. For the Company of the Temple he painted the
shrine that is at the corner of the Via del Crocifisso, containing a
very beautiful Deposition from the Cross.
In the cloister of S. Spirito he wrought two scenes in the little arches
beside the Chapter-house, in one of which he made Judas selling Christ,
and in the other the Last Supper that He held with the Apostles. And in
the same convent, over the door of the refectory, he painted a Crucifix
and some Saints, which give us to know that among the others who worked
here he was truly an imitator of the manner of Giotto, which he held
ever in the greatest veneration. In S. Stefano del Ponte Vecchio he
painted the panel and the predella of the high-altar with great
diligence; and on a panel in the Oratory of S. Michele in Orto he made a
very good picture of a Dead Christ being lamented by the Maries and laid
to rest very devoutly by Nicodemus in the Sepulchre.
[Illustration: _Alinari_
THE LAST SUPPER
(_After the fresco by_ Taddeo Gaddi, _in the Refectory of S. Croce,
Florence_)]
In the Church of the Servite Friars he painted the Chapel of S. Niccolo,
belonging to those of the palace, with stories of that Saint, wherein he
showed very good judgment and grace in a boat that he painted,
demonstrating that he had complete understanding of the tempestuous
agitation of the sea and of the fury of the storm; and while the
mariners are emptying the ship and jettisoning the cargo, S. Nicholas
appears in the air and delivers them from that peril. This work, having
given pleasure and having been much praised, was the reason that he was
made to paint the chapel of the high-altar in that church, wherein he
made in fresco some stories of Our Lady, and another figure of Our Lady
on a panel in distemper, with many Saints wrought in lively fashion. In
like manner, in the predella of the said panel, he made some other
stories of Our Lady with little figures, whereof there is no need to
make particular mention, seeing that in the year 1467 everything was
destroyed when Lodovico, Marquis of Mantua, made in that place the
tribune that is there to-day and the choir of the friars, with the
design of Leon Battista Alberti, causing the panel to be carried into
the Chapter-house of that convent; in the refectory of which Taddeo
made, just above the wooden seats, the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with
the Apostles, and above that a Crucifix with many saints.
Having given the last touch to these works, Taddeo Gaddi was summoned to
Pisa, where, for Gherardo and Bonaccorso Gambacorti, he wrought in
fresco the principal chapel of S. Francesco, painting with beautiful
colours many figures and stories of that Saint and of S. Andrew and S.
Nicholas. Next, on the vaulting and on the front wall is Pope Honorius,
who is confirming the Order; here Taddeo is portrayed from the life, in
profile, with a cap wrapped round his head, and at the foot of this
scene are written these words:
MAGISTER TADDEUS GADDUS DE FLORENTIA PINXIT HANC HISTORIAM SANCTI
FRANCISCI ET SANCTI ANDREAE ET SANCTI NICOLAI, ANNO DOMINI MCCCXLII,
DE MENSE AUGUSTI.
Besides this, in the cloister also of the same convent he made in fresco
a Madonna with her Child in her arms, very well coloured, and in the
middle of the church, on the left hand as one enters, a S. Louis the
Bishop, seated, to whom S. Gherardo da Villamagna, who had been a friar
of this Order, is recommending a Fra Bartolommeo, then Prior of the
said convent. In the figures of this work, seeing that they were taken
from nature, there are seen liveliness and infinite grace, in that
simple manner which was in some respects better than that of Giotto,
above all in expressing supplication, joy, sorrow, and other similar
emotions, which, when well expressed, ever bring very great honour to
the painter.