be a painter, and followed the bent of his disposition, notwithstanding the determination to the contrary of those who had him in charge. Impediments thus offered to the inclinations of youth, frequently nip the most promising fruits of genius in the bud, by compelling the attention to an illsuited employment, and forcibly turning it from the vocation to which there is a natural impulse; but Domenico, obeying the instinct of his nature, as we have said, obtained for himself the highest honours, secured great advantage to art, as well as to his kindred, and his contemporaries; and became the joy and delight of his age. Our artist was designed by his father to learn his own calling, that of a goldsmith,[1] in which Tommaso was a more than respectable master; the greater part of the votive vessels in silver, formerly preserved in the church of the Annunciation at Florence, being from his hand, as were the silver lamps of the chapel, which were destroyed during the siege of the city in 1529; Tommaso del Gliirlandajo was the first who invented and made those ornaments worn on the head by the young girls of Florence, and called garlands (ghirlande),[2]whence Tommaso acquired the name of Ghirlandajo. Yet not for being the first inventor only, but also on account of the vast number and extraordinary beauty of those made by him, insomuch that none could please, as it should seem, but such as came from his work-rooms. Being thus placed to learn the art of the goldsmith therefore, Domenico, whom this occupation did not satisfy, employed himself perpetually in drawing; he was endowed by nature with remarkable intelligence, and possessing
- ↑ A large number of the Florentine painters have been originally goldsmiths, as the reader will doubtless remember, Orgagna, Luca della Robbia, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Verrocchio, Andrea del Sarto; and lastly, the eccentric Cellini, Other names might be added, as for example, Masolino da Panicale, Sandro Botticelli, &c.; but we are here giving a few of the more distinguished only; not a list of the whole.— Masselli.
- ↑ The paintings of the early masters, and the sumptuary laws of the fourteenth century, suffice to show that ornaments of gold and silver were worn by Florentine maidens long before Tommaso made them. He was probably called Ghirlandajo, because he sold garlands, or was the son of a man who exercised that trade; since he is himself called a broker, and not a goldsmith, in a fiscal document of 1480. Yet he may have been also a goldsmith, as Vasari affirms that he was, before that period, when it is certain that he was a broker. — Ed. Flor., 1849.
