Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 04 (of 10): Filippino Lippi to Domenico PuligoVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 04 (of 10): Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
In his earliest youth he completed the Chapel of the Brancacci in
the Carmine at Florence, begun by Masolino, and left not wholly
finished by Masaccio on account of his death. Filippo, therefore,
gave it its final perfection with his own hand, and executed what
was lacking in one scene, wherein S. Peter and S. Paul are restoring
to life the nephew of the Emperor. In the nude figure of this boy he
portrayed the painter Francesco Granacci, then a youth; and he also
made portraits of the Chevalier, Messer Tommaso Soderini, Piero
Guicciardini, father of Messer Francesco the historian, Piero del
Pugliese, and the poet Luigi Pulci; likewise Antonio Pollaiuolo, and
himself as a youth, as he then was, which he never did again
throughout the whole of his life, so that it has not been possible
to find a portrait of him at a more mature age. In the scene
following this he portrayed Sandro Botticelli, his master, and many
other friends and people of importance; among others, the broker
Raggio, a man of great intelligence and wit, who executed in relief
on a conch the whole Inferno of Dante, with all the circles and
divisions of the pits and the nethermost well in their exact
proportions, and all the figures and details that were most
ingeniously imagined and described by that great poet; which conch
was held in those times to be a marvellous thing.
Next, in the Chapel of Francesco del Pugliese at Campora, a seat of
the Monks of the Badia, without Florence, he painted a panel in
distemper of S. Bernard, to whom Our Lady is appearing with certain
angels, while he is writing in a wood; which picture is held to be
admirable in certain respects, such as rocks, books, herbage, and
similar things, that he painted therein, besides the portrait from
life of Francesco himself, so excellent that he seems to lack
nothing save speech. This panel was removed from that place on
account of the siege, and placed for safety in the Sacristy of the
Badia of Florence. In S. Spirito in the same city, for Tanai de'
Nerli, he painted a panel with Our Lady, S. Martin, S. Nicholas, and
S. Catherine; with a panel in the Chapel of the Rucellai in S.
Pancrazio, and a Crucifix and two figures on a ground of gold in S.
Raffaello. In front of the Sacristy of S. Francesco, without the
Porta a S. Miniato, he made a God the Father, with a number of
children. At Palco, a seat of the Frati del Zoccolo, without Prato,
he painted a panel; and in the Audience Chamber of the Priori in
that territory he executed a little panel containing the Madonna, S.
Stephen, and S. John the Baptist, which has been much extolled. On
the Canto al Mercatale, also in Prato, in a shrine opposite to the
Nuns of S. Margherita, and near some houses belonging to them, he
painted in fresco a very beautiful Madonna, with a choir of
seraphim, on a ground of dazzling light. In this work, among other
things, he showed art and beautiful judgment in a dragon that is at
the feet of S.
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