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
Ridolfo had a brother called Don Bartolommeo in the Angeli, a seat of
the Monks of Camaldoli in Florence, who was a truly religious, upright,
and worthy man; and Ridolfo, who loved him much, painted for him in the
cloister that opens into the garden--that is, in the loggia where there
are the stories of S. Benedict painted in verdaccio by the hand of Paolo
Uccello, on the right hand as one enters by the door of the garden--a
scene in which that same Saint, seated at table with two Angels beside
him, is waiting for bread to be sent for him into the grotto by Romanus,
but the Devil has cut the cord with stones; and the same Saint investing
a young man with the habit. But the best figure of all those that are on
that little arch, is the portrait of a dwarf who stood at the door of
the monastery at that time. In the same place, over the holy-water font
at the entrance into the church, he painted in fresco-colours a Madonna
with the Child in her arms, and some Angels about her, all very
beautiful. And in the cloister that is in front of the chapter-house, in
a lunette over the door of a little chapel, he painted in fresco S.
Romualdo with the Church of the Hermitage of Camaldoli in his hand: and
not long afterwards a very beautiful Last Supper that is at the head of
the refectory of the same monks, which he did at the commission of Don
Andrea Doffi the Abbot, who had been a monk of that monastery, and who
had his own portrait painted in a corner at the foot.
Ridolfo also executed three very beautiful stories of the Madonna, which
have the appearance of miniatures, on a predella in the little Church of
the Misericordia, in the Piazza di S. Giovanni. And for Matteo Cini, in
a little tabernacle on the corner of his house, near the Piazza di S.
Maria Novella, he painted Our Lady, S. Matthew the Apostle, and S.
Dominic, with two little sons of that Matteo on their knees, portrayed
from life; which work, although small, is very beautiful and full of
grace. For the Nuns of S. Girolamo, of the Order of S. Francesco de'
Zoccoli, on the heights of S. Giorgio, he painted two altar-pieces; in
one is S. Jerome in Penitence, very beautiful, with a Nativity of Jesus
Christ in the lunette above, and in the other, which is opposite to the
first, is an Annunciation, and in the lunette above S. Mary Magdalene
partaking of the Communion. In the Palace that is now the Duke's he
painted the chapel where the Signori used to hear Mass, executing in the
centre of the vaulting the most Holy Trinity, and in the other
compartments some little Angels who are holding the Mysteries of the
Passion, with some heads representing the twelve Apostles. In the four
corners he painted the four Evangelists in whole-length figures, and at
the head the Angel Gabriel bringing the Annunciation to the Virgin,
depicting in a kind of landscape the Piazza della Nunziata in Florence
as far as the Church of S. Marco; and all this work is executed
excellently well, with many beautiful ornaments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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