Page:EB1911 - Volume 11.djvu/401

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GADE—GADSDEN, C.
383

and especially 5, which shows Francis stripping himself, and protected by the bishop), that those frescoes likewise may, with considerable confidence, be ascribed to Gaddi. Some other extant mosaics are attributed to him, but without full authentication. This artist laid the foundation of a very large fortune, which continued increasing, and placed his progeny in a highly distinguished worldly position.

2. Taddeo Gaddi (about 1300–1366, or later), son of Gaddo, was born in Florence, and is usually said to have been one of Giotto’s most industrious assistants for a period of 24 years. This can hardly be other than an exaggeration; it is probable that he began painting on his own account towards 1330, when Giotto went to Naples. Taddeo also traded as a merchant, and had a branch establishment in Venice. He was a painter, mosaicist and architect. He executed in fresco, in the Baroncelli (now Giugni) chapel, in the Florentine church of S. Croce, the “Virgin and Child between Four Prophets,” on the funeral monument at the entrance, and on the walls various incidents in the legend of the Virgin, from the expulsion of Joachim from the Temple up to the Nativity. In the subject of the “Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple” are the two heads traditionally accepted as portraits of Gaddo Gaddi and Andrea Tafi; they, at any rate, are not likely to be portraits of those artists from the life. On the ceiling of the same chapel are the “Eight Virtues.” In the museum of Berlin is an altarpiece by Taddeo, the “Virgin and Child,” and some other subjects, dated 1334; in the Naples gallery, a triptych, dated 1336, of the “Virgin enthroned along with Four Saints,” the “Baptism of Jesus,” and his “Deposition from the Cross”; in the sacristy of S. Pietro a Megognano, near Poggibonsi, an altarpiece dated 1355, the “Virgin and Child enthroned amid Angels.” A series of paintings, partly from the life of St Francis, which Taddeo executed for the presses in S. Croce, are now divided between the Florentine Academy and the Berlin Museum; the compositions are taken from or founded on Giotto, to whom, indeed, the Berlin authorities have ascribed their examples. Taddeo also painted some frescoes still extant in Pisa, besides many in S. Croce and other Florentine buildings, which have perished. He deservedly ranks as one of the most eminent successors of Giotto; it may be said that he continued working up the material furnished by that great painter, with comparatively feeble inspiration of his own. His figures are vehement in action, long and slender in form; his execution rapid and somewhat conventional. To Taddeo are generally ascribed the celebrated frescoes—those of the ceiling and left or western wall—in the Cappella degli Spagnuoli, in the church of S. Maria Novella, Florence; this is, however, open to considerable doubt, although it may perhaps be conceded that the designs for the ceiling were furnished by Taddeo. Dubious also are the three pictures ascribed to him in the National Gallery, London. In mosaic he has left some work in the baptistery of Florence. As an architect he supplied in 1336 the plans for the present Ponte Vecchio, and those for the original (not the present) Ponte S. Trinita; in 1337 he was engaged on the church of Or San Michele; and he carried on after Giotto’s death the work of the unrivalled Campanile.

3. Agnolo Gaddi, born in Florence, was the son of Taddeo; the date of his birth has been given as 1326, but possibly 1350 is nearer the mark. He was a painter and mosaicist, trained by his father, and a merchant as well; in middle age he settled down to commercial life in Venice, and he added greatly to the family wealth. He died in Florence in October 1396. His paintings show much early promise, hardly sustained as he advanced in life. One of the earliest, at S. Jacopo tra’ Fossi, Florence, represents the “Resurrection of Lazarus.” Another probably youthful performance is the series of frescoes of the Pieve di Prato—legends of the Virgin and of her Sacred Girdle, bestowed upon St Thomas, and brought to Prato in the 11th century by Michele dei Dagomari; the “Marriage of Mary” is one of the best of this series, the later compositions in which have suffered much by renewals. In S. Croce he painted, in eight frescoes, the legend of the Cross, beginning with the archangel Michael giving Seth a branch from the tree of knowledge, and ending with the emperor Heraclius carrying the Cross as he enters Jerusalem; in this picture is a portrait of the painter himself. Agnolo composed his subjects better than Taddeo; he had more dignity and individuality in the figures, and was a clear and bold colourist; the general effect is laudably decorative, but the drawing is poor, and the works show best from a distance. Various other productions of this master exist, and many have perished. Cennino Cennini, the author of the celebrated treatise on painting, was one of his pupils.

