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The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8)

Giorgio Vasari · 1550 (2nd ed. 1568) primary

passage 115 of 162 · (101/137)

in brief
The tabernacle’s construction is said to cost 96,000 gold florins, Orcagna signs his works as sculptor and painter to cross-boost each craft, and he writes sonnets before dying at age sixty in 1389.

It appears that the erection of the loggia and of the marble tabernacle, with all the workmanship involved cost 96,000 gold florins, which were very well expended, because in architecture, in sculpture and other ornaments they are comparable in beauty with any other work of the time, without exception, and so excellent as to assure to the name of Andrea Orcagna immortality and greatness. In signing his paintings he used to write Andrea di Clone, sculptor, and on his sculptures, Andrea di Cione, painter, wishing his sculpture to recommend his painting and his painting his sculpture. Florence is full of his paintings, some of which may be recognised by the name, such as those in S. Romeo, and some by his style, like that in the chapter-house of the monastery of the Angeli. Some which he left imperfect were finished by his brother Bernardo, who survived him, though not for many years. Andrea, as I have said, amused himself in making verses and other poems, and when he was an old man he wrote some sonnets to Burchiello, then a youth. At length at the age of sixty he completed the course of his life in 1389, and was borne with honour to burial from his house in the via Vecchia de' Corazzai.

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topics: contracts, oaths, and obligation · labor, wages, and the division of work · poetry and the poets

The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) · Giorgio Vasari · 1550–1568