236 LIVES OF THE ARTISTS.
beautiful, facile, and most pleasing, that may be comprehended and seen to be good at a glance, by whomsoever possesses the slightest degree of judgment and comprehension. All these disciples of Agnolo did him great honour. He was entombed by his sons, (to whom it is affirmed that he left 50,000 florins, or more) in the sepulchre which he had himself prepared for his burial and that of his descendants, in Santa Maria Novella, in the year of our salvation 1387.[1] The portrait of Agnolo, by his own hand, may be seen in the chapel of the Alberti, in Santa Croce, in a painting near the door, wherein the emperor Heraclius is depicted bearing the cross: he is represented in profile, with a short thin beard, and on his head is a cap of a red colour, of the form proper to the period. Agnolo Gaddi was not particularly excellent in design, to judge from the specimen presented in certain drawings by his hand, which are to be found in our book.
[born....—died in 1381?]
If those who labour to attain excellence in art or science were not too frequently cut off by death in the best of their days, there is no doubt but that many exalted minds would have gained the summit towards which their aims tended, and whither the world, as well as themselves, would have rejoiced to see them arrive. But the brevity of man’s life, and the
- ↑ Or, according to the Florentine commentators, not until after 1390,
at which period they declare Agnolo Gaddi to have been still in existence. The first edition of Vasari gives the following epitaph on this
master:—
“ Angelo Taddei F. Gaddio ingenii et picturae gloria honoribus probitatisque existimatione vere magno Filii moestiss. posuere.” - ↑ Ghiberti calls this artist Barna, an abreviation of Barnabd. Baldinucci and Rumohr agree with him; but the later Florentine editors consider Berna or Barna to be rather an abbreviation of Bernardo or Bernardino. The true name of the painter, they incline to think, was Barna Bertini.
