work by Pesello, representing the Trinity, with figures of San Zeno and San Jacopo; and in the houses of various citizens in dififerent parts of Florence, are numerous pictures, in square and circular forms, by the hand of the same master.
Pesello was a man of moderate habits and kindly disposition, always ready to serve his friends, and to aid them with cordial good will, in every way possible to him. He married early, and had a son named Francesco, but who was called Pesellino. The latter also devoted himself to paint ing, imitating the manner of Fra Filippo with infinite zeal. From what we see of this artist, it is manifest that he would have performed much greater things had his life been extended, seeing that he was most studious in his habits, and scarcely gave himself rest from his labours either day or night; of his ability we have a specimen in the Chapel of the Noviciate of Santa Croce, a most admirable Predella[1] namely, beneath the picture of Fra Filippo: the figures are small, but might have been executed by the hand of Fra Filippo himself. He painted numerous pictures in small figures, which are in different parts of Florence, and had attained to considerable reputation in that city, when he died, in the thirty-first year of his age, to the great grief of his father Pesello, who did not long remain after him, but followed his son when in his seventy-seventh year.[2]
THE FLORENTINE PAINTER, BENOZZO GOZZOLI.
[born 1424; died 1485.?]
He who, with determined effort, pursues the path of virtue, although it be, as men say, rough and stormy and full of
- ↑ This Predella, justly praised by Vasari, comprised five stories, three of which, a Presepio, a Miracle of St. Anthony, a truly remarkable work, and the Decapitation of the Saints Cosimo and Damiano, are now in the Florentine Gallery of the Fine Arts. The other two, St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, and S.S. Cosimo and Damiano bringing succours to the sick, are in Paris, whither they were transported in 1813.
- ↑ Baldinucci and Manni affirm that there are documents which show that Pesello’s death must have taken place on the 29th July, 1457, and that of his son Francesco Peselli, is alluded to by Filarete in his Trattato, written in 1460.
