The Social Identity of Agnolo Gaddi and his Family: A Florentine »Success Story«

Author(s): Jean K. Cadogan

Source: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte , 2011, 74. Bd., H. 2 (2011), pp. 153-176
Published by: Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH Munchen Berlin

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41310767

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 Jean K. Cadogan

The Social Identity of Agnolo Gaddi and his Family:

A Florentine »Success Story «*

Vasari's biography of Agnolo Gaddi attributes
the family's success to the talent and industry of
his father Taddeo: »How honorable and profit-
able it is to be excellent in a noble art is manifest-
ly seen in the talent and management of Taddeo
Gaddi who, having acquired very good means as
well as fame with his industry and labors, left the
affairs of his family so well arranged, when he
passed to the other life, that Agnolo and Giovan-
ni, his sons, were easily able to give a beginning
to the very great riches and to the exaltation of
the house of Gaddi, today very noble in Florence
and in great repute throughout all Christen-
dom. «T
While Vasari's account errs in details, scholars
cite Gaddi family history as one of the earliest
examples of the rise in social status of artists long
associated with the Renaissance. Agnolo Gaddi
(c. 1350-1396), one of Taddeo's five sons, was
the last artist in a family of artisans that stretched
back three generations to the late thirteenth cen-
tury.2 Cennino Cennini (c. 1360- before 1427), a
pupil of Agnolo and author of the famous Libro
dell3 arte (c. 1400), attached himself to the Gaddi
dynasty as a way of linking the artistic practice
described in his book to Giotto, Taddeo's master
and in the late fourteenth century celebrated as
the founder of the Florentine school.3 By the
time Cennino wrote his book, however, surviv-
ing members of the Gaddi family had ended their
artistic careers, and the family's financial and
political ascendancy was well underway.
A triple portrait of three members of the
Gaddi family in the Uffizi visualizes the Gaddi's
multi-generational artisan identity (fig. i).4 The
bust-length format and combination of frontal,

* A version of this paper was presented in the session

money market: Banks , panics , and the public
»Social Identity in Fourteenth-Century Tuscany, «
1200-1500, Baltimore 1997, 643.
at the annual conference of the Renaissance Society
3 Cennino Cennini, Il Libro delVarte , ed. Franco
of America in March, 2007. I am grateful to Ann
lo, Vicenza 1982, 4: »fui infomato nella detta a
Crabb and Carl Brandon Strehlke for their helpful
anni da Agnolo di Taddeo da Firenze mio mae
comments.
quale impard la detta arte da Taddeo suo padre;
suo padre
1 »Di quanto onore e utile sia 1 essere eccellente in unfu battezzato da Giotto e fu suo di
ar-
te nobile, manifestamente si vide nella anni
virtu XXIIII«
e nel go-[»I was trained in this professi
verno di Taddeo Gaddi; il quale, essendosi proccciato
twelve years by my master, Agnolo di Taddeo o
con la industria e fatiche sue, oltre al nome, bonissime
ence, he learned this profession from Taddeo, his
faculta, lascio in modo accommodate le cose della
and his fami-
father was christened under Giotto, and
glia sua quando passo alPaltra vita, che agevolmente
follower for twenty four years [...].« trans. Da
potettono Agnolo e Giovanni suoi figliuoliThompson,dar The
poi craftsman's handbook , New York
principio a grandissime ricchesse e alPesaltazione di
2]. A recent discussion of Cenninos relationship
casa Gaddi, oggi in Firenze nobilissima e infamily
Gaddi tutta is
la Wolf-Dietrich Lohr and Stefan W
mann,
Cristianita molto reputata.« Giorgio Vasari, >Glieder
Le vite de 3 in the Kunst der Malerei< - C
Cenninis
piu eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori Genealogie
scritte da und die Suche nach Kont
Giorgio Vasari pittore aretino , ed. Gaetano Milanesi,
zwischen Handwerkstradition, Werkstattprax
9 vols., Florence 1906, vol. I, 635; Giorgio Vasari, Lives in: >Fantasie und Handwerk< C
Historiographie,
of the Painters, Sculptors , and ArchitectsCennini
, trans.und die Tradition der toskanischen Malere
Gaston
du C. de Vere, 2 vols., London 1996, vol.Giotto
I, 196.bis Lorenzo Monaco , ed. Wolf-Dietrich Lo
2 For biographies of Gaddi family members, Stefansee Andrew
Weppelmann, Berlin 2008, 14-17.
Ladis in The Dictionary of Art , ed. Jane4 Turner,
On the vol.
portrait
XI, see Miklos Boskovits, review o
New York 1996, 887-93; and Ada Labriola Cole,et al., in:Gaddi, in: Art Bulletin LX 1978,
Agnolo
Dizionario biografico degli italiani , vol. LI,Agnolo
(as by Rome Gaddi); Luciano Bellosi, Gli Uf
1998, 144-48, 154-56, 168-73. A family tree isgenerale
Catalogo pub- , Florence 1979, 361 (as Dome
Michelino);
lished in Vasari (as note 1), vol. I, 353, and (with someand Lohr/Weppelmann (as note 3)
errors in dates), in Reinhold C. Mueller,
(asThe Venetian
by an unknown painter c. 1420).

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 i. Florentine, about 1430, Portrait of Gaddo , Taddeo and Agnolo Gaddi. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

three-quarters and profile views distinguish the been dated to the fifteenth century.5 Date and
portrait from earlier examples. While long attribution inflect our understanding of the
thought to have been painted by Agnolo in the work: is it a self-presentation of the family in the
late Trecento, the painting has most recently late Trecento, or a later claim to artisan roots? If

5 Carl Brandon Strehlke, The Princeton penitent saint
Jerome, the Gaddi family, and early Fra Angelico, in:
Record of the art museum ( Princeton University ) LXII,
2003, 4-27, who attributed it to Fra Angelico, painted
between about 1422 and the early 1430s.
6 Andrew Ladis, Taddeo Gaddi: Critical reappraisal and
catalogue raisonne , Columbia (MO) 1982.
7 Ibid., 262-63, docs. 104-28. In addition, Taddeo
owned shares in the Florentine public debt, the Monte
Comune , totaling more than 800 florins at his death in
1366, Ladis, 15, 262, docs. 91-103. Giovanni, Taddeo s
eldest son and probably an important member of his
workshop, made Taddeo's tax payments for him from
1363. Giovanni matriculated in the arte dei Medici e
Speziali 5 April 1372; see Margaret Haines, Una risco-
struzione dei perduti libri di matricole delParte dei
medici e speziali a Firenze dal 1353 al 1408, in: Rivista
dyarte XLI, 1989, 173-210, here 191.
8 Francis W. Kent, Household and lineage in Renaissance
Florence , Princeton 1977, 24-25 and 63, distinguished
the physical household, those persons living together,
usually in one house, and financially dependent on the
head of household, and the fiscal household, that is, the
property-owning unit. See also Susannah Kerr Foster,
The ties that bind: Kinship association and marriage in
the Alberti family 13/8-1428 , Ph.D. diss. (Cornell
University) 1985, 32-34, to which I am indebted for
much of the following description of the prestanze.
9 The prestanze was a loan imposed by the state that was
theoretically repayable with interest, but which more
often was a direct tax. If the payment was equal to
what was due (ad rehabendum ), the payor became a
creditor to the Commune and was entitled to repay-
ment with interest. If the payment was only partial (ad
perdendum ), it was forfeited. Each taxpayer, usually
the head of the household who was fiscally responsible
for the property, was assessed at a certain percentage of
his wealth. The assessments, which were not keyed to
income or the value of property holdings and were
thus notoriously arbitrary, ranged from just a few soldi
to hundreds of florins, and served as the base rate (dis-
tribuzione) by which the amount owed was deter-
mined. The total amount yielded by any levy was pre-
determined by the Signoria, the highest executive body
of the commune, and then divided by quartiere , gonfa-
lone and household. The aggregate of individual house-
hold levies totaled, at least in theory, the gonfalone's
part of the total levy. Administration of taxes rested
primarily with the gonfalone , though the system was
intricate and changed repeatedly over time; for a sum-
mary see Dale V. Kent and Francis W. Kent, Neigh-
bours and neighbourhood in Renaissance Florence: The
district of the Red Lion in the fifteenth century , Locust
Valley (NY) 1982, 3-27. The base rate was valid for
periods of time varying from a few months to many
years, determined by communal legislation, and over

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the former, it is a precocious example of self-por-
traiture; if the latter, a revealing artifact of family
identity. Before attempting to answer this ques-
tion, I would like to narrate with greater preci-
sion than previously the Gaddi family's rise to
prominence, focusing on Agnolo in particular. I
shall then consider issues of family structure and
wealth, professional activity, and political alle-
giances at the end of the fourteenth century. As
we shall see, Vasari was mistaken in his attribu-
tion to Agnolo of the Gaddi family's financial
success, but there is reason to suggest that later
generations of Gaddi suppressed the family's
mercantile identity in favor of its artisan origin.
Although very little about Gaddo Gaddi (ac-
tive c. 1312-30), the founder of the dynasty,
depicted full-face in the center of the portrait, is
known, there is evidence to corroborate Vasari's
statement that Taddeo (c. 1300-66), depicted in
three-quarter view at the left, lived comfortably.
Taddeo, Giotto's most faithful pupil, was a pro-
lific and long-lived artist.6 The records of the
prestanze , or forced loans levied on Florentine
citizens, reveal Taddeo's relatively high assess-
ments and prompt payments from the early
1360s.7 These payments lend insight into the
financial condition and family structure of the
Gaddi household. Although prestanze docu-
ments reveal little about physical households,
they do identify and analyze fiscal households.8
Coupled with information from additional sour-
ces, the outlines of family history emerge.9
The entries for Taddeo's prestanze payments
beginning in 1359 list him as living in the via
Santa Maria (the current via Michelangelo Buo-
narroti between the via dell' Agnolo and the via
Pietrapiana),10 in the gonf alone Chiavi in the San
Giovanni quartiere (fig. 2, no. i).11 After his
death in 1366 we find his heirs at the same ad-
dress.12 By the next assessment period, beginning
in 1375, the fiscal unit was designated as Johan-
nes Taddi Ghaddi e fratelli , and it remains so
until 1380.13 At this point a partitioning of the
fiscal household took place. In the prestanze
levied in May of 1381, for the first time, the pay-
ments were divided into five equal parts, indicat-
ing equal inheritance of the five Gaddi brothers
from the estate of their father Taddeo.14

