The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8)Vasari, Giorgio
History
The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8)
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
In the following year, 1327, occurred the death of Guido Tarlati da
Pietramala, bishop and lord of Arezzo, at Massa di Maremma, on his
return from Lucca, where he had been visiting the Emperor. His body
was brought to Arezzo, where it received the honour of a stately
funeral, and Pietro Saccone and Dolfo da Pietramala, the bishop's
brother, determined to erect a marble tomb which should be worthy of
the greatness of such a man, who had been both spiritual and temporal
lord and the leader of the Ghibelline party in Tuscany. Accordingly
they wrote to Giotto, desiring him to design a very rich tomb, as
ornate as possible; and when they had supplied him with the necessary
measurements, they asked him to send them at once the man who was, in
his opinion, the most excellent sculptor then living in Italy, for
they relied entirely upon his judgment. Giotto, who was very
courteous, prepared the design and sent it to them, and from it the
tomb was made, as will be said in the proper place. Now Pietro
Saccone was a great admirer of Giotto's worth, and when, not long
after, he took the Borgo a S. Sepolero, he brought from that place to
Arezzo a picture by the artist's hand, of small figures, which was
afterwards broken into fragments; but Baccio Gondi, a Florentine of
gentle birth, a lover of the noble arts and of every kind of virtue,
made a diligent search for the pieces of this picture when he was
commissioner at Arezzo, and succeeded in finding some. He brought
them to Florence, where he holds them in great veneration, as well as
some other things in his possession, also by Giotto, who produced so
much that an enumeration of all his works would excite incredulity.
It is not many years since that I happened to be at the hermitage of
Camaldoli, where I have done a number of things for the fathers, and
in a cell to which I was taken by the Very Rev. Don Antonio da Pisa,
then general of the congregation of Camaldoli, I saw a very beautiful
crucifix, on a gold ground, by Giotto, with his signature. I am
informed by the Rev. Don Silvano Razza, a Camaldolian monk, that this
crucifix is now in the cell of the principal, where it is treasured
for its author's sake as a most precious thing, together with a very
beautiful little picture by the hand of Raphael of Urbino.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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