DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57409#0247
AGNOLO GADDI.
231
painted certain stories from the life of St. Louis, in the chapel
of the Bardi family, also in fresco and in the same church,
he acquitted himself much more creditably. Agnolo Gaddi,
then, was an artist who worked capriciously, sometimes with
more care, and sometimes with less : thus in Santo Spirito,
also in Florence, he painted a Virgin with the Child in her
arms, in fresco, within the door which leads from the piazza ?
into the convent, and over a second door of the building, she
is accompanied by Sant’ Agostino and San Niccolo, and this
work is so admirably executed, that one might fancy the
figures painted yesterday.*
The secret of mosaic! had been in a certain manner be-
queathed as an inheritance to Agnolo, and he had in his pos-
session all the instruments and other matters needful to the
prosecution of that art, and which had been used by Gaddo,
his grandfather. Agnolo, therefore, byway of pastime, and
because the materials lay thus to his hand, rather than for
any other reason, gave a certain degree of attention to mo-
saic, and when the fancy took him he executed different works
in that branch of art. When it was found, then, that many
of the slabs of marble which cover the eight sides of the roof
of San Giovanni had been injured by time, and that the
damp, penetrating to the mosaics formerly placed there by
Andrea Tafi, was doing them grievous mischief, the consuls
of the guild of merchants resolved to reconstruct the greater
part of the roof, that the rest might not be ruined, and to
have the mosaic also restored ; whereupon they confided the
direction of the whole work to Agnolo Gaddi, who commenced
it in the year 1346. He first covered the roof with new
slabs of marble, which he laid over each other, to the breadth
of two fingers; then, cutting each to the half of its thickness,
he fastened them into each other with a cement formed of
mastic and wax melted together, all which he completed with
so much care, that neither roof nor ceiling has suffered the
least injury from the rains, from that day to the present time;
vary as to their merit. See Della Valle, Letters Sanese, and Lanzi, His-
tory of Painting.
* This work also retains its place, and still displays the freshness
■described by Vasari; but he should have said San Pietro, instead of San
Niccolo.
+ This secret, with which Giotto, Simon of Siena, and others, were
well acquainted, had become extensively known in the days of Agnolo, as
is obvious from the magnificent works of the Duomo of Orvieto.
231
painted certain stories from the life of St. Louis, in the chapel
of the Bardi family, also in fresco and in the same church,
he acquitted himself much more creditably. Agnolo Gaddi,
then, was an artist who worked capriciously, sometimes with
more care, and sometimes with less : thus in Santo Spirito,
also in Florence, he painted a Virgin with the Child in her
arms, in fresco, within the door which leads from the piazza ?
into the convent, and over a second door of the building, she
is accompanied by Sant’ Agostino and San Niccolo, and this
work is so admirably executed, that one might fancy the
figures painted yesterday.*
The secret of mosaic! had been in a certain manner be-
queathed as an inheritance to Agnolo, and he had in his pos-
session all the instruments and other matters needful to the
prosecution of that art, and which had been used by Gaddo,
his grandfather. Agnolo, therefore, byway of pastime, and
because the materials lay thus to his hand, rather than for
any other reason, gave a certain degree of attention to mo-
saic, and when the fancy took him he executed different works
in that branch of art. When it was found, then, that many
of the slabs of marble which cover the eight sides of the roof
of San Giovanni had been injured by time, and that the
damp, penetrating to the mosaics formerly placed there by
Andrea Tafi, was doing them grievous mischief, the consuls
of the guild of merchants resolved to reconstruct the greater
part of the roof, that the rest might not be ruined, and to
have the mosaic also restored ; whereupon they confided the
direction of the whole work to Agnolo Gaddi, who commenced
it in the year 1346. He first covered the roof with new
slabs of marble, which he laid over each other, to the breadth
of two fingers; then, cutting each to the half of its thickness,
he fastened them into each other with a cement formed of
mastic and wax melted together, all which he completed with
so much care, that neither roof nor ceiling has suffered the
least injury from the rains, from that day to the present time;
vary as to their merit. See Della Valle, Letters Sanese, and Lanzi, His-
tory of Painting.
* This work also retains its place, and still displays the freshness
■described by Vasari; but he should have said San Pietro, instead of San
Niccolo.
+ This secret, with which Giotto, Simon of Siena, and others, were
well acquainted, had become extensively known in the days of Agnolo, as
is obvious from the magnificent works of the Duomo of Orvieto.