varying numbers of levies. For example, the prestanza his residence, the change was not registered until the
period from 1382 to 1390 lasted 88 months and 35 new master copy for a new prestanza was made. Yet
levies, while the period following lasted 9 months and the very frequency of levies - lending credence to
9 levies. The inventory of the prestanze in the Archivio tales of crushing taxation - also highlights changes in
di Stato, Florence [hereafter ASF], lists each prestanza fiscal responsibility and household structure from
with the amount and date of the levy, numbered conse- one assessment period to the next. For further infor-
cutively. At the beginning of a new assessment period, mation on the prestanza see Bernardino Barbadoro,
the numbering began again. The documents themselves Le Finanze della repubblica fiorentina, Florence 1929;
consist of a »master copy« on parchment which was and Anthony Molho, Florentine public finances in the
the official record of individual assessments for the early Renaissance 1400- 1433, Cambridge (Mass.)
assessment period. The parchment copy was organized 1971, 60-1 12.
by quartiere , gonfalone , street, and household, listing 10 Piero Bargellini and Ennio Guarnieri, Le strade di
for each fiscal entity the base rate. From the master Firenze , 4 vols., Florence 1977, vol. I, 155-56.
copy, the name and rate were copied into paper vol-11 For example, ASF, Prestanze 47, fol. 75 r (11 July
umes for each quartiere or gonfalone , with an indica- 1 3^3); or Prestanze ioi,fol. i4or(i4june 1364).
tion of the actual amount of money due for a particular12 On 9 April 1369 the tax of five norms was paid in full
levy. When payment was made, it was first recorded in by Zanobi di Taddeo; ASF, Prestanze 135, fol. 143V
a daily ledger of receipts (called an entrata) and then (9 April 1369); the volumes between October of 1364
recopied into the paper volumes. Coupled with pay- and February /March of 1368/69 are lost.
ment records for each quartiere or gonfalone , the pre-13 ASF, Prestanze 279, fol. 141 v (3 April 1376); Prestan-
stanze records comprise a comprehensive listing of tax ze 420, fol. 248V (28 November 1380); Prestanze 436,
units, or fiscal households, in the city of Florence for fol. 29V (5 December 1380); Prestanze 454, fol. 3 5 r
the second half of the Trecento and the Quattrocento (11 December 1380).
up until the institution of the catasto in 1427. This14 ASF Prestanze 523, fol. 29V (4 May 1381): »Detti
wealth of information is, however, restricted in scope Giovanni di Taddeo Ghaddi sono cinque fratelli, i
and inflexible in recording changes. Since the master quail s'anno a partire e dare ad ongniuno la sua parte,
copy of the rates for the assessment period never si chome apare in questo libro, partiti c. 26, 27, 28, 30
changed, even if the head of household died or moved si chome fu diliberato per sedici, per mano di Ser

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 The reasons for partitioning are not hard to mained the address of the five Gaddi brothers, at
find. The sum of the five equal levies is far less least for tax purposes, and in the possession of
than the earlier levy of over four florins, and this the family until well into the fifteenth century.19
anomaly in the tax system favored the dissolu- Later tax payments suggest that the brothers'
tion of large fraternal households.15 It may be financial status as a result of professional activity
also that at this time the Gaddi brothers were diverged through the 1380s. Widely different
experiencing divergent professional and financial assessments begin with the prestanze initiated at
success that put a strain on their relationship. We the end of 1382, in effect until 1390.20 The high
know from other sources that Zanobi di Taddeo assessment for Zanobi, almost three florins, is
had established a merchant banking house in understandable. Having resided in Venice since
Venice in 1369.16 Although he never relinquished 1369, he became a Venetian citizen in 1384, the
his residence in Florence, he cannot have been same year he became the Venetian correspondent
often in the city. We also have evidence of the to the famous Pratese merchant Francesco di
professional success of Giovanni and Agnolo as Marco Datini, who had returned from Avignon
painters.17 On the other hand, possible disrup- to Prato the year before.21 In a letter to Datini's
tion is signaled by tax payments levied in 1380 factor in Pisa, Zanobi stated, »I am in pretty
and 1381 that were paid several years late.18 In good order and becoming well established; op-
spite of the break-up of the fiscal household, the portunities do exist here - may God preserve
physical residence on the via Santa Maria re- them and make them grow. « 22 Zanobi's firm

Giovanni Bencini, loro notaio, e nondimeno otenuto 81] sulla vita economica e sociale di Venezia, in: Ate-
l'uno per l'altro di questi cinque fratelli.« In the right neo Veneto XIX, 1981, 27-41, and Mueller [as note
margin in written: »furono partiti chostoro per erore, 2], 158-59). The brothers return to making individu-
per me Bartolomeo di Sandro e pero gli ripor[t]o tutti al, equal payments promptly in levies imposed in De-
insieme innanzi, c. 117, e chancielerogli ogniuno di cember 1381 (ASF Prestanze 568, fol. 29V), April
per se.« Only Giovanni is recorded as having made a 1382 (Prestanze 583, fols. 26 v, 28r, 29V, 30V, and 3 1 r);
payment, on 14 August 1382, more than a year after 23 April 1382 (Prestanze 599, fols. 26V, 28 r, 29V, 30V,
the levy was imposed in May of 1381. In the previous and 3ir), and May 1382 (Prestanze 614, fol. 29V).
prestanza, from 19 December 1380, the brothers' 19 In 1427 Taddeo di Zanobi, Zanobi s son, declared his
names were entered separately, appended to the bot- joint ownership with his brother of half the house;
tom of the respective pages; see ASF Prestanze 485, the other half belonged to »Monna Giovanna fu d'A-
fols. 26% 27V, 29V, 3or-v. gnolo di Taddeo Ghaddi.« ASF Catasto 55 (1427, San
15 Foster (as note 8), 80. Giovanni, Drago), fol. 882r. In 1430 Agnolo di Zano-
1 6 Reinhold C. Mueller, Mercanti e imprenditori fioren- bi, Taddeo's brother, also lists the house as »la meta di
tini a Venezia nel tardo medioevo, in: Societa e storia una casa per non dividere chon Taddeo di Zanobi,
LV, 1992, 29-60, here 45; and Mueller (as note 2), 268. chasa posta in Firenze in via Santa Maria [...].« ASF
17 In addition to his tax payments, Giovanni Gaddi - Catasto 408 (1430, San Giovanni, Drago), fol. 13 v. In
who is occasionally referred to as a merciarius as well the 1 480 catasto, it was declared the residence of the
as pictor in documents - is documented as working in druggist Francesco di Lucco di Rosso, who claimed
the Vatican in September, 1369; see Alessio Monciatti, he had purchased it from the sons of Taddeo [di
II Palazzo Vaticano nel medioevo , Florence 2005, Zanobi] Gaddi at an unspecified date; ASF Catasto
323-26. He has been identified as the Master of the 1003 (1480, San Giovanni, Chiavi), fol. 365 r.
Misericordia, author of a painting of the Madonna 20 ASF Prestanze 651 (1382), fol. 68v.
della Misericordia in the Galleria delPAccademia,21 Mueller (as note 16), 38-39, 44-45. Zanobi was given
Florence, by Miklos Boskovits, Pittura fiorentina alia citizenship with external privileges ( de extra ), that is,
vigilia del rinascimento , Florence 1975, 64-65. with the freedom to conduct trade by ship with enti-
18 ASF Prestanze 523, fol. ii7r (4 May 1381); Prestanze ties outside Venice, a provision which required a resi-
512, (1380), fol. 213 v. Giovanni made his tax payment dence of fifteen years in the city. Datini returned to
on 17 June 1381; fol. 30ir, Niccolo made his in Oc- Prato in January 1383 and embarked on a vigorous
tober of 1384, Agnolo in August of 1382, Francesco expansion of his business in Italian cities, including
in October of 1384, and Zanobi made no payment Pisa and Venice; see Federigo Melis, Aspetti della vita
(perhaps as a result of the economic crisis in Venice economica medievale , Siena 1962, 216-21 on Datini's
during the war of Chioggia, for which see Reinhold Venetian ties; and Iris Origo, The Merchant of Prato ,
C. Mueller, Gli effetti della Guerra di Choggia [1378- Boston 2 1986, 64-135, on Datini's trading companies.

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 2. Giuseppe Zocchi, Pianta della Citta di Firenze rilevata esattamente nelVanno 1783 ,
from Walther Limburger, Die Gebaude von Florenz , Leipzig 19 10 (detail):
1 = via Santa Maria; 2 = via Borgo Allegri; 3 = via Albertinelli; 4 = via di Pinto

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traded commodities for import and export and
acted as agents for currency exchange.23 While
long resident in Venice, Zanobi retained a strong
identity as a Florentine, maintaining his Floren-
tine house, matriculating in the guild of doctors
and apothecaries ( Medici e Speziali ), preferring
fellow countrymen as business associates and
marrying into a family of Florentines who resett-
led in Venice.24 His testament was drawn up in
Venice in his house on 27 June 1400, shortly
before his death, in the company of several Flor-
entine expatriots.25 Zanobi dispensed his con-
siderable fortune primarily to his universal heirs,
while ensuring the continuation of the Gaddi
enterprise.26 His generous bequests indicate an
estate of at least 8,000 florins; and indeed in the
1403 estimo in Florence the heirs of Zanobi were
assessed the sixteenth highest tax in the San Gio-
vanni quarter.27 Zanobi in his will however
shows no desire to create a physical memorial to
himself, in spite of his origins in a family of
artists. He enjoined his heirs to spend only what
was necessary on his funeral; he saw his trading
company as his earthly legacy.28 Certainly, it is
Zanobi, then, not Agnolo, who »[... gave] a be-
ginning to the very great riches and to the exalta-
tion of the house of Gaddi [...].«29 Indeed, his
bequests to the children of his late brother
Agnolo included dowries for his nieces, yearly
incomes and property for his nephews, and for-
givness of their debts to him.
Nothing is known of the brother Niccolo di
Taddeo or why his assessment in 1382 should be
almost as high as Zanobi's.30 Giovanni di Tad-
deo's much lower assessment is also puzzling
because we know he was a successful painter.
This rate, however, may reflect poor health, for
Giovanni makes no tax payments after February
1383 and probably died during that year.31 Of
the brothers active as painters, Agnolo's assess-
ment was the highest, probably indicative of the
professional success we know he had achieved by
the early 1380s. There is no need here to describe
in detail his documented activity as an artist, ably

