Giotto and Some of His Followers (Volume 1) - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ...probability this picture was executed at about the same time as the frescoes in the adjoining Baroncelli Chapel. According to certain old records quoted by Milanesi (Vasari, i, 573, note) these frescoes were ordered by Tano and Gherardo di Mico Baroncelli in the year 1332, and were finished in 1338. The price is said to have been 807 lire. According to other statements, the chapel itself was not completed until 1338. In either case the pictures may be assigned to the thirties, and must be regarded as the earliest large work by Taddeo that has survived. Probably Taddeo had already begun his activity in Santa Croce as an assistant under Giotto in the work on the Bardi and Peruzzi frescoes, and when the old master was forced by other occupation to leave Florence, he recommended his pupil for the continuation of the decoration of the same church. If we may judge from Vasari's description, the great Franciscan church remained for many years the chief field of Taddeo's artistic activity. He painted here, besides the Christ among the Doctors and St. Francis Resuscitating the Dead Child, large series of frescoes in the Cappella Baroncelli, in the Cappella Bellaci, and in the Cappella di Sant Andrea, as well as a Pieta in the right aisle under the Marsuppini tomb. Of these paintings there remain only the Baroncelli frescoes setting forth the life of the Virgin. There is also preserved in the Accademia di Belle Arti the series of little pictures which originally embellished the doors of the cupboards in the sacristy in Santa Croce. As the earliest dated picture by Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Croce, it is customary to name the Madonna (half-length) in the lunette field over the Baroncelli tomb. The tomb bears the date 1327, but this date does not mark the...