Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to MantegnaVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to Mantegna
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
In S. Miniato fra le Torri in Florence Andrea painted a panel containing
the Assumption of Our Lady, with two figures; and in a shrine in the
Nave a Lanchetta, without the Porta alla Croce, he painted a Madonna. In
the house of the Carducci, now belonging to the Pandolfini, the same man
depicted certain famous men, some from imagination and some portrayed
from life, among whom are Filippo Spano degli Scolari, Dante, Petrarca,
Boccaccio, and others. At Scarperia in Mugello, over the door of the
Vicar's Palace, he painted a very beautiful nude figure of Charity,
which has since been ruined. In the year 1478, when Giuliano de' Medici
was killed and his brother Lorenzo wounded in S. Maria del Fiore by the
family of the Pazzi and their adherents and fellow-conspirators, it was
ordained by the Signoria that all those who had shared in the plot
should be painted as traitors on the wall of the Palace of the Podesta.
This work was offered to Andrea, and he, as a servant and debtor of the
house of Medici, accepted it very willingly, and, taking it in hand,
executed it so beautifully that it was a miracle. It would not be
possible to express how much art and judgment were to be seen in those
figures, which were for the most part portraits from life, and which
were hung up by the feet in strange attitudes, all varied and very
beautiful. This work, which pleased the whole city and particularly all
who had understanding in the art of painting, brought it about that from
that time onwards he was called no longer Andrea dal Castagno but Andrea
degl' Impiccati.[13]
[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD
(_After the fresco by =Domenico Viniziano=. London: National Gallery,
1215_)
_Mansell_]
Andrea lived in honourable style, and since he spent his money freely,
particularly on dress and on maintaining a fine household, he left
little property when he passed to the other life at the age of
seventy-one. But since the crime that he had committed against Domenico,
who loved him so, became known a short time after his death, it was with
shameful obsequies that he was buried in S. Maria Nuova, where, at the
age of fifty-six, the unhappy Domenico had also been buried. The work
begun by the latter in S. Maria Nuova remained unfinished, nor did he
ever complete it, as he had done the panel of the high-altar in S. Lucia
de' Bardi, wherein he executed with much diligence a Madonna with the
Child in her arms, S. John the Baptist, S. Nicholas, S. Francis, and S.
Lucia; which panel he had brought to perfect completion a little before
he was murdered.
Disciples of Andrea were Jacopo del Corso, who was a passing good
master, Pisanello, Marchino, Piero del Pollaiuolo, and Giovanni da
Rovezzano.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] _I.e._, hung up.
GENTILE DA FABRIANO AND VITTORE PISANELLO OF VERONA
LIVES OF GENTILE DA FABRIANO AND VITTORE PISANELLO OF VERONA[14]
PAINTERS
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