22 Archivio di Stato Prato, Archivio Datini, 548, 26 and Lodovico (or Luigi); he required them to retain
March 1384: »Io sono inn asai buono ordine o buono 6,000 ducats as capital in the Gaddi enterprise, to be
e bello inviamento, e anche cie qualche cosa - Dio overseen by the Florentine Antonio di Ser Bartolo-
m'el conserve e piaciagli acresciello; e se Dio mi pres- meo di Ser Nello until Zanobi's eldest son Taddeo,
ta vita e della sua grazia com'a fato in sino qui, o spe- then twelve, reached the age of eighteen. Zanobi pro-
ranza di star bene e piu sopracio non dicho; vostro vided for his widow Caterina to retain her dowry,
sono;« quoted and translated in Mueller (as note 2), jewels and other personal possessions, and he left her
268. 100 florins a year until her death, while also granting
23 For analysis 01 Zanobi and his descendents commer- her use of his moveable and immoveable possessions
cial activity in the context of the Florentine merchant during her lifetime. Notable bequests in the testament
banking community in Venice, see Mueller (as note include the following: 200 florins to dower poor Ve-
16), 41-47; and Mueller (as note 2), 267-72, 297, 309, netian girls; 300 florins to the poor of Florence and its
*8 9 ' contado; 5 florins each to S. Maria and SS. Giovanni e
24 Zanobi s wire was i^aterina di JJonato di Kicco Aldi- Paolo in Venice; 1000 florins to dower each of his
ghieri; see Paula Clarke, The Identity of the Expatri- daughters; 600 florins to dower his niece Francesca,
ate: Florentines in Venice in the Late Fourteenth and daughter of his brother Agnolo; 150 florins to his
Early Fifteenth Centuries, in: Society and the indi- niece Filippa, daughter of Agnolo, to become a nun;
vidual in Renaissance Florence , ed. William J. Con- 25 florins per year for 12 years to his nephews Gio-
nell, Berkeley 2002, 384-408, here 396-98, and vanni and Niccolo, sons of Agnolo, and he relieves
Strehlke (as note 5), 8-9. them of their debts to him; to Giovanni and Niccolo
25 ASF, Notarile antecosimiano 6178 (27 June 1400), a small house with garden in the parish of S. Ambro-
unnumbered folios; Paula Clarke will publish the tes- gio, next to their house.
tament in full. The Florentine witnesses were Ame- 27 In the hrst catasto or 1427, laddeo di Zanobi declared
righo Bartoli Zati, Bindo Piaciti and Lorenzo Tom- a net worth of 7,137 florins, while Agnolo di Zanobi
masi. Piaciti was also a merchant banker in Venice declared 6,679, ranking as the 43rd and 47th richest
who did business with Datini; just before Zanobi's men in San Giovanni. See Lauro Martines, The Social
death, Datini decided to shift his business to Piaciti, World of the Florentine Humanists 1390-1460 ,
causing Zanobi to break with the Pratese merchant; Princeton 1968, 356, 370.
see Mueller (as note 2), 268. 28 See bamuel Kline Cohn, Jr., 1 he Cult of Kememv-
26 Zanobi s heirs were his minor sons Taddeo, Agnolo rance and the Black Death , Baltimore 1992, on

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treated by Cole in his 1977 monograph, and by to later alterations,36 and the location of the re-
other scholars more recently, except to make a fectory is not known.37
few additions and add some context.32 The payments reveal that Agnolo was here
Agnolo's early professional activity is attested active as an independent painter. The painter
to by documents but by few surviving works. Bartolo (or Bartolomeo) Bertozzo, who was paid
We know that in 1369, during Urban V's pre- a total of ten florins for painting the vault, was
mature return of the papacy to Rome from Avi- probably contracted separately from Agnolo for
gnon, Agnolo was working in the Vatican palace, this task and was paid much less in total. More-
probably as a junior member of a team of artists over, the length of time that Agnolo was active
that included his brother Giovanni, Giovanni da here, over four months, and the total payment,
Milano and the elusive Giottino.33 Up to now amounting to fifty florins, which probably in-
there has been no documentation of works in the cluded materials, suggests that the murals were
1 3 70s, but I would like here to present payments extensive, certainly far more than the extant frag-
for work in the Dominican convent of San Do- ments would suggest. Perhaps the murals in San
menico del Maglio in 1376 (Appendix).34 TheseDomenico were multi-figured narratives of the
payments are for construction and decoration of kind that he would execute in the next decade.
a new refectory in the convent of DominicanThat the nuns were capable of spending such a
nuns of San Domenico del Maglio, established in large sum of money on a new refectory also sug-
gests that in the late fourteenth century they
the late thirteenth century in the area of Cafag-
gio, just northeast of the convent of San Marco were a thriving community, as the scale of the
in Florence.35 While the monastic complex was architectural complex suggests. The accounts
were certified by the prior from Santa Maria
large, precise reconstruction is impossible owing

changes in patterns of pious bequests in the late Tre- tion is not universally accepted; see Boskovits (as
cento. Zanobi arranged for Datini to visit the chapel note 17), 47, 65-66, pl. Ill and fig. 74; Bruce Cole,
of the Sacra Cintola in the Prato Duomo with Leo- Agnolo Gaddi , Oxford 1977, 1, n. 2, attributes the
nardo Dandolo, Venetian ambassador to Florence, in picture to a follower of Agnolo. For the S. Domeico
1397, shortly after Agnolo had finished painting the del Maglio frescoes, see Boskovits (as note 17), 119
murals in the chapel; but we do not know if Zanobi and fig. 236; the documents were signaled by Labriola
ever saw the decoration; Melis (as note 21), 57, n. 9, (as note 2), 144.
and 73-74. 35 The convent was suppressed in 1863 and used as a
29 Vasan (as note 1), vol. I, 196. barracks, storage depot, and isolation hospital; in
30 Niccolo is occasionally called a painter in documents; 1882 it was taken over by the military as the Scuola di
as in ASF Tratte 355, fol. i42r (7 February 1381/2); Sanita Militare, in whose possession it remained until
but no other documentation has been associated with 1999. For San Domenico del Maglio see Giuseppe
his professional career, nor have surviving works of Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine divise
art been attributed to him. ne * suoi quartieri , 9 vols., Florence 1754-1762, vol.
31 Vasan (as note 1), vol. I, 353. VII (1758), 101-12; Walter and Elisabeth Paatz, Die
32 boskovits (as note 17), 65-67, 117-24, 295-304; Kirchen von Florenz , 6 vols., Frankfurt on Main
Gaudenz Freuler, The production and trade of late 1940-54, vol.11 (1941), 2-10; Anabel Thomas, Art
Gothic pictures of the Madonna in Tuscany, in: Ital- and piety in the female religious communities of Ren-
ian panel painting of the Duecento and Trecento , ed. aissance Italy , Cambridge 2003, 30, 78-79, 84,
Victor M. Schmidt, Washington, D.C. 2002, 426-441; 22°-53.
Erling Skaug, Towards a reconstruction of the Santa 36 Thomas (as note 35), 221-22. Richa (as note 35),
Maria degli Angeli altarpiece of 1388: Agnolo Gaddi 102-03, describes courtyards, offices, cellars,
and Lorenzo Monaco?, in: Mitteilungen des Kunst- orchards and gardens, but not a refectory, though
historischen Institutes in Florenz XLVIII, 2004 [2005], there must have been one.
245-257; Costanza Cipollaro, Agnolo Gaddi e37 la fragmentary irescoes in several locations that seem
Leggenda di Santa Croce , Foligno 2009; ed. Isabella unlikely to have been the refectory are reminiscent of
Lapi Ballerini, Agnolo Gaddi e la cappella della cinto- Agnolo's style, though, as noted by scholars, they
la: la storia , Varte , il restauro , Florence 2009. could also have been repainted; Boskovits (as note
33 Monciatti (as note 17), 227-29 and 323-26. 17), 119; Thomas (as note 35), 225.
34 An altarpiece dated 1375 is in Parma, but its attribu-

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Novella, indicating an administrative connection
with the Dominican monastery there.38
The vault painter Bartolomeo Bertozzo, while
seemingly engaged separately from Agnolo, later
became his associate. We find his name, with his
father or brother Bartolomeus Franceschi, listed
as pictoris in the prestanza of 1375 and in the
parchment master register for the prestanze in
1 3 82. 39 They lived at that time on via Albertinelli
(the current via dell'Oriuolo) and so were neigh-
bors of the Gaddi in the gonfalone Chiavi (fig. 2,
no. 3) Bartolomeo di Bertozzo was listed as
living with relatives on the via Albertinelli in the
next prestanza period starting in 1390.40 The pat-
tern of collaboration with artisans living in his
neighborhood persists throughout Agnolo's later
career: vicini that crop up in documentation of
his later professional activity include, in addition
to Bartolommeo di Bertozzo, Tomasso del Maz-
za on the Borgo Allegri41 and Niccolo di Pietro
Gerini on the via di Pinto (fig. 2, nos. 2, 4).41
In the early 1380s, his professional career by
now well established, Agnolo became active in
public life, long an indicator of social stature in
Florence.43 Florentine government comprised
several executive bodies (the Signoria and the
two colleges, the Buonuomini and the Gonfalo-
nieri di Compagnia , collectively called the Tre
Maggiori) to which citizens were elected by sor-
tition. Offices were distributed among different
districts and among the major and minor guilds.44
Candidates were eligible for office after being
scrutinized, their names then placed in the purses
from which officeholders were drawn. The pro-
cess of scrutiny, or squittino , began, as did taxa-
tion, at the level of gonfalone.45 Nominees gene-
rally were practicing guild members and in good
standing in the community, while the prestige of
being declared worthy of serving in political of-
fice by fellow guildsmen or one's neighbors -
even if one were never elected - was an engine of
social and political cohesion.46 Agnolo's name
appears in a scrutiny for the Tre Maggiori in
February of 1381/2.47 However, the scrutiny of
January-February 1382 was part of the oligarchic
repudiation of the guild regime ushered in by the
Ciompi revolt, with the result that over five
thousand citizens were scrutinized for the Tre
Maggiori. Most of these were major guildsmen
from guilds such as the Doctors and Apotheca-
ries {Medici e Speziali , to which the Gaddi belong-
ed) in which the middle classes dominated.48

38 See also Thomas (as note 35), 221. for active guild membership was loosened by the mid
39 ASF Prestanze 254 (1375), fol. 641-, resident on the via fourteenth century and in any case applied only to
porta Bertini; ASF Prestanze 651 (1382), fol. 74 r, on the members of the fourteen minor guilds; the nomi-
the via Albertinelli. nations from the guild consuls were limited to mem-
40 ASF Prestanze 1308 (1390), fol. 76 r. bers of their own guild, but the gonfalonieri and cap-
41 ASF Prestanze 1308 (1390), fol. 84V. tains of the Parte Guelfa were allowed to nominate
42 ASF Prestanze 382 (1379), fol. 23 r; ASF Prestanze non-active guildsmen and non-guild members. The
1308 (1390), fol. 68r. membership requirement was reinvoked during the
43 ror a general description of the structure and mecha- electoral reforms of 1378.
nisms of the Florentine government in the Trecento47 Cole (as note 34), 4, 60, doc. 4; ASF, Tratte, 355
see Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence (Squittino al Priorato 31 January- 14 February 1381/
under the Medici , Oxford 1966, 4-5; for a detailed 82), fol. 145V, 7 February 1481/82, »arroti per artes«:
discussion of the evolution of the electoral system in Angelus taddi gaddi pictor xxxiiii. The inclusion of
the fourteenth century see John M. Najemy, Corpo- Agnolo's name in this scrutiny has been used as evi-
ratism and consensus in Florentine electoral politics , dence for his age, the minimum age of thirty required
1280-1400 , Chapel Hill 1982. for office; but recent research has shown that the age
44 The Florentine guilds included seven major and four- eligibility requirements were somewhat fluid, and
teen minor guilds, except for the brief period of the hence this information is not conclusive about his
guild regime following the Ciompi revolt. The Gaddi, age; see Najemy (as note 43), 177, n. 33, for the prac-
as members of the guild of Medici e Speziali , were tice of nominating children to high office.
thus major guildsmen. 48 »By far the most significant aspect of the 1382 nomi-
45 Najemy (as note 43), 166-89, on the nomination and nations was the inclusion in the lists of what must
scrutiny process before 1378; see also Kent/Kent (as have been nearly the entire population of the major
note 9), 13-47. guilds;« Najemy (as note 43), 270-71.
46 Najemy (as note 43), 176-79, 224; the requirement49 Najemy (as note 43), 259-60.

