The pupils of Giottino, who left more fame than property, were Giovanni Tossicani of Arezzo, Michelino, Giovanni dal Ponte, and Lippo, who were meritorious masters of the art. Giovanni Tossicani excelled the others, and after Tommaso's death he executed many works in that same style, in all Tuscany, and particularly in the Pieve of Arezzo, where he did the chapel of St Maria Maddalena of the Tuccerelli, and in the Pieve of Empoli, where he did a St James on a pilaster. Again, he did some things in the Duomo at Pisa, which were afterwards removed to make way for modern works. His last work was executed in a chapel of the Vescovado of Arezzo, for the Countess Giovanna, wife of Tarlato di Pietramala, and represented an Annunciation, with St James and St Philip. As this work was on a wall, the back of which is exposed to the north, it was almost destroyed by the damp, when Master Agnolo di Lorenzo of Arezzo restored the Annunciation, and Giorgio Vasari, then a youth, restored the SS. James and Philip, to his great advantage, as he learnt a great deal which he had not been able to obtain from other masters, by observing Giovanni's methods, and from the shadows and colours of this work, damaged as it was. The following words of the epitaph to the Countess, who caused the work to be done, may still be read: Anno Domini 1335 de mense Augusti hanc capellam constitui fecit nobilis Domina comitissa Joanna de Sancta Flora uxor nobilis militis Domini Tarlati de Petramela ad honorem Beatæ Mariæ Virginis.
I make no mention of the works of the other pupils of Giottino, because they are quite ordinary and bear little resemblance to those of their master and of Giovanni Tossicani, their fellow-pupil. Tommaso drew very well, as appears by some sheets by his hand which are in our book, which are very carefully executed.
Giovanni da Ponte, Painter of Florence.
Although the old proverb that a bon vivant never lacks means is untrue and unworthy of confidence, the contrary being the case, since a man who does not live within his means comes at last to live in want, and dies in misery; yet it sometimes happens that Fortune rather assists those who throw away without reserve than those who are orderly and careful in all things. When the favour of Fortune is wanting, Death frequently repairs the defect and remedies the consequences of men's thoughtlessness, for it comes at the very moment when they would begin to realise, with sorrow, how wretched a thing it is to have squandered everything when young to pass one's age on shortened means in poverty and toil. This would have been the fate of Giovanni da S. Stefano a Ponte of Florence, if, after he had devoured his patrimony as well as the gains which came into his hand, rather through good fortune than by his desserts, and some legacies which came to him from unexpected quarters, he had not reached the end of his life at the very time when he had exhausted his means. He was a pupil of Buonamico Buffalmacco, and imitated his master more in following worldly pleasures than in endeavouring to make himself a skilful painter. He was born in the year 1307, and was Buffalmacco's pupil in his youth. He executed his first works in fresco in the Pieve of Empoli in the chapel of St Laurence, painting many scenes from the life of that saint with such care, that so good a beginning was considered to promise much better things in the future. Accordingly he was invited in the year 1344 to Arezzo, where he did an Assumption in a chapel in S. Francesco. Being in some credit in that city, for lack of other artists, he next painted in the Pieve the chapel of St Onofrio and that of St Anthony, ruined to-day by the damp. He left other paintings in S. Giustina and S. Matteo, which were pulled down with the churches when Duke Cosimo was fortifying the city. Almost on this very spot, near S. Giustina, at the foot of the abutment of an ancient bridge, at the point where the river enters the city, they there found a fine marble head of Appius Ciccus, and one of his son, with an ancient epitaph, which are now in the Duke's wardrobe. When Giovanni returned to Florence, at the time when the middle arch of the Ponte a S. Trinita was being completed, he decorated a chapel built on a pile, and dedicated to St Michael the Archangel, an ancient and beautiful building, doing many figures, both inside and out, and the whole of the principal front. This chapel was carried away, together with the bridge, in the flood of 1557. Some assert that he owed his name of Giovanni dal Ponte to these works. In Pisa, in the year 1335, he did some scenes in fresco behind the altar in the principal chapel of St Paolo a ripa d'Arno, which are now ruined by damp and time. Another work of his is the chapel of the Scali in S. Trinita at Florence, and another beside it, as well as one of the stories of St Paul beside the principal chapel, which contains the tomb of Maestro Paolo, the astrologer. In S. Stefano, at the Ponte Vecchio, he did a panel and other paintings in tempera and fresco for Florence and elsewhere, which won him considerable renown. He was beloved by his friends, but rather in his pleasures than in his labours, and he was a friend of men of letters, and especially of all those who were studying his own art in the hope of excelling in it; and although he had not troubled to acquire for himself what he desired for others, he never ceased to advise others to work diligently. At length, when he had lived fifty-nine years, he departed this life in a few days in consequence of a disorder of the chest. Had he lived a little longer, he would have suffered much inconvenience, as there remained hardly sufficient in his house to afford him decent burial in S. Stefano dal Ponte Vecchio. His works were executed about 1345.
