DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61670#0056
30
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
Andrea could hardly have allowed some of these later altar-
pieces to have issued from his bottega without qualms of self-
reproach. In his encouragement, or at least acceptance, of
its commercial character, and in his careless education of his
sons, we cannot but see signs of that moral weakness and
timidity we have ascribed to him.
The Robbias were a vigorous and long-lived family. Luca
was in his eighty-third year when he died, and Andrea lived to
the great age of ninety, remaining the nominal head of the
bottega till within ten years at least of his death. Neither did
he entirely give up work, for although most of the reliefs pro-
duced in his name are obviously not by him, yet in 1510 he
executed one of the best and strongest works of his life, the
bust of the Protonotary Almadiano of Viterbo.
He died on August 4, 1525, as is noted in the ac-
count books of the Guild of Masters in Stone and Wood,1
and was buried with Luca in the family vault of S. Pier
Maggiore. Vasari knew him, and gives the following personal
record of him : “Z being still a child and talking with him, heard
him boast greatly of having been chosen to carry Donatello to his
burial; and I remember that the good old man, speaking of it, gloried
thereat exceedingly,”2 His portrait (if we may trust Vasari’s
statement), painted in 1510 by Andrea del Sarto, is to be seen
in the first fresco left of entrance in the Cloister of the SS.
Annunziata (The Healing of Children by the Garments of
S. Philip), and shows him as a grey-haired old man, clad in red,
leaning upon a staff, with exactly the sensitive, half-timid ex-
pression in the delicate face we should have expected from
his work.
From such slight biographical notices little can be gathered
of the character of the two men, Luca and Andrea della Robbia.
1 Alongside of the last entry concerning Andrea in these documents is the
following contemporary note : “ f mori a di 4 d’agosta 1525.” (Arch, di Stato.
Il Campione dell’ Arte de’ Maestri di Pietra e di Legname. 1465-1522.
A carte 505.)
2 Vasari, ii. 181.
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
Andrea could hardly have allowed some of these later altar-
pieces to have issued from his bottega without qualms of self-
reproach. In his encouragement, or at least acceptance, of
its commercial character, and in his careless education of his
sons, we cannot but see signs of that moral weakness and
timidity we have ascribed to him.
The Robbias were a vigorous and long-lived family. Luca
was in his eighty-third year when he died, and Andrea lived to
the great age of ninety, remaining the nominal head of the
bottega till within ten years at least of his death. Neither did
he entirely give up work, for although most of the reliefs pro-
duced in his name are obviously not by him, yet in 1510 he
executed one of the best and strongest works of his life, the
bust of the Protonotary Almadiano of Viterbo.
He died on August 4, 1525, as is noted in the ac-
count books of the Guild of Masters in Stone and Wood,1
and was buried with Luca in the family vault of S. Pier
Maggiore. Vasari knew him, and gives the following personal
record of him : “Z being still a child and talking with him, heard
him boast greatly of having been chosen to carry Donatello to his
burial; and I remember that the good old man, speaking of it, gloried
thereat exceedingly,”2 His portrait (if we may trust Vasari’s
statement), painted in 1510 by Andrea del Sarto, is to be seen
in the first fresco left of entrance in the Cloister of the SS.
Annunziata (The Healing of Children by the Garments of
S. Philip), and shows him as a grey-haired old man, clad in red,
leaning upon a staff, with exactly the sensitive, half-timid ex-
pression in the delicate face we should have expected from
his work.
From such slight biographical notices little can be gathered
of the character of the two men, Luca and Andrea della Robbia.
1 Alongside of the last entry concerning Andrea in these documents is the
following contemporary note : “ f mori a di 4 d’agosta 1525.” (Arch, di Stato.
Il Campione dell’ Arte de’ Maestri di Pietra e di Legname. 1465-1522.
A carte 505.)
2 Vasari, ii. 181.