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 The Gaddi family was part of this second office of consuls for the guild of Medici and Spe-
wave of gente nuova , or »new men,« so resented zialiJ6
by the traditional families.49 Perusal of the scru- A measure of the rising reputation of the
tiny lists from Gonfalone Chiave shows that Gaddi family is the appointment of Zanobi di
Agnolo's brothers Giovanni and Niccolo were Taddeo in September, 1381 as one of two Floren-
also nominated, as were other painters and arti- tine representatives to the peace of Turin be-
sans, although in the end only Giovanni gained tween Genoa and Venice that ended the war of
enough votes to have his name entered in the Chioggia.57 According to a later family memoir,
purses from which the names of office holders in Venice Zanobi accepted for Florence a pledge
were drawn.50 Giovanni had also been elected as of jewels valued at 1 50,000 ducats as guarantee of
one of the Buonomini in 1379 as a result of the Venice's good faith in observing the treaty, for
1378 scrutiny in which large numbers of pre- which he was commended by Doge Contarini in
viously excluded citizens had also qualified for a letter to the Florentine signoria.58 This ambas-
public office.51 In any case, the events of 1382 sadorial charge, coming as it did during the tran-
presaged a period of dramatic expansion in the sition from the guild regime to the oligarchically
participation of major guildsmen in the com- controlled »Albizzi regime, « suggests that the
munal government, even as the members of the Gaddi were among a swing group of non-elite
minor guilds were decisively excluded.52 This major guildsmen that made its entrance into the
situation seems to be borne out by the experi- political elite starting at just this time, a group
ence of the Gaddi; Giovanni Gaddi, imborsato in that has been identified as the crucial element in
the 1382 scrutiny, was drawn as one of the pri- the emergence of political consensus at the end
ors in 1389, but by then he had died;53 he was of the Trecento.59
drawn for the Buonomini in 1 391, 54 and as one We find the Gaddi brothers once again in the
of the Gonfaloni di Compagnia in 1395 as well.55 general scrutiny for the priorate in 1391, though
Also in 1382, Agnolo and his brother Giovanni none received enough votes to qualify.60 Zanobi
were included among the scrutiny lists for the did however qualify for and was elected as guild

50 ASF Tratte, 355, fol. 1411*, 8 February 1381/82: Jo- i24r, 29 October 1389: [in left margin »morto«]
hannes taddei gaddi pictor lxxxxvii«; fol. 1421": »Johannes taddei gaddi [struck out: »pictor«] lxxxi«.
»Nicholaus taddei gaddi pictor xlviii«. A vote of two- 54 ASF Tratte, 596, fol. 148V, 12 March 1390/91: [in left
thirds of the scrutiny committee was required for margin »morto«] »Johannes taddi gaddi pittor lxxxi«.
having names placed in the purses; see Najemy (as 55 ASF Tratte, 597, Tratte de Signon e Collegi dal 1392
note 43), 269-74. This aspect of my research was al 1401 (29 December 1392-14 September 1401), fol.
greatly aided by the Florentine Renaissance Resources , 49 r, 29 August 1395: [in left margin »morto«] Johan-
Online Tratte of Office Holders , 1282-1532 , machine nes Taddei gaddi pictor lxxxi«.
readable data file, eds. David Herlihy, R. Burr Litch- 56 ASF Carte della Mercanzia 202, 16 April 1382, un-
field, Anthony Molho, and Roberto Barducci (Flor- paginated: »Agnolo di Taddeo dipintore; Giovanni di
entine Renaissance Resources/STG: Brown Univer- taddeo merciaio«; see Cole (as note 34), 60-61, doc.
sity, Providence, R. I., 2002). 5-

51 ASF Tratte 595, Tratte de' Signon e Collegi dal 137657 Mueller (as note 16), 45; Clarke (as note 24), 397, n.
al 1381 (28 June 1376-7 October 1381), fol. 93r, 1246; see ASF, Prowisioni, Registri, 71, fols. 48V-49V;
March 1378/79: »Johannes taddei gaddi merciario82v-83r, 23 May and 21 July 1382.
lxxviii«. On the 1378 scrutiny see Najemy (as note 58 Jacopo Gaddi, Trattato historico della famiglia de'~
43), 220-41. The lists of nominees from GonfaloneGaddi, Padua 1642, 32-33.
Chiave is in ASF Tratte 332, Recate Elenchi nominati-
59 Najemy (as note 43), 260, 264-65.
60 Abb Iratte, 356, Squittino per ll rnorato, 1391, tol.
vi relativi al Quartiere S. Giovanni gonfalone Chiavi
(J378). i63r (new number i6or): » Agnolo di taddeo Ghaddi
52 Anthony Molho, rolitics and the Kuling Class in dipintore xxviiii«; fol. 165 r (new number i62r): »Za-
Early Renaissance Florence, in: Nuova rivista storica nobi di taddeo Ghaddi xxxvi«; fol. 165 V (new number
LIII, 1968, 401-20, here 410- 1 1. 163 V): »Francescho di taddeo Ghaddi xiii; Nicholo di
53 ASF Tratte 596, Tratte de' Signori e Collegi dal 1381 taddeo Ghaddi xiii«.
al 1392 (24 October 1381-12 December 1392), fol.

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consul in 1397;61 he was elected in 1400 as well
but was disqualified because he was absent from
the city.62 Both Agnolo and Giovanni were elect-
ed to less prestigious offices in the countryside
in 1 3 82, 63 but neither brother assumed office;
Agnolo probably because he was in arrears on
his taxes and thus disqualified, and Giovanni
perhaps because of poor health.64
With Zanobi's death the political career, such
as it was, of this generation of Gaddi comes to a
close. Although of decidedly modest profile, it
suggests that the members of Agnolo's genera-
tion did succeed in gaining entry into the politi-
cal class as a result of the democratization of the
political process in the wake of the Ciompi
revolt, something that their father Taddeo, for all
his professional success as a painter, never
achieved. The next generation of Gaddi, repre-
sented by the sons of Zanobi di Taddeo, were
however spectacularly successful, propelled by
the wealth inherited from their father and aug-
61 ASF Carte della Mercanzia, 78 (Tratte di tutti i conso-
lati delle arti), fol. 54V, 28 January 1396/97.
62 ASF Carte della Mercanzia 78, foliar, 1 January
1399/ 1400; see also ASF Carte della Mercanzia, 232
(Libro di deliberazione dell'Uffiziale forestiero, 12 Au-
gust 1398-11 May 1399), fol. 38% 12 February 1398/99.
63 Agnolo was elected to be castellano or Montecolore-
to, while Giovanni was elected for the same post in
both Montecoloreto and Serravalle; ASF Tratte 1003
(Uffizi esterni dal 1379 al 1383; 6 March 1379/80-7
January 1383/84), fol. 66v: (27 March 1382): »Monte-
colloreti Johannes taddei gaddi pictor«; fol. 76r: (7
June 1382): »Monticoloreto Angelus Taddi Gaddi
pictor«; and fol. 77r: (21 June 1382): »Seravalle nove
Johannes taddi gaddi pictor«; cited in Rab Hatfield,
The Wealth of Michelangelo , Rome 2002, xl, n. 36.
64 ASF Tratte 226, Specchio de' debitori delle Prestanze,
1382, fol. 76r; (Francesco is listed at fol. 78V and Nic-
colo at fol. 82 v). In th e pre stanza levied 30 July 1382,
Agnolo, Francesco and Niccolo made tax payments
more than two years late; see ASF Prestanze 630
(1382), fols. 2 6v, 28r, 30V; Niccolo and Agnolo make
payments in 1384 for th e pre stanza levied 21 Decem-
ber 1382 (ASF Prestanza 664; 21 December 1382, fols.
37V, 38r), and they are listed as debtors in ASF Pre-
stanze 669, Specchio dei debitori di detta prestanza
(di 21 dicembre 1382 ), fols. 307^ 319^ 324^ 333V.
65 Labnola (as note 2), 148-54.
66 On Palazzi Gaddi, on the current day via del Giglio,
see Bargellini and Guarnieri (as note 10), 40-41 and
173. For the family burial chapel in Santa Maria No-
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mented by their own activities as merchant bank-
ers. Agnolo di Zanobi, born in 1398, became the
first of his family to assume the position as prior,
serving thee times between 1437 and 145 1 , firmly
allied to the Medici faction; while his son France-
sco (born 1 441), a learned theologian and huma-
nist who was also a banker in Rome, continued
the tradition of service in the priorate, serving in
1495 and M01-6* The family's elevation in finan-
cial and political stature was capped by the con-
struction of an enormous palazzo in the Medici
parish of San Lorenzo, and their acquisition of a
family burial chapel in Santa Maria Novella, thus
decisively leaving behind their ancestral neigh-
borhood in the gonfalone Chiavi and family
tombs in S. Croce.66 Agnolo di Taddeo's sons, by
contrast, vanish from the records.67 Vasari's attri-
bution to them of the family's later financial and
social standing is entirely mistaken.68
The political activity of the Gaddi family in
the 1380s and '90s was also connected with their
vella see Stefano Orlandi, Necrologio di Santa Maria
Novella , 2 vols., Florence 1955, vol. II, 295. Vasari (as
note 1), vol. I, 646, wrongly identifies Agnolo's tomb
as in S. Maria Novella. Ser Lapo Mazzei remarks in a
letter to Datini of 20 October 1400, »El palagio di
Zanobi di Taddeo Gaddi molto mi piace per voi; non
tanto per lo bello abituro, quanto perch'egli e fuori di
quegli occhi crudeli, ed e in sulla via da Prato, e e nel
mezzo di firenze tra mercatanti e gente dolce, e e piu
presso a me.« [Mazzei lived in the gonfalone Vaio,
popolo S. Michele Visdomini]; Lapo Mazzei, Lettere
di un notaro a un mercante del secolo XIV: con altre
lettere e document z, ed. Cesare Guasti, 2 vols., Flor-
ence 1880, vol. I, 284. Th e prestanze from this period
record Zanobi in the gonfalone Chiavi, but perhaps
he had moved to the neighborhood of S. Maria
Novella by this time, while continuing to use the old
address for tax purposes.
67 See Zanobi's will cited above notes 25-26. The later
lives of Agnolo's sons are unknown. I have found no
records for them in the catasto.
68 Vasari (as note 1), vol.1, 641: »[...J le quail [molte
delle sue opere] furono lavorate da lui con molto suo
utile, sebbene lavorava piu per fare come i suoi mag-
giori fatto avevano, che per voglia che ne avesse,
avendo egli indiritto l'animo all mercanzia, che gli era
di migliore utile: come si vede quando i figliuoli, non
volendo piu vivere da dipintori, si diedero del tutto
alia mercatura, tenendo percio casa aperta in Venezia
insieme col padre, che da un certo tempo in la non
lavoro se non per suo piacere, e in un certo modo per
residence in the gonfalone of the Chiavi.69 The
Chiavi was the headquarters of the Albizzi fam-
ily, the powerful politicians who, among others,
opposed the minor guildsmen of the Ciompi and
engineered the return to oligarchic control in
1 3 82. 70 The Albizzi were also influential in the
wool guild which in turn supervised the Opera
del Duomo, the lay board of the cathedral ap-
pointed by the Commune.71 Of the very few
artists and architects who achieved public office
in the late Trecento, the most successful political-
ly were from the district of the Chiavi and were
in the employ of the Opera del Duomo.72 These
included Francesco Talenti, capomaestro of the
Duomo from 13 51 to 1364 and 1366-69,73 Gio-
vanni di Lapo Ghini, co- capomaestro with Ta-
lenti from 1357 and capomaestro from 1359 to
1371;74 and Neri di Fioravante, intimately in-
volved with cathedral construction from 13 51
until at least 1367.75 The concentration of arti-
sans employed by the Opera del Duomo in the
immediate neighborhood of the Gaddi family
may have been one of the reasons that Taddeo
Gaddi was in the 1350s drawn into the employ-
ment of the Opera del Duomo on a consulting
basis.76 Indeed the consultants elected in July
1355 to advise the Opera on the design of Fran-
cesco Talenti for the cathedral included the
names of Taddeo's neighbors Neri di Fioravante
and Giovanni di Lapo Ghini.
The tradition of politically well-connected
artisans from the Chiavi continued in the late
fourteenth century. From the master copy of the
prestanze drawn up in 1382, we learn that the
politically active sons of Neri di Fioravante,
Francesco and Bartolommeo, were resident on
the same street, via Santa Maria, as the five Gaddi
brothers; Francesco di Neri served as one of the
officers for the district. Simone di Francesco
Talenti, Francesco's son and sometime co-capo-
maestro at the Duomo, the Loggia dei Priori, and
Orsanmichele, was resident in the nearby Borgo