Our book of designs of various ancient and modern masters contains a water-colour by Giovanni representing St George on horseback killing a serpent; also a skeleton, the two affording an excellent illustration of his method and his style in designing.
Agnolo Gaddi, Painter of Florence.
The virtue and husbandry of Taddeo Gaddi afford an excellent illustration of the advantages and honours accruing from excellence in a noble art, for by his industry and labour he provided a considerable property, and left the affairs of his family so ordered that when he passed to the other life his sons Agnolo and Giovanni were enabled without difficulty to lay the foundations of the vast wealth and distinction of the house of Gaddi, which is now amongst the noblest in Florence and of high repute in all Christendom. Indeed it was no more than reasonable, after Gaddo, Taddeo, Agnolo and Giovanni had adorned with their art and talents so many considerable churches, that their descendants should be decorated with the highest ecclesiastical dignities by the Holy Roman Church and her Pontiffs. Taddeo, whose life we have already written, left two sons, Agnolo and Giovanni, among his many pupils, and he hoped that Agnolo in particular would attain to considerable excellence in painting. But although Agnolo when a youth promised to far surpass his father, he did not realise the good opinions which were then formed about him. Being born and brought up in ease, which is often a hindrance to application, he was more devoted to trading and commerce than to the art of painting. This is no new or strange circumstance, for avarice almost invariably proves a bar to those geniuses who would have attained the summit of their powers, had not the desire of gain stood in their way in their first and best years.
In his youth Andrea did a small scene for S. Jacopo tra fossi at Florence, in figures of little more than a braccia high, representing the Resurrection of Lazarus, who had been four days dead. Considering the corrupt state of the body, which had been in the tomb three days, he presented the grave clothes bound about him as soiled by the putrefaction of the flesh, and certain livid and yellowish marks in the flesh about the eyes, between quick and dead, very well considered. He also shows the astonishment of the disciples and other figures, who in varied and remarkable attitudes are holding their garments to their noses so as not to smell the stench of the corrupt body, and exhibit every shade of fear and terror at this marvellous event, as well as the joy and delight of Mary and Martha at seeing the dead body of their brother return to life. This work was deemed so excellent that there were many who thought that the talents of Andrea would prove superior to those of all the pupils of Taddeo and even to those of the master himself. But the event proved otherwise, for as in youth will conquers every difficulty in the effort after fame, so it often happens that the years bring with them a certain heedlessness which causes men to go backwards instead of forwards, as was the case with Agnolo. Owing to the high repute of his ability, the family of the Soderini, expecting a great deal, allotted to him the principal chapel of the Carmine, where he painted the whole of the life of Our Lady, but in a style so inferior to the Resurrection of Lazarus that anyone could perceive that he had little desire to devote all his energies to the study of painting. In the whole of this great work there is not more than a single good scene, namely, that in which Our Lady is in an apartment surrounded by a number of maidens, whose habits and headdresses vary according to the divers customs of the time, and who are engaged in various employments, some spinning, some sewing, some winding silk, and some weaving and doing other things, all very well conceived and executed by Agnolo.
Similarly in painting in fresco the principal chapel of the church of S. Croce for the noble family of the Alberti, he represented the incidents which took place on the finding of the Cross, executing the work with much skill, though it is somewhat lacking in design, the colouring alone being meritorious. He succeeded much better afterwards in some other paintings in fresco in the chapel of the Bardi, and in some stories of St Louis in the same church. He worked capriciously, sometimes with great care and sometimes with little. Thus in S. Spirito at Florence, where he did the inside of a door leading from the piazza to the convent, and above another door a Madonna and child, with St Augustine and St Nicholas, all in fresco—they are all so well done that they look as if they had been painted yesterday. The secret of working in mosaic had as it were descended to Agnolo by inheritance, and in his house he had the instruments and other apparatus used by his grandfather Gaddo; accordingly to para the time, and for one reason or another, he did some things in mosaic when he had the whim. Thus since many of the marble facings of the exterior of S. Giovanni were wasted by time, and as the damp had pierced through and done considerable injury to the mosaics previously executed there by Andrea Tafi, the Consuls of the Art of the Merchants proposed to restore the greater part of this marble covering, in order that no further damage should be done, and also to repair the mosaics. The commission for this was given to Agnolo, and in the year 1346 he caused the building to be covered with new marble, overlaying the joints to a distance of two fingers with great care, notching the half of each stone as far as the middle. He then cemented them together with a mixture of mastic and wax, and completed the whole with such care that from that time forward neither the vaulting nor the roof has ever suffered any harm from the water. His subsequent restoration of the mosaics led by his advice to the reconstruction from his well-devised plans of the whole of the cornice of the church above the marble, under the roof, in its present form, whereas it was originally much smaller and by no means remarkable. He also directed the construction of the vaulting for the hall of the Podesta palace, where an ordinary roof had formerly existed, so that in addition to the added beauty which it gave the room, it rendered it proof against damage by fire, which it had frequently suffered before. By his advice the present battlements were added to the palace, where nothing of the kind had previously existed.
