HKB
Pope Honorius confirming the rule, and a representation of Taddeo from life, in profile, with a hood folded over his head. At the bottom of this scene are these words:
Magister Taddeus Gaddus de Florentia pinxit hanc hittoriam Sancti Francisci et Sancti Andreae et Sancti Nicolai anno Domini MCCCXLII. de mense Augusti.
In the cloister of the same convent he further made a Madonna in fresco, with the child at her neck, very well coloured. In the middle of the church, on the left hand on entering, is seated a St Louis the bishop, to whom St Gherardo da Villamagna, who was a friar of the order, is recommending one fra Bartolommeo, then superior of the convent. The figures of this work, being drawn from life, exhibit the utmost vivacity and grace, in that simple style which was in some respects better than Giotto's, particularly in the expression of intercession, joy, grief, and other feelings, the good representation of which always constitutes the highest claim of the painter to honour. Taddeo then returned to Florence and continued for the commune the work of Orsan-michele, refounding the pillars of the Loggia, using dressed and hewn stones in place of the original bricks, but without making any change in the design left by Arnolfo, who provided that a palace with two vaults should be made above the Loggia for the preservation of the provisions of grain made by the people and commune of Florence. For the completion of this work the Art of the Porta S. Maria, to whom the charge of the structure had been entrusted, ordained the payment of the gabelle of the piazza and of the grain market, and some other changes of very small importance. But an ordinance of far more importance was that each of the arts of Florence should make a pilaster for itself, placing on a niche in it the patron saint of each, and that every year the consuls of the arts should go to make offerings on their saints' feast days and keep their standard and insignia there all that day, but that the alms so collected should be made to the Virgin for the needy poor.