passer tempo. « (»[...] and many of his works may listings of Albizzis, including Masus luce de Albizis ,
also be recognized in the domain, which were assessed at 10 florins, one soldo and one denaro.
wrought by him with much profit to himself, al- 71 Howard Saalman, Filippo Brunelleschi: The cupola of
though he worked more in order to do as his fore- Santa Maria del Fiore, London 1980, 8, 173-78.
fathers had done than for any love of it, having his
72 For this account and the following I draw from Hat-
mind directed on commerce, which brought him bet- field (as note 63), xxxviii-xli.
ter profit; as it is seen when his sons., not wishing any
73 Francesco Talenti occupied the office of the Property
longer to be painters, gave themselves over complete- of the Rebels in 1355; see Saalmon (as note 71), 178-
ly to commerce, holding a house open for this pur- 81; Gert Kreytenberg, in: The Dictionary of Art , ed.
pose in Venice together with their father, who, from a Jane Turner, vol. XXX, New York 1995, 272-74; and
certain time onward, did not work save for his own Hatfield (as note 63), xl.
pleasure, and, in a certain manner, in order to pass74 Giovanni served multiple times in the Tre Maggiori
time;« trans, de Vere [as note 1], volume I, 199.) between 1363 and 1373, and he also held internal
69 The classic essay on neighbors and neighborhoods is posts and was elected several times to external posts,
by Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Kin, Friends and which he declined.; see Saalman (as note 71), 178-81;
Neighbors: The Urban Territory of a Merchant Fami- M. G. Ercolino in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani ,
ly in 1400, in: eadem, Women , family, and ritual in vol. LIII, Rome 1999, 763-66; and Hatfield (as note
Renaissance Italy , trans. L. Cochrane, Chicago 1985, 63), xxxix.
68-93. 75 Neri was elected to the offices of the Tre Maggiori
70 On the Albizzi political activity, see Antonio Rado, thirteen times, including the priorate in 1353, 1358,
Dalla repubblica fiorentina alia signoria medicea: 1363, and 1367; he also held numerous internal of-
Maso degli Albizzi e il partito oligarchiico in Firenze fices. His son Francesco was prior five times between
dal 1382 al 1393, Florence 1926; and Arnaldo D'Ad- 1344 and 1366, and his son Bartolomeo was a prior in
dario in: Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. II, 1 39 1 and 1403; they also held numerous internal and
Rome i960, 27-28. On the later family relations in external offices. Francesco also held ambassadorships
the Chiavi district see Dale V. Kent, The Rise of the to Siena and the Pope. See Saalman (as note 71),
Medici: Faction in Florence 1426-1434 , Oxford 1978, 178-81; Giovanni Ciappelli, Francesco Fioravanti,
i78~79, 191-92. The concentration of Albizzi house- and David Friedman, Neri Fioravanti, in Dizionario
holds in the Chiavi is verified by prestanze records; biografico degli Italiani , vol. XLVIII, Rome, 1997,
for example, in ASF Prestanze 651 (September, 1382), 107- 1 1; and Hatfield (as note 6x). xxxviii- xxxix.
fol. 62V [via di borgo San Piero], there are multiple 76 Ladis (as note 6), 259-62, docs. 81-90.

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Allegri (fig. 2, no. 2). 77 Michele di Giovanni di lic must have been limited;81 and his lost painting
Lapo maestro was living in via Santa Maria at the for the Bigallo in 1380 was for a minor patron.82
beginning of the next prestanza in 1390. 78 Gaddi It was Agnolo's decoration of the Castellani
neighbor Francesco di Neri Fioravante served family chapel in Santa Croce, probably in the
multiple times as an operaio of the Duomo, from years following 1383, that most likely brought
1388, when the register begins, until 139 5. 79 It him greater renown among the elite families of
may well have been that neighborhood and pro- Florence, including the Alberti, for whom he
fessional ties of long standing were instrumental worked also in Santa Croce and later at San
in bringing both Taddeo and, in the 1380s, Agno- Miniato and in the Oratory of S. Catherine in
lo into the employ of the Opera.80 Antella.83 Would Agnolo's status as a »new man«
This account of the fiscal, professional and have attracted patrons from the old elite, such as
political activities of Gaddi family members in the Alberti, or from newer members of the oli-
the second half of the Trecento traces the slow garchy, such as the Castellani? The answer is
but sure rise in fortune and prestige of an artisanprobably not; the political divisions of the 1380s,
family. What we know about Agnolo's patronswhich saw the beginnings of the exile of the
fills in the picture a little more, although the evi-Alberti clan (first in 1387, then again in 1393,
dence is incomplete and the conclusions remainuntil their almost total ban in 1400), engineered
ambiguous. While the early employ of the Gaddiby the faction of the oligarchy which included
brothers Giovanni and Agnolo by Pope Urban Vthe Castellani, were not clear cut. Indeed, mem-
bers of the Castellani and Alberti intermarried at
might suggest a certain high profile, during the
precarious and short-lived return of the papacyleast twice in the last decades of the Trecento,84
to Rome this commission must have been less and opposition to the populist Benedetto Alberti
included members of his own family.85 The art-
prestigious than it might at first appear. Agnolo's
work for the nuns of San Domenico, while not ist's political allegiances were probably not a fac-
insignificant, was probably not seen by many tor in securing these commissions.
potential patrons, as even under their relaxed Agnolo's relations with Francesco di Marco
Datini began almost immediately after the latter's
rule in the fourteenth century access to the pub-

77 ASF Prestanze 651 (September 1382), c. 68 r: »Fran- la famiglia Alberti, in: UOratorio di Santa Caterina:
ciscus e Bartholomus Neri Fioravantus«, assessed Osservazioni storico-critiche in occasione del restauro ,
four florins, eleven soldi and eight denari; c. 8iv:ed. Maurizio De Vita, Florence 1998, 43-46; and Tho-
»Simon Franceschi Talenti«, assessed six soldi. mas J. Loughman, Spinello Aretino , Benedetto Alberti ,
78 ASF Prestanze 1308 (1390), c. 70V: »Michele di Gio- and the Olivetans: Late Trecento Patronage at San Mi-
vanni di Lapo Ghini maestro«, assessed one florin. niato al Monte , Ph.D. diss. (Rutgers Unviersity) 2003.
Michele became capomaestro of the cathedral in84 Foster (as note 8), 749; Michele di Messer Vanni di
1388.
Michele Castellani married Filippa di Bernardo di
His political career was not as successful as his fa-
Nerozzo d'Alberto c. 1362, and Matteo di Michele di
ther's; he served as capomaestro for the Office of the
Castles, was drawn unsuccessfully to the officeVanni of Castellani married Angelica di Niccolaio d'Ja-
castellano of Rassina in 1388, and posthumously for copo d'Alberto on 19 November 1384.
the Signoria in 1422; see Ercolino (as note 74),85765;
Susannah Foster Baxandale, Exile in Practice: The
Hatfield (as note 63), xxxix. Alberti Family In and Out of Florence 1401-28, in:
Renaissance Quarterly XLIV, 1991, 720-56.
79 The register with officers of the Wool guild, including
the operai of the cathedral, is in ASF, Arte della 86 Renato Piattoli, Un mercante del Trecento e gli artisti
Lana,
del tempo suo, in: Rivista d'arte XI, 1929, 221-53,
39 (Registro ai Consoli dell'Arte per ordine di tem-
396-437, 537-7% here 245-46; Cole (as note 34),
po); Francesco di Neri served six month terms start-
1977, 6 1, doc. 8. In a letter dated 16 December 1389,
ing 1 July in 1388, 1390, 1 39 1, 1394, and 1 January
1394/5; fols. 2, 3, 26. quoted in Melis (as note 21), 147, n. 4, Datini refers to
80 See Cole (as note 35), 5-7, 61-67. »Agnolo di Tadeo, parente di Stoldo,« suggesting a
81 Thomas (as note 34), 221-22. family relationship between his associate Stoldo di
82 Cole, (as note 35), 60, doc. 3. Lorenzo and Agnolo; it was perhaps this parentado
83 Boskovits (as note 17), 119-22; Cole (as note 34),that forged the link between Datini and both Agnolo
and Zanobi.
9-15, 21-26, 78-81; Enzo Settesoldi, I Committenti:

