Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/209

Rh “ Magister Taddeus Gaddus de Florentia pinxit hanc historiam Sancti Francisci, et Sancti Andrese, et Sancti Nicolai, anno Domini , de mensi Augusti.” In the cloister of the same convent, Taddeo also painted the Virgin, with the child in her arms—a fresco of admirable colouring ; and in the midst of the church, to the left of the spectator, is the bishop St. Louis, seated, while San Gherardo da Villamagna, who had been a brother of the order of St. Francis, seems recommending a certain Fra Bartolommeo, then guardian of the convent, to his protection. The figures of this work were all drawn from nature; they are, consequently, full of animation, and very graceful, with a simplicity of manner preferable in many respects to the style of Giotto himself. The expression of entreaty, of gladness, of grief, and other similar emotions, more particularly, were rendered with infinite truth, and the facility of effecting this is one from which great honour redounds to the painter.

Having returned to Florence, Taddeo continued the works of Orsanmickele, for the commune of the city, and refounded the columns of the Loggia: for these he used stone, dressed and hewn, in place of the bricks of which they had previously been formed, but without altering the design, left by Arnolfo, who had directed that spacious magazines should be prepared above the Loggia, with vaults, for storing the reserves of grain laid up by the people and commune of Florence. And to the end that this work might be completed, the guild of Porta Santa Maria, to whom the charge of the fabric had been entrusted, commanded that the tolls of the corn-market, the tax of the piazza, and other imposts of very little importance, should be made over to the building. But, what was of more consequence, it was further ordained, and with great judgment, that each of the guilds of Florence