SCULPTOR LAUDATUR, QUOD DOCTUS IN ARTE PROBATUR, GUIDO DE COMO ME CUNCTIS CARMINE PROMO.
But to return to the Church of S. Giovanni; forbearing to relate its origin, by reason of its having been described by Giovanni Villani and by other writers, and having already said that from this church there came the good architecture that is to-day in use, I will add that the tribune was made later, so far as it is known, and that at the time when Alesso Baldovinetti, succeeding Lippo, a painter of Florence, restored those mosaics, it was seen that it had been in the past painted with designs in red, and all worked on stucco.
Andrea Tafi and Apollonio the Greek, then, in order to cover this tribune with mosaics, made therein a number of compartments, which, narrow at the top beside the lantern, went on widening as far as the level of the cornice below; and they divided the upper part into circles of various scenes. In the first are all the ministers and executors of the Divine Will, namely, the Angels, the Archangels, the Cherubim, the Seraphim, the Powers, the Thrones, and the Dominions. In the second row, also in mosaic, and after the Greek manner, are the principal works done by God, from the creation of light down to the Flood. In the circle that is below these, which goes on widening with the eight sides of that tribune, are all the acts of Joseph and of his twelve brethren. Below these, then, there follow as many other spaces of the same size that circle in like manner onward, wherein there is the life of Jesus Christ, also in mosaic, from the time when He was conceived in Mary's womb up to the Ascension into Heaven. Then, resuming the same order, under the three friezes there is the life of S. John the Baptist, beginning with the appearing of the Angel to Zacharias the priest, up to his beheading and to the burial that his disciples gave him. All these works, being rude, without design and without art, I do not absolutely praise; but of a truth, having regard to the method of working of that age and to the imperfection that the art of painting then showed, not to mention that the work is solid and that the pieces of the mosaic are very well put together, the end of this work is much better--or to speak more exactly, less bad--than is the beginning, although the whole, with respect to the work of to-day, moves us rather to laughter than to pleasure or marvel. Finally, over the side of the principal chapel in the said tribune, Andrea made by himself and without the help of Apollonio, to his own great credit, the Christ that is still seen there to-day, seven braccia high. Becoming famous for these works throughout all Italy, and being reputed in his own country as excellent, he well deserved to be largely honoured and rewarded. It was truly very great good-fortune, that of Andrea, to be born at a time when, all work being rudely done, there was great esteem even for that which deserved to be esteemed very little, or rather not at all. This same thing befell Fra Jacopo da Turrita, of the Order of S. Francis, seeing that, having made the works in mosaic that are in the recess behind the altar of the said S. Giovanni, notwithstanding that they were little worthy of praise he was remunerated for them with extraordinary rewards, and afterwards, as an excellent master, summoned to Rome, where he wrought certain things in the chapel of the high-altar of S. Giovanni Laterano, and in that of S. Maria Maggiore. Next, being summoned to Pisa, he made the Evangelists in the principal apse of the Duomo, with other works that are there, assisted by Andrea Tafi and by Gaddo Gaddi, and using the same manner wherein he had done his other works; but he left them little less than wholly imperfect, and they were afterwards finished by Vicino.
The works of these men, then, were prized for some time; but when the works of Giotto, as will be said in its own place, were set in comparison with those of Andrea, of Cimabue, and of the others, people recognized in part the perfection of the art, seeing the difference that there was between the early manner of Cimabue and that of Giotto, in the figures of the one and of the other and in those that their disciples and imitators made. From this beginning the others sought step by step to follow in the path of the best masters, surpassing one another happily from one day to another, so that from such depths these arts have been raised, as is seen, to the height of their perfection.
Andrea lived eighty-one years, and died before Cimabue, in 1294. And by reason of the reputation and the honour that he gained with his mosaic, seeing that he, before any other man, introduced and taught it in better manner to the men of Tuscany, he was the cause that Gaddo Gaddi, Giotto, and the others afterwards made the most excellent works of that craft which have acquired for them fame and an eternal name. After the death of Andrea there was not wanting one to magnify him with this inscription:
QUI GIACE ANDREA, CH' OPRE LEGGIADRE E BELLE FECE IN TUTTA TOSCANA, ED ORA E ITO A FAR VAGO LO REGNO DELLE STELLE.
A disciple of Andrea was Buonamico Buffalmacco, who, being very young, played him many tricks, and had from him the portrait of Pope Celestine IV, a Milanese, and that of Innocent IV, both one and the other of whom he portrayed afterwards in the pictures that he made in S. Paolo a Ripa d' Arno in Pisa. A disciple and perhaps a son of the same man was Antonio d'Andrea Tafi, who was a passing good painter; but I have not been able to find any work by his hand. There is only mention made of him in the old book of the Company of the Men of Design.
Deservedly, then, did Andrea Tafi gain much praise among the early masters, for the reason that, although he learnt the principles of mosaic from those whom he brought from Venice to Florence, he added nevertheless so much of the good to the art, putting the pieces together with much diligence and executing the work smooth as a table, which is of the greatest importance in mosaic, that he opened the way to good work to Giotto, among others, as will be told in his Life; and not only to Giotto, but to all those who have exercised themselves in this sort of painting from his day up to our own times. Wherefore it can be truly affirmed that those marvellous works which are being made to-day in S. Marco at Venice, and in other places, had their first beginning from Andrea Tafi.
GADDO GADDI
LIFE OF GADDO GADDI,
PAINTER OF FLORENCE
Gaddo, painter of Florence, displayed at this same time more design in his works, wrought after the Greek manner, than did Andrea Tafi and the other painters that were before him, and this perchance arose from the intimate friendship and intercourse that he held with Cimabue, seeing that, by reason either of their conformity of blood or of the goodness of their minds, finding themselves united one to the other by a strait affection, from the frequent converse that they had together and from their discoursing lovingly very often about the difficulties of the arts there were born in their minds conceptions very beautiful and grand; and this came to pass for them the more easily inasmuch as they were assisted by the subtlety of the air of Florence, which is wont to produce spirits both ingenious and subtle, removing continually from round them that little of rust and grossness that most times nature is not able to remove, together with the emulation and with the precepts that the good craftsmen provide in every age. And it is seen clearly that works concerted between those who, in their friendship, are not veiled with the mask of duplicity (although few so made are to be found), arrive at much perfection; and the same men, conferring on the difficulties of the sciences that they are learning, purge them and render them so clear and easy that the greatest praise comes therefrom. Whereas some, on the contrary, diabolically working with profession of friendship, and using the cloak of truth and of lovingness to conceal their envy and malice, rob them of their conceptions, in a manner that the arts do not so soon attain to that excellence which they would if love embraced the minds of the gracious spirits; as it truly bound together Gaddo and Cimabue, and in like manner Andrea Tafi and Gaddo, who was taken by Andrea into company with himself in order to finish the mosaics of S. Giovanni, where that Gaddo learnt so much that afterwards he made by himself the Prophets that are seen round that church in the square spaces beneath the windows; and having wrought these by his own self and with much better manner, they brought him very great fame. Wherefore, growing in courage and being disposed to work by himself, he applied himself continually to studying the Greek manner together with that of Cimabue. Whence, after no long time, having become excellent in the art, there was allotted to him by the Wardens of Works of S. Maria del Fiore the lunette over the principal door within the church, wherein he wrought in mosaic the Coronation of Our Lady; which work, when finished, was judged by all the masters, both foreign and native, the most beautiful that had yet been seen in all Italy in that craft, there being recognized therein more design, more judgment, and more diligence than in all the rest of the works in mosaic that were then to be found in Italy.