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return to Italy and predate, at least as far as we later the Pratese Opera del Duomo.91 However,
know, those of his brother Zanobi in Venice.86 Agnolo's prestanze payments do not suggest
The familiar tone of Agnolo's letter to Datini of severe financial difficulty: he made payments in
20 October 1383, in which he recommends to the 1390 and 1 39 1 without great delay,92 although we
merchant several artists, suggests that their ac- do find him listed in the register of debtors to the
quaintance was of some standing. We can only prestanze in 1391, along with his brothers Fran-
guess why Agnolo himself did not assume these cesco and Niccolo.93 Agnolo's payments even-
commissions. Perhaps he was occupied with tually erased the debt, although later payments
tasks on the Loggia dei Lanzi (payments for are erratic.94 For his work in the chapel of the
designs begin in July of 13 83)^ or, even then, Holy Belt in Prato Agnolo was paid the consid-
preliminary planning for the Castellani chapel erable sum of 535 florins, beginning in 1392 and
(Michele di Vanni provided for the construction finishing in 1395; and he was reputed to have
of the chapel and its ornamentation in his will of received a huge sum for the vast decoration of
9 July 1383, and he died in the same year).88 the cappella maggiore in S. Croce.95 Although no
Datini, too, was not at this time (and perhaps extant documents confirm this latter assertion,
never) an elite or well-known patron in Florence, the sheer scale of the enterprise makes it likely.
and he proved later to be a poor paymaster with Datini's role in Agnolo's commission for the
little regard for artists.89 It was only in the early Chapel of the Holy Belt is often assumed, but
1 390s that Agnolo worked for Datini on the fres- Datini's relationship with the Pratese Opera, in
co decoration of his palace in Prato, in collabora- spite of serving as an operaio in late 1393 (after
tion with Bartolomeo Bertozzo and in a subordi- Agnolo had already begun work), was somewhat
nate role to Niccolo di Pietro Gerini.90 Boskovits distant. The merchant directed his charity prima-
has suggested Agnolo's financial and legal diffi- rily at the church of San Francesco in Prato, and
culties at this time (he was arrested in a scuffle indeed his preferred artist seems to have been
with a tax collector and subsequently relieved of Gerini rather than Agnolo.96 Agnolo's links to
an onerous fine because of poverty) were the rea- the Florentine Opera del Duomo, from which
son he moved to Prato to work for Datini and the principal artisans involved in the construc-

87 Carl Frey, Die Loggia dei Lanzi in Florenz , Berlin 1390; ASF Prestanze 1259 (1390), fol. i4r: 9 June 1390
1885, 302-05; Cole (as note 34), 61-62, docs. 9, 10 and 16 March 13 90/1; ASF Prestanze 1340 (1391), fol.
12, 13. 33r: 18 December 1391; ASF Prestanze 1354 (1 391),
88 Ugo Procacci, Gherardo Stamina, in: Rivista d'arte fol. 33r: 18 December 1392.
XVIII, 1936, 92-93; Cole (as note 34), 61, doc. 93 7; ASF Prestanze 1358 (1391), fol. 152V; Francesco is
Giovanni Ciappelli, Una famiglia e le sue ricordanze; listed on fol. 175V, and Niccolo on fol. 201 r; ASF Pre-
I Castellani di Firenze nel tre- quattrocento , Florence stanze 1379 (1391/92), fol. 23r, 20 December 1391.
1995, 28, n. 92. 94 In a register from 1392, Agnolo's payments are listed
89 Piattoli (as note 86), 222-53, 39^~437> 537~795 Re~ as having been made in 1408, more than ten years
nato Piattoli, Un mercante del Trecento e gli artisti after his death; the date does not appear to be an
del tempo suo, in: Rivista d'arte XII, 1930, 97-150; error; ASF Prestanze 1367 (1392), fol. i7r, 25 Septem-
Joseph Patrick Byrne, Francesco Datini , >Father of ber 1408. On the other hand, later payments were
many<: Piety , charity and patronage in early modern made promptly and in full: ASF Prestanze 1494
Tuscany , Ph.D. diss. (Indiana University) 1989, (March 1395/96), fol. 2r, 29 July 1396; and ASF Pre-
273-327- stanze 1625 (May, 1397), fol. 26v, 6 November 1397,
90 Bruce Cole, The Interior Decoration or the Palazzoby the »rede e beni d' Agnolo di Taddeo Ghaddi«.
95 Girolaomo Mancini, ed., Vite d'artisti di Giovanni
Datini in Prato, in: Mitteilungen des kunsthistorischen
Institutes in Florenz XIII, 1967, 61-82; Cole (as note
Battista Gelli, in: Archivio storico italiano 5 ser., XVII,
34), 63, doc. 18; Anne Dunlop, Painted Palaces: The 1896, 1-62, here 45.
Rise of Secular Art in Early Renaissance Italy ,96
Uni-
Datini s dispute with Gerini (and, to a lesser extent,
versity Park (PA) 2009, 15-41. Agnolo and Bartolomeo di Bertozzo) in 1391-94
91 Boskovits (as note 4), 707. seems to have been resolved amicably, as both Gerini
92 ASF Prestanze 1238 (1390), fol. 25 V: 29 May 1390; and Agnolo continued to work for him; see Byrne (as
ASF Prestanze 1254 (1390), fol. 25V: 15 December note 89), 294-314.

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 3- Benozzo Gozzoli, Petrarch , Dante and Giotto , 1452. Montefalco, San Francesco, detail of frieze

tion and decoration were drawn, may have been
more important.97
Hence Agnolo's many commissions from
prestigious patrons and, as far as we can tell, his
generous remuneration, reflect high regard for
his art, but little evidence for an enhanced social
standing. Descriptions of the scuffle in Prato in
the accounts of the Opera and the Florentine
courts suggest he was a somewhat anti-social
character.98 Vasari's characterization of the paint-
er as inconsistent and dallying may contain a
germ of truth. Vasari's biography also manifests
ambivalence; the financial success of Agnolo
makes him lazy in the pursuit of artistic excel-
lence, yet wealth is the key to the social promi-
nence of later generations of Gaddis so enthu-
siastically described by Vasari."
Vasari's presentation of Agnolo as the last of a
prestigious dynasty of painters is, however, con-
sistent with family social identity that can be
traced in written sources to the late Trecento.
Filippo Villani's De origine civitatis Florentie et
de eiusdem famosis civibus , written in 1381-2
when his first cousin Matteo was a close neigh-
bor of the Gaddi,100 celebrates Taddeo's skill in
painting architectural settings.101 Giovanni de'

97 Gerini's and Lorenzo di Niccolo's efforts to have 153; 168. In the new pre stanza of 1390 (ASF Pres-
Datini help them acquire work in the church ultima- tanze 1308, fol. 66r) Matteo and his brother Villano
tely came to nothing; see Byrne (as note 89), 317-23. are still residents on the via di Borgo S. Piero.
98 Cole (as note 34), 6-7, 63-64, docs. 21-22. 1 01 Filippo Villani, De origine civitatis florentie et de
99 On this point see Paul Barolsky, Giotto's father and eiusdem famosis civibus , ed. Giuliano Tanturli, Pa-
the family of Vasari's Lives , University Park (PA) dua 1997, xv-xvi. Strehlke (as note 5), 25, n. 44, has
1 992, 15-18. identified a copy of Villani's text in the Biblioteca
100 Matteo was resident on the via di Borgo San Piero Mediceo-Laurenziana LXXXIX, inf. 39 (Gaddi 948),
(part of the current-day Borgo degli Albizzi west as one owned by Agnolo di Zanobi.
from S. Pier Maggiore) in the gonfalone Chiavi; ASF102 Giovanni Gherardi da Prato, »Philomena«: »The
Prestanze 651 (1382), fol. 64r. Matteo di Giovanni other you see who raises his eyebrows so/ that is
Villani (d. c. 1408) made a copy in 1377 of his fa- Taddeo and Andrea [Pisano] is with him;« cited in
ther's chronicle; he was a consul of the Arte della Strehlke (as note 5), 25, n. 43. Strehlke has identified
Lana in 1400; see Pompeo Litta, Famiglie celehri ita- Agnolo di Zanobi as the owner of the unique
liane , vol. VIII: Villani di Firenze , Milan 1902. Mat- manuscript of the poem, now in Florence, Biblioteca
teo was a close friend of Francesco Datini; see Maz- Nazionale Centrale, ms. Magliabecchiano VII. 702.
zei (as note 66), 1:238 n. 1; 281; 390; 2:53; n- 4> 103 Cennini (as note 3), 4.

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 4. Florentine, fifteenth century, Portrait of Five Florentines. Paris, Musee du Louvre

Gherardi da Prato mentioned Taddeo in the con- the bust-length view and horizontal format, and
text of famous Florentines in a poem written all are presumably compilations of pre-existing,
before 13 89. 102 Cennino Cennini seems to haveauthoritative portraits or self-portraits in the
been the first, however, to adumbrate the artistic humanist tradition of »uomini famosi.«104 Strehl-
lineage of the Gaddi, linking himself through ke has also suggested that the Uffizi portrait may
Agnolo and Taddeo to Giotto, and thereby ele- replicate the varied poses of the head Pliny the
vating and legitimizing the practice of painting as Elder describes by the artist Kimon of Kleonai,
outlined in his book.103 including the difficult three-quarter view.105 The
Yet the picture we have drawn of Gaddi socialGozzoli frieze and Louvre panel depict men
identity at the end of the fourteenth century sup-associated by talent and fame, while the Uffizi
ports Sthrelke's proposal to date the Uffizi triple sitters are related by blood and profession.106 Yet
portrait to the early fifteenth century. The sitters' by portraying family members as »famous men,«
variety of pose is unknown among independent the Uffizi picture is a daring assertion of Gaddi
portraits from the Trecento, but it occurs in the prestige and renown.
early 1450s in a frieze in which Benozzo Gozzoli Another striking difference between the Uffizi
painted Dante, Petrarch and Giotto in vine- portrait and those in the Louvre or Montefalco is
framed roundels; and later in a portrait of five the depiction of the three generation of Gaddi
Florentines in the Louvre (figs. 3, 4). All share wearing open-necked, loose tunics of artisans.107

