Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/156

126 Paolo Uccello and Donatello, by whom he was, it is plain, strongly influenced. The traditional violence and brutality of his temper certainly agree with the character of his works. His types are coarse and unpleasant, his colouring hard and crude, but the accuracy of his drawing and the power and reality of his creations are undeniable. The bitterness of his spirit and natural rudeness of his peasant nature was increased by the hard struggles of his early years. In 1430, he describes himself as having been laid up in a hospital during the last four months, and as owning neither home nor bed in Florence, his sole possession being a small house, which he had inherited from his father, in Val Mugello. By degrees, however, his circumstances improved, and his talent obtained recognition. In 1435, he was employed by the Signory to paint the effigies of the Albizzi and Peruzzi, who were exiled as rebels for plotting against Cosimo de' Medici, on the walls of the Podestà palace, and acquired the surname of Andrea degli Impiccati—"Andrea of the Gallows"—from this circumstance. He was also employed to design stained glass for the cupola, and to paint cherubs and lilies on the organ of the Duomo. But his chief work at this period was the decoration of a hall in the Villa Pandolfini, at Legnaia, with full-length figures of illustrious Florentines, as well as famous Queens and Sibyls of ancient legend. This hall, which Andrea further adorned with pilasters, friezes of youth and festoons of flowers and fruit, in classical style, and which as an example of Renaissance decoration excited Albertini's admiration, has long been destroyed, but the portraits of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Farinata degli Uberti, Niccolò Acciaiuoli, the Grand