Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 08 (of 10): Bastiano to Taddeo ZuccheroVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 08 (of 10): Bastiano to Taddeo Zucchero
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
After the departure of Federigo, Taddeo continued to work in fresco all
that summer in the chapel of S. Marcello; and for that chapel, finally,
he painted in the altar-piece the Conversion of S. Paul. In that picture
may be seen, executed in a beautiful manner, the Saint fallen from his
horse and all dazed by the splendour and voice of Jesus Christ, whom he
depicted amid a Glory of Angels, in the act, so it appears, of saying,
"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" His followers, who are about him,
are likewise struck with awe, and stand as if bereft of their senses. On
the vaulting, within certain ornaments of stucco, he painted in fresco
three stories of the same Saint. In one he is being taken as a prisoner
to Rome, and disembarks on the Island of Malta; and there may be seen
how, on the kindling of the fire, a viper strikes at his hand to bite
it, while some mariners, almost naked, stand in various attitudes about
the barque; in another is the scene when a young man, having fallen from
a window, is brought to S. Paul, who by the power of God restores him to
life; and in the third is the Beheading and Death of the Saint. On the
walls below are two large scenes, likewise in fresco; in one is S. Paul
healing a man crippled in the legs, and in the other a disputation,
wherein he causes a magician to be struck with blindness; and both the
one and the other are truly most beautiful. But that work having been
left incomplete by reason of his death, Federigo has finished it this
year, and it has been thrown open to view with great credit to him. At
this same time Federigo executed some pictures in oils, which were sent
to France by the Ambassador of that kingdom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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