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 ÆTATIS 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.
M. S.
MADONNA AND CHILD
(After the painting by Lippo Memmi. Altenburg: Lindenau Museum, 43) View larger image
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.
Alinari
THE LAST SUPPER
(After the fresco by Taddeo Gaddi, in the Refectory of S. Croce, Florence) View larger image
In the Church of the Servite Friars he painted the Chapel of S. Niccolò, 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 ANDREÆ ET SANCTI NICOLAI, ANNO DOMINI
MCCCXLII, DE MENSE AUGUSTI.
Besides