Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 02 (of 10): Berna to Michelozzo MichelozziVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 02 (of 10): Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
Don Lorenzo, then, a painter of Florence, was a monk of the Order of
Camaldoli in the Monastery of the Angeli, which monastery was founded in
the year 1294 by Fra Guittone d'Arezzo, of the Militant Order of the
Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ, or rather, as the monks of that Order
were vulgarly called, of the Joyous Friars; and he applied himself in
his earliest years to design and to painting with so great zeal, that he
was afterwards deservedly numbered among the best of the age in that
exercise. The first works of this painter-monk, who held to the manner
of Taddeo Gaddi and his disciples, were in his Monastery of the Angeli,
where, among many other things, he painted the panel of the high-altar,
which is still seen to-day in their church, and which was completely
finished, as it may be seen from letters written below on the ornament,
in the year 1413, when it was set in place. On a panel, likewise, which
was in the Monastery of S. Benedetto, of the same Order of Camaldoli,
which was outside the Porta a Pinti and was destroyed in 1529, in the
siege of Florence, Don Lorenzo painted a Coronation of Our Lady, even as
he had also done in the panel for his own Church of the Angeli; and this
panel, painted for S. Benedetto, is to-day in the first cloister of the
said Monastery of the Angeli, in the Chapel of the Alberti, on the right
hand. About the same time, or perchance before, in S. Trinita at
Florence, he painted in fresco the Chapel of the Ardinghelli, with its
panel, which was much praised at that time; and there he made from
nature the portraits of Dante and of Petrarca. In S. Piero Maggiore he
painted the Chapel of the Fioravanti, and the panel in a chapel in S.
Piero Scheraggio; and in the said Church of S. Trinita he painted the
Chapel of the Bartolini. In S. Jacopo Sopra Arno, also, there is seen a
panel by his hand, very well wrought and executed with infinite
diligence according to the manner of those times. In the Certosa without
Florence, likewise, he painted some pictures with good mastery; and in
S. Michele in Pisa, a monastery of his Order, he painted some panels
that are passing good. And in Florence, in the Church of the Romiti[5]
(also belonging to the Order of Camaldoli), which, being in ruins
together with the monastery, has to-day left no memory but the name to
that quarter on the other side of the Arno, which is called Camaldoli
from the name of that holy place, among other works, he painted a
Crucifix on panel, with a S. John, which were held very beautiful.
Finally, falling sick of a cruel imposthume, which kept him suffering
for many months, he died at the age of fifty-five, and was honourably
buried by his fellow-monks, as his virtues deserved, in the
chapter-house of their monastery.
[Footnote 5: Church of the Hermits.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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