4. Giovanni Gaddi, brother of Agnolo, was also a painter of promise. He died young in 1383.

Vasari, and Crowe and Cavelcaselle can be consulted as to the Gaddi. Other notices appear here and there—such as La Cappella de’ Rinuccini in S. Croce di Firenze, by G. Ajazzi (1845).  (W. M. R.) 


GADE, NIELS WILHELM (1817–1890), Danish composer, was born at Copenhagen, on the 22nd of February 1817, his father being a musical instrument maker. He was intended for his father’s trade, but his passion for a musician’s career, made evident by the ease and skill with which he learnt to play upon a number of instruments, was not to be denied. Though he became proficient on the violin under Wexschall, and in the elements of theory under Weyse and Berggreen, he was to a great extent self-taught. His opportunities of hearing and playing in the great masterpieces were many, since he was a member of the court band. In 1840 his Aladdin and his overture of Ossian attracted attention, and in 1841 his Nachklänge aus Ossian overture gained the local musical society’s prize, the judges being Spohr and Schneider. This work also attracted the notice of the king, who gave the composer a stipend which enabled him to go to Leipzig and Italy. In 1844 Gade conducted the Gewandhaus concerts in Leipzig during Mendelssohn’s absence, and on the latter’s death became chief conductor. In 1848, on the outbreak of the Holstein War, he returned to Copenhagen, where he was appointed organist and conductor of the Musik-Verein. In 1852 he married a daughter of the composer J. P. E. Hartmann. He became court conductor in 1861, and was pensioned by the government in 1876—the year in which he visited Birmingham to conduct his Crusaders. This work, and the Frühlingsfantasie, the Erlkönigs Tochter, Frühlingsbotschaft and Psyche (written for Birmingham in 1882) have enjoyed a wide popularity. Indeed, they represent the strength and the weakness of Gade’s musical ability quite as well as any of his eight symphonies (the best of which are the first and fourth, while the fifth has an obbligato pianoforte part). Gade was distinctly a romanticist, but his music is highly polished and beautifully finished, lyrical rather than dramatic and effective. Much of the pianoforte music, Aquarellen, Spring Flowers, for instance, enjoyed a considerable vogue, as did the Novelletten trio; but Gade’s opera Mariotta has not been heard outside the Copenhagen opera house. He died at Copenhagen on the 21st of December 1890.


GADOLINIUM (symbol Gd., atomic weight 157.3), one of the rare earth metals (see Erbium). The element was discovered in 1880 in the mineral samarskite by C. Marignac (Comptes rendus, 1880, 90, p. 899; Ann. chim. phys., 1880 [5] 20, p. 535). G. Urbain (Comptes rendus, 1905, 140, p. 583) separates the metal by crystallizing the double nitrate of nickel and gadolinium. The salts show absorption bands in the ultra-violet. The oxide Gd2O3 is colourless (Lecoq de Boisbaudran).


GADSDEN, CHRISTOPHER (1724–1805), American patriot, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1724. His father, Thomas Gadsden, was for a time the king’s collector for the port of Charleston. Christopher went to school near Bristol, in England, returned to America in 1741, was afterwards employed in a counting house in Philadelphia, and became a merchant and planter at Charleston. In 1759 he was captain of an artillery company in an expedition against the Cherokees. He was a member of the South Carolina legislature almost continuously from 1760 to 1780, and represented his province in the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 and in the Continental Congress in 1774–1776. In February 1776 he was placed in command of all the military forces of South Carolina, and in October of the same