104 For the Gozzoli frieze, see Diane Cole Ahl, Benozzo S. Croce described by Ghiberti; see Strehlke (as note
Gozzoli , New Haven 1996, 49, pl. 56. For the Lou- 5), 11-12.
vre picture, inv. 267, attributed to the late fifteenth 105 Pliny the Elder, Natural History , trans. Harris Rack-
or early sixteenth century, see Jeno Lanyi, The Lou- ham, vol. IX, Cambridge (MA) 1952, book XXXV,
vre Portrait of Five Florentines, in: Burlington chapter xxxiv, 56, 302-03; Strehlke (as note 5),
Magazine LXXXIV, 1944, 87-95. The inscription, 1 1 - 1 2.

later than the painting, identifies the sitters as Giot- 106 The dynastic and memorial functions of early, inde-
to, Paolo Uccello, Donatello, Antonio Manetti and pendent portraits are discussed in Rab Hatfield, Five
Filippo Brunelleschi. The profile portrait of Agnolo Early Renaissance Portraits, in: Art Bulletin XLVII,
in the Uffizi panel is derived from the corresponding 1965, 315-34; and, more recently, Alison Wright,
figure at the far right in his mural the Death of The Memory of Faces: Representational Choices in
Chosroes and the Entry of Heraclius into Jerusalem Fifteenth-Century Florentine Portraiture, in: Art ,
in the Alberti chapel in S. Croce, a work by Agnolo Memory and Family in Renaissance Florence , eds.,
probably from the late 1380s. Whether this is a self Giovanni Ciappelli and Patricia Lee Rubin, Cam-
portrait cannot be verified, though it became known bridge 2000, 86-113.
as such; for example, Vasari (as note 1), vol. I, 646. 107 All three Gaddi wear versions of the cappuccio , with
The view of Taddeo may be from a lost mural in its foggia (short end) and becchetto (long end), while

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 5. Antonio Averlino, called Filarete, Self-Portrait with Workshop (detail), 1445,
on reverse of doors to St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, Rome

The five Florentines, in a distinctly more patri-
cian mien, wear different variations of male
dress: camicia (shirt), farsetto (doublet) and
gonella (gown). In Filarete's relief on the interior
of his bronze doors for St. Peter's basilica, dating
from the 1440s, we see a similar range of attire
(fig. 5). Workshop assistants wearing open-
necked tunics and leather aprons follow the
master, shown in profile in a close-fitting tunic
{gonella or gonnellino) buttoned at the neck.108 A
clue to why the Gaddi are depicted as artisans
may lie with the painting's provenance. As
Strehlke has shown, Agnolo di Zanobi actively
promoted Gaddi family history, and he may have
been the patron of the Uffizi portrait.109 Cele-
brating an artistic heritage among Agnolo di
Zanobi's generation is consonant with the social
identity of the younger Gaddi as intellectuals and
humanists. Their familiarity with classically
inspired concepts that celebrate artistic talent is
more likely to have motivated such a commission
than their father's and uncle's status as gente
nuova , whether successful artisans or wealthy
merchant bankers.110 Zanobi, the source of the
family's financial and social prominence, is not in
the picture. Vasari's confusion may have been the
intended effect of the portrait on viewers: to
obscure the mercantile origins of the family
while elevating its artisan roots. Even as the
Gaddi, with Agnolo's death, left the occupation
of painter behind, the heirs of Zanobi, firmly
ensconced in the Medicean oligarchy, celebrated
the family, who achieved wealth and social pres-
tige through artistic skill, as a Florentine success
story.

109 Strehlke (as note 5), 9-10, notes that th

only three of the Five Florentines do. Descriptions
was owned by descendants of Taddeo Gaddi
of these articles of clothing are in Carole Collier
no For concepts of artistic skill, see, for exam
Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence , Baltimore
2002. Syson and Dora Thornton, Objects of virt
Angeles
108 Joanna Woods-Marsden, Renaissance 2001, 89-91.
self -portrai-
ture, New Haven 1998, 54-57.

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 Appendix

Payments for the construction of a new refectory at the convent of S. Domenico nel Maglio, Florence,
1376-77

ASF, Corporazioni Religiose Soppresse dal Governo francese, 108 (S. Domenico nel Maglio, Monache
Domenicane), 10 (Entrata e Uscita, 1370-1388)

fol. 64 recto:

In nomine Domini nel MCCCLXXVI. Qui si comincia le spese de' refetoro nuovo che fa suora Lucia de Ponta-
leone, priora, e suora Bonna spenditrice, e io suora Agnesa le scrivo.

Add! xii d'aprile diede la priora e suora venne per due sechie per lo lavoro de' refetoro nuovo
1. xi s. x
Addi xix d'aprile deono a Donato lastraiuolo per parte dele pietre de' refettoro nuovo
fiorini d'oro viii
Addi xxiii d'aprile dierono per una fune per le sechie e per quatro libre di feranba
1. i s. xv
El detto di dierono per due bigoncie e due bigonciuoli co' manichi
Per una bigo[n]cia grande 1. ii s. x
Per uno paio di taglie e uno che vape 1. vii s. vii
Per una barelle e due ceste 1. i s. iiii d. ii
Addi xxvi d'aprile ebbe Leonardo maestro per qu
1. iiii s. iiii
Ebbe Bonacorso maestro per tre di e due terci per soldi xviii el di 1. iii s. vi
Ebbe Jachopo maestro per due di e due tereci, per soldi xviii el di 1. ii s. viii
Ebbono tre manovali per quatro di e due terci per soldi xi el di 1. vii s. xiiii
Ebbe cetto manovale per tre di e due terci per soldi xi el di 1. i s. xviii d. viii

Addi xxix d'aprile ebbe Donato lastraiolo per parte dele pietre ci messe e vechie ci tole e seragli per lo detto lavo-
rio de' refettoro fiorini d'oro vi

Addi due di maggio ebbono tre maestri per quatr

Ebbono cinque manovali per ventitre opere per soldi xi el di 1. xii s. xiii

Addi tre di maggio ebbe Nuccino per parte dela rena fiorini d'oro iiii per xxxvi vetture di pietre minute per soldi
vii l'una 1. xii s. xii

Addi vi di maggio ebono

1. iii s. x
El detto di ebbe Donato lastraiuolo per parte dele pietre fiorini d'oro vi

Somma fiorini d'oro XXIIII 1. LXXXVII s. XIII d. X

fol 64 verso: nel MCCCLXXVI

Addi vii di maggio dierono per xii libre di feranba s. xix

Per xxxix vetture da frui per soldi vii el di per ripieno 1. xiii s. xiii
Per xiii opere di maestri per soldi xviii el di 1. xi s. xiiii
Per tre cento aseregli 1. iii s. i d. vi

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Add! xvii di maggio ebbe Acquio fabro per parte di pagamento delle catene dele volte
fiorini d'oro xii

El detto di ebbe Stefano fornaciaio per parte di pagamento della calcina e de' mattoni porto Vanni
fiorini d'oro xii

Ebono tre maestri per 5 di e due terci per soldi xviii el di 1. xv s. vi

Ebono 5 manovali per 5 di e due terci per soldi xi el di 1. xv s. x d. viii

Ebono due segatori per due di per soldi xviii el di 1. iii s. xvi

Addi xxiiii di maggio ebono tre maestri per quatro di e due terci 1. xii s. xii

Ebono cinque manovali per quatro di e due terci 1. xii s. xvii

El detto di ebbe Nuccino per parte di pagamento della rena pel deto lavorio de' refettoro
fiorini d'oro iiii

Per due centinaia d'aseregli 1. ii s. i

Addi ultimo di maggio ebono tre maestri per v

Ebono v manovali per v di e due terci 1. xv s. xi d. viii

El detto di ebbe Stefano fornaciaolo per parte di pagamento della calcina e de' matoni port
fiorini d'oro xx

El detto di ebbe Donato lastraiuolo per parte di pagamento de' sopradette pietre
fiorini d'oro ix

Anche el detto di ebbe Accino fabro per parte di pagamento dele chatene e d'altri feramen
fiorini d'oro xxvi 1. i s. xii

Addi vii di giugno ebono tre maestri per tre di e due terci 1. ix s. xix

Ebbono v manovali per tre di e due terci 1. x

El detto di ebbe Stefano fo[r]naciaio per parte di pagamento della calcina e de' matoni porto
fiorini d'oro xx

El detto di ebbe Donato lastraiuolo, per parte di pagamento de' sopadette pietre
fiorini d'oro ix

Anche el detto di ebbe Accino fabro, per parte di pagamento dele chatene e d'altri ferament
fiorini d'oro xxvi 1. i s. xii

Addi vii di giugno ebono tre maestri per tre di e due terci 1. ix s. xix

Ebbono v manovali per tre di e due terci 1. x

Somma fiorini d'oro C 1. CLXXXI s. XVI d. X

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fol. 6; recto: Nel MCCCLXXVI

Add! xxi di giugnio ebono tre maestri per v di e due terci 1. xv s. vi

Ebbono tre manovali per v di e due terci 1. ix s. vi

Add! xxv di giugnio [e]be Bartolo dipintore, che dipinse le volte, per parte di pagamen
fiorini d'oro vi

El detto di ebbe Donato lastraiuolo compimento per parte di pagamento dele pietre d
tole e frategli fiorini d'oro iiii

Ebono due segatori per uno di 1. i s. xii

Addi xxviii di giugnio ebono tre maestri per quatro

Ebbe uno maestro per tre di e due terci 1. iii s. vi

Ebbono tre manovali per quatro di e uno tercio 1. vii s. iiii

El detto di ebbe Agnolo di Tadeo dipintore per parte di pagamento delle dipinture de' refetoro nu
fiorini d'oro iiii

Addi v di luglio ebono quattro maestri per v di e due terci 1. xx s. viii

Ebono tre manovali per v di e due terci 1. ix s. vi

El detto di ebbe Nuccino per parte di pagamento della rena

fiorini d'oro iiii

Addi xi di luglio ebbe Bartolo fornaciaio per mille cinque cento setantacinque mez
fiorini d'oro iiii

Addi xii di luglio ebbe Stefano fornaciaio per parte di pagamento della calcina e de'
fiorini d'oro xii

El detto di ebono quatro maestri per v di e due terci 1. xx s. viii

Ebono v manovali per v di e due terci 1. xv s. x

Addi xix di luglio ebbe Donato lastraiuolo per parte di pagamento dele pietre d
no della scala fiorini d'oro x

El detto di ebono quatro maestri per v di e due terci 1. xx s. viii

Ebono v manovali per v di e due terci 1. xv s. x

Addi xxiiii di luglio ebono quatro maestri per tre di 1. x s. xvi

Ebono quatro manovali per tre di 1. xi s. xii

Per faccitura dele mense 1. viii

Somma fiorini d'oro XXXXIIII 1. CLXXV s. VI

Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 74. Band / 20 1 1 x j j

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fol. 6; verso: Nel MCCCLXXVI