While these works were proceeding, he did not entirely abandon painting, but executed in tempera a picture of Our Lady for the high altar of S. Pancrazio, with St John the Baptist, St John the Evangelist, the brothers St Nereus, Achilleus, and Prancrazius, and other saints hard by. But the best part of this work, and indeed the only part of it which is really good, is the predella filled with small figures, divided into eight scenes dealing with the Madonna and St Reparata. Subsequently in a picture for the high altar of S. Maria Novella at Florence, executed for Barone Capelli in 1348, he made a very fair group of angels about a Coronation of the Virgin. Shortly afterwards he painted in fresco a series of subjects from the life of the Virgin in the Pieve of Prato, which had been rebuilt under the direction of Giovanni Pisano in 1312, as has been said above, in the chapel where Our Lady's girdle was deposited, and he did a number of other works in other churches of that same country which is full of very considerable monasteries and convents. In Florence he next painted the arch over the gate of S. Romeo, and in Orto S. Michele did in tempera a Christ disputing with the doctors in the temple. At the same time for the enlargement of the piazza of the Signori a large number of buildings was pulled down, and notably the church of S. Romolo, which was rebuilt from Agnolo's plans. In the churches of this city many pictures by his hand may be seen, and a quantity of his works may be met with in the lordship. These he produced with great advantage to himself, although he worked rather for the sake of following in the steps of his ancestors than from any inclination of his own; for he had devoted all his attention to trading, which was of great service to him, as appeared when his sons, who did not wish to live by painting any longer, devoted themselves entirely to commerce, opening an establishment at Venice in conjunction with their father, who after a certain time abandoned painting altogether, only to take it up as an amusement and pastime. By dint of trading and practising his art, Agnolo had amassed considerable wealth when he came to die in the sixty-third year of his life, succumbing to a malignant fever which carried him off in a few days. His pupils were Maestro Antonio da Ferrara, who did many fine works in Urbino and at Citta di Castello, and Stefano da Verona, who painted with the greatest perfection in fresco, as may be seen in several places in his native Verona, and at Mantua, where his works are numerous. Among other things he excelled in beautifully rendering the expressions of the faces of children, women and old men, as his works show, which were all imitated and copied by that Piero da Perugia, miniature painter, who illuminated all the books in the library of Pope Pius in the Duomo of Siena, and who was a skilful colourist in fresco. Other pupils of Agnolo were Michaele da Milano and his own brother Giovanni, who in the cloister of S. Spirito, where the arches of Gaddo and Taddeo are, painted the dispute of Christ with the doctors in the temple, the Purification of the Virgin, the Temptation of Christ in the wilderness, and the baptism of John, but after having given rise to the highest expectations he died. Cennino di Drea Cennini da Colle of Valdelsa also learned painting from Andrea. He was very fond of his art and wrote a book describing the methods of working in fresco, in tempera, in glue and in gum, and also how to illuminate and all the ways of laying on gold. This book is in the possession of Giuliano, goldsmith of Siena, an excellent master and fond of that art. The first part of the book deals with the nature of colours, both minerals and earths, as he had learned it of Agnolo his master. As he did not perhaps succeed in painting with perfection, he was at least anxious to know the peculiarities of the colours, the temperas, the glues and of chalks, and what colours one ought to avoid mixing as injurious, and in short many other hints which I need not dilate upon, since all these matters, which he then considered very great secrets, are now universally known. But I must not omit to note that he makes no mention of some earth colours, such as dark terra rossa, cinnabar and some greens in glass, perhaps because they were not in use. In like manner umber, yellow-lake, the smalts in fresco and in oil, and some greens and yellows in glass which the painters of that age lacked, have since been discovered. The end of the treatise deals with mosaics, with the grinding of colours in oil to make red, blue, green and other kinds of grounds, and with mordants for the application of gold but not at that time for figures. Besides the works which he produced with his master in Florence, there is a Madonna with saints by his hand under the loggia of the hospital of Bonifazio Lupi, of such style and colouring that it has been very well preserved up to the present day.