In the Via di San Gallo is the very graceful Palazzo Pandolfini,
commenced in 1520 from Raphael's designs, on the left as we move
inwards from the gate. From the Via 27 Aprile, which joins the Via di
San Gallo, we enter the former convent of Sta. Appollonia. In what was
once its refectory is a fresco of the Last Supper by Andrea del
Castagno, with the Crucifixion, Entombment, and Resurrection. Andrea
del Castagno impressed his contemporaries by his furious passions and
savage intractability of temper, his quality of _terribilità_;
although we now know that Vasari's story that Andrea obtained the
secret of using oil as a vehicle in painting from his friend, Domenico
Veneziano, and then murdered him, must be a mere fable, since Domenico
survived Andrea by nearly five years. Rugged unadorned strength, with
considerable power of characterisation and great technical dexterity,
mark his extant works, which are very few in number. This _Cenacolo_
in the finest of them all; the figures are full of life and
character, although the Saviour is unpleasing and the Judas inclines
to caricature. The nine figures from the Villa Pandolfini, frescoes
transferred to canvas, are also his; Filippo Scolari, known as Pippo
Spano (a Florentine connected with the Buondelmonti, but Ghibelline,
who became Count of Temesvar and a great Hungarian captain), Farinata
degli Uberti, Niccolò Acciaiuoli (a Florentine who became Grand
Seneschal of the kingdom of Naples and founded the Certosa), the
Cumæan Sibyl, Esther, Queen Tomyris, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.
The two poets and Boccaccio are the least successful, since they were
altogether out of Andrea's line, but there must have been something
noble in the man to enable him so to realise Farinata degli Uberti, as
he stood alone at Empoli when all others agreed to destroy Florence,
to defend her to the last: _Colui che la difese a viso aperto._
A _Cenacolo_ of a very different character may be seen in the
refectory of the suppressed convent of Sant' Onofrio in the Via di
Faenza. Though showing Florentine influence in its composition, this
fresco is mainly Umbrian in character; from a half deciphered
inscription on the robe of one of the Apostles (which appears to have
been altered), it was once attempted to ascribe it to Raphael. It is
now believed to be partly the work of Perugino, partly that of some
pupil or pupils of his--perhaps Gerino da Pistoia or Giannicola Manni.
It has also been ascribed to Giovanni Lo Spagna and to Raffaellino del
Garbo. Morelli supposed it to be the work of a pupil of Perugino who
was inspired by a Florentine engraving of the fifteenth century, and
suggested Giannicola Manni. In the same street is the picturesque
little Gothic church of San Jacopo in Campo Corbolini.
[Illustration: A FLORENTINE SUBURB]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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