Add! due d'agosto ebono quatro maestri per quatro di e due terci 1. xvi s. xvi

Ebono quatro manovali per quatro di e due terci 1. x s. iiii

Ebbe uno manovale per uno di e uno tercio s. xv

El detto di ebbe Donato lastraiuolo per parte de pagamento dele pietre dela scala
fiorini d'oro iii

Ebbe Salvestro fornaciaio per cinque cento matoni 1. iiii s. x

Addi vii d'agosto ebbe Bartolo Bociardi fornaciaio per mille cento matoni

fiorini d'oro ii 1. ii s. viii

El detto di ebbe Agnolo di Tadeo dipintore per parte di pagamento dele dipin
fiorini d'oro x

Addi ix d'agosto ebono tre maestri per quatro di e due terci

fiorini d'oro ii 1. v s. iiii

Ebono quatro manovali per quatro di e due terci 1. x s. iiii

El detto di ebbe Donato lastraiuolo per parte di pagamento d'uno truogolo da lavare le mani per l
toro fiorini d'oro viii

Anche el detto di ebbe Stefano fornacia

fiorini d'oro xii

Addi xvii d'agosto ebono tre maestri pe

fiorini d'oro ii 1. v s. iiii

Ebono quatro manovali per quatro di e due terci 1. x s. iiii

Addi xxiiii d'agosto dierono per facitura del pozzo de' refettoro nuovo
fiorini d'oro xiiii

El detto di ebono tre maestri per v di e due terci fiorini d'oro tre 1. iiii s. iiii

Ebono quatro manovale per v di e due terci 1. xii s. viii

Addi ultimo d'agosto ebono due maestri per quatro di e due terci 1. viii s.

Ebono due manovali per quatro di e due terci 1. v s. ii

El detto di ebbe Stefano fornaciaio per parte di pagamento della calcina e de' matoni
porto Vanni fiorini d'oro xxiiii
Somma fiorini d'oro LXXX 1. LXXXXV s. XI

1 72 Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 74. Band / 201 1

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fol. 66 recto: Nel MCCCLXXVI

Add! vi di sette[m]bre ebono due maestri per v di e due terci 1. x s. iiii

Ebono due manovali per v di e due terci 1. vi s. iiii

El detto di ebbe Nuccino per parte di pagamento della rena

fiorini d'oro ii

Addi xi di settembre ebbe Bartolo Bociardi per novecento matoni

1. ix s. ix

Ebbe Vanni orafo per quattro chanelle d'ottone per la pilla de' refettoro
fiorini d'oro iii 1. i s. xv

Addi xiii di sette[m]bre ebbe Agnolo di Tadeo dipintore per parte di pagamen
dipi[n]ture fiorini d'oro xvi

El deto di ebono due maestri per quatro di e due terzi

fiorini d'oro ii 1. i s. vii

Ebono due manovali per quatro di e due terzi 1. v s. ii

Per aconciatura delle chavelle della pila de' refetoro 1. i

Addi xvii di sette[m]bre ebbe Donato lastraiuolo per parte di pagamento delle sopradette pietre,
fiorini d'oro ii

Per due staia di smalto per ismaltare el pozzo de' refettoro s. xvi

Addi xx di settembre ebono due maestri per v di e due terci 1. x s. iiii

Ebono due manovali per v di e due terci 1. vi s. iiii

Addi xxvii di settembre ebono due maestri per v di e due terci 1. x s. iiii

Ebono due manovali per v di e due terci 1. vi s. iiii

Ebono due manovali per due di 1. ii s. iiii

Per due doccie pel tetto della sala s. xviii

Addi xxix di settembre ebe Stefano fornaciaio per parte de pagamen

mattoni porto Vanni fiorini d'oro iiii

Addi iiii d'ottobre ebono due maestri per quatro di e due terci
fiorini d'oro ii 1. i s. vii

Ebono due manovali per quatro di e due terci 1. v s. ii

Per vettura di xxvii some di matoni 1. i s. vii

El detto di ebbe Stefano fornaciaio per parte di pagamento d

porto Vanni fiorini d'oro x

Somma fiorini d'oro XXXXI 1. LXXIX s. XI

Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 74. Band / 201 1 j

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fol. 66 verso: Nel MCCCLXXVI

Addl xi d'ottobre ebbe Agnolo di Tadeo dipintore per parte del pagamento dele dipinture
de' refettoro nuovo fiorini d'oro x

El detto di ebono due maestri per quattro di e due terci

fiorini d'oro ii 1. i s. vii

Ebono due manovali per quatro di e due terci 1. v s. ii

Addi xvii d'ottobre ebono due maestri per v di fiorini d'oro ii 1. i s. xix

Ebono due manovali per v di 1. v s. x

El detto di ebbe Bartolo dipintore che dipinsse le volte per compi

fiorini d'oro iiii

Per rimondatura del pozzo de refettoro nuovo 1. i

Addi xxii d'ottobre ebbe Bonacorso maestro per tre di 1. ii s. xiiii

Ebbe uno manovale per tre di 1. i s. xiii

Addi xxv d'ottobre ebbe Leonardo maestro per v di e due terci 1. v s. ii

Ebbe uno manovale per v di e due terci 1. iiii s. ii

Per xviii charucole per le finestre de' refetoro nuovo 1. i s. xvi

El detto di ebbe Stefano fornaciaio per parte di pagamento della calcina e de' matoni porto Vanni
fiorini d'oro viii

Addi xxvi d'ottobre, facta ragione con Donato lastraiuolo dele pietre che diede per lo lavorio de' refettor
pozzo e del davanziale dell'aquaio e del'uscio de'refetoro e de' scaglioni della scala e del'uscino della scala, d
per compimento di pagamento delle sopra dette pietre, fiorini d'oro tre

Somma fiorini d'oro XXIX 1. XXIX s. VI

fol. 6y recto: Nel MCCCLXXVI

Addi xxx d'ottobre facta ragione con Stefano fornaciaio per duecentonovantadua some di calcina pe
soldi otto el moggio, monta 1. CCXXXXVIII s. IIII

Avemo da Stefano fornaci[ai]o per lo lavorio de' refettoro nuovo, tra piu volte, due milia trecento
bottacci, per danari quatro l'uno monta 1. XXXIX

Avemo dal deto Stefano per lo detto lavorio secento sesanta matoni di quarto, a ragione di lire xi
monta 1. vii s. v d. iiii

Ancora ricevemo dal deto Ste

liaio, monta 1. c s. xi d. vi

Ancora ricevemo dal deto Stefano per l

livre x il migliaio, monta 1. cxxviii s. v

1 74 Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 74. Band / 201 1

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Fatta ragione co' Stefano fornaciaio de sopra detti matoni e dela calcina che avemo da lui del sopra detto lavorio,
demo per compimento di pagamento addi xxx d'ottobre

fiorini d'oro xx 1. i

Addi ultimo d'ottobre ebbe Leonardo maestro per quatro di 1. iii s. xii

Ebbe uno manovale per quatro di 1. ii s. iiii

Addi due di nove[m]bre ebbe Nuccino per compimento di pagamento d

fiorini d'oro iiii

Addo [sic] octo di novembre ebbe Leonardo maestro per quatro d

Ebbe uno manovale per quatro di e due terci 1. ii s. xi

Per le fune delle finestre de' refettoro nuovo fiorino uno

Per una doccia del tetto ch'e allato a refetoro nuovo 1. ii s. x

Per uno stagna di legno per refettoro nuovo 1. i s. vi

Addi x di novembre ebbe Agnolo di Tadeo dipintore per compimento di pagamento dele
toro che detto e di sopra fiorini d'oro x
Somma fiorini d'oro XXXV 1. XVII s. XIX

fol. 6y verso: Nel MCCCLXXVI

Addi xi di novembre facta ragione col fabro Azzino di una chavicola e per quatro anella per uno buncissello, uno chia-
vistello, una chiave, quatro arpioni colle bandelle per lo lavorio de' refettoro, monta 1. ii s. xviii

Avemo dal detto Azzino fabro trenta macinegli, pesarono libri ventidue, monta 1. iii s. xii d. ii

Avemo del detto Azzino dodeci stanghe con paletti e biette, per libre millesetanta, monta
1. cxxiiii s. xvii

Ancora ricevemo dal detto Azzino per nove pali per centodue libre, monta 1. xi s. xvii

Avemo da Azzino quaranta arpioni per libre cinquanta, monta 1. vii s. x d. vi

Per quaranta libre d'aguti di trenta sei e di ventiquatro la libra per lo detto lavorio de' refettoro nuovo, monta
1. vi s. iiii d. ii

Ancora ricevemo dal detto Azzino per lo detto lavorio de' refettoro, libre trentasette
1. iiii s. vii d. iiii

Ricevemo del detto Azzino per lo detto lavorio libre otanta d'aguti da piallaciare, monta
1. xviii s. xiii d. viii

Avemo del detto Azzino sei uncinegli da davanziale e venti anella da 'npionbare diciotto maschi per un
per la charicola de' pozzo de' refettoro per libre trentatre, monta
1. v s. viii d. vi

Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 74. Band / 201 1 1

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Ancora ricevemo dal detto Azzino ventiquatro bandelle nove sparanglie, per libre trento, monta
1. vi s. v d. ix

Ancora ricevemo dal detto Azzino cinque campanelle colle copette, otto s
quattro libre di pionbo 1. vi

Facta ragione col fabro Azzino de' feramenti sopra

nuovo, demo per compimento di pagamento de' sopra
fiorini d'oro xiii 1. iii

Somma fiorini d'oro XIII 1. Ill

Somma de tutte som[m]e di sopra Fiorini d'oro CCCLXVI cl. VI LXIX s. XIX d. Villi

Renduta la ragione di tutta l'entrata e ll'uscita delle spese facte pe' refettoro nuovo dinanzi a frate Jacopo Altoviti,
priore di Santa Maria Novella, al frate Agnolo Adimari maestro in teologia, frate Leonardo da Castelfiorentino e
frate Antonio di Simone, trovasi essere tanto l'uscita quanto l'entrata, add! iiii di marzo nel MCCCLXXVI e
dinanzi alia priora sopriora e ll'altre antiche e uficiale del magistero, chontando el fiorino a ragione di 1. iiii s. xiiii
d. vi, o pocho piu o meno, chome allora si chambiava

Photo credits: i Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Fiorentino, Gabinetto Fotografico. - 2 Walther
Limburger, Die Gebaude von Florenz , Leipzig 19 10. - 3 Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence. - 4 Art Re-
source. - 5 Vatican City, Archivio Fotografico

176 Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 74. Band/ 201 1

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