LIFE OF TADDEO BARTOLI

PAINTER OF SIENA

It is the due of those craftsmen who, in order to acquire a name, put themselves to much fatigue in painting, that their works should be placed, not in a dark and dishonourable position, wherefore they may be blamed by those who have no more understanding than this, but in some spot where, through the nobility of the place, through the lights, and through the air, they can be rightly seen and studied by all, as was and still is the public work of the chapel that Taddeo Bartoli, painter of Siena, wrought in the Palazzo della Signoria in Siena.

Taddeo, then, was the son of Bartolo di Maestro Fredi, who was a mediocre painter in his day and painted the whole wall (on the left hand as one enters) of the Pieve of San Gimignano with stories of the Old Testament; in which work, which in truth was not very good, there may still be read in the middle this epitaph:

A.D. 1356, BARTOLUS MAGISTRI FREDI DE SENIS ME PINXIT.

At this time Bartolo must have been young, because in a panel containing the Circumcision of Our Lord, together with some saints, wrought likewise by him in the year 1388 in S. Agostino, in the same territory, on the left hand as one enters the church through the principal door, it is seen that he had a much better manner both in drawing and in colouring, seeing that some heads therein are beautiful enough, although the feet of those figures are in the ancient manner. In short, there are seen many other works by the hand of Bartolo in those parts.

But to return to Taddeo: the painting of the Chapel of the Palazzo della Signoria in his native city being entrusted to him, as it has been said, as the best master of those times, it was wrought by him with so great diligence, and so greatly honoured with regard to its situation, and paid for by the Signoria in such a manner, that Taddeo largely increased his glory and fame thereby; wherefore not only did he afterwards paint many panels in his own country, to his great honour and infinite profit, but he was invited with great favour and sought for from the Signoria of Siena by Francesco da Carrara, Lord of Padua, to the end that he might go, as he did, to paint certain works in that most noble city; where, particularly in the Arena and in the Santo, he wrought some panels and other works with much diligence, to his own great honour and to the satisfaction of that Lord and of the whole city. Returning afterwards to Tuscany, he wrought a panel in distemper, which inclines to the manner of Ugolino Sanese, in San Gimignano; and this panel is to-day behind the high-altar of the Pieve, and faces the choir of the priests. Going next to Siena, he did not stay there long before he was invited by one of the Lanfranchi, the Warden of Works of the Duomo, to Pisa; and betaking himself thither, he made in fresco, in the Chapel of the Nunziata, the scene when the Madonna ascends the steps of the Temple, at the head of which the priest is awaiting her in full canonicals—a highly-finished work. In the face of this priest he portrayed the said Warden of Works, and beside him his own self. This work finished, the same Warden of Works made him paint over the chapel in the Campo Santo a Madonna being crowned by Jesus Christ, with many angels in very beautiful attitudes and very well coloured. In like manner, for the Chapel of the Sacristy of S. Francesco in Pisa Taddeo made a Madonna and some saints on a panel painted in distemper, placing thereon his name and the year when it was painted, which was the year 1394. And about this same time he wrought certain panels in distemper at Volterra, and a panel at Monte Oliveto, with a Hell in fresco on a wall, wherein he followed the invention of Dante in so far as relates to the division of the sins and to the form of the punishments, but in the place itself he either could not or would not imitate him, or knew not how. He also sent to Arezzo a panel that is in S. Agostino, wherein he portrayed Pope Gregory XI—namely, the Pope who brought the Court back to Italy after it had been so many decades of years in France.

POLYPTYCH
(After the panel by Taddeo Bartoli. Perugia: Gallery 9)
Anderson
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