He left a chapel, in the same church, commenced, but not completed. The angels cast from heaven, with Lucifer, are seen falling in various attitudes. The work has suffered greatly from time; but it is still obvious that the foreshortening of the arms, legs, and trunks, is much better than was usual at that time: so that we perceive Stefano to have made some acquaintance with, and even pointed out to his contemporaries, those difficulties which must have beset the painters in their first attempts at foreshortening, but which, by careful study, they afterwards so completely overcame. Hence it is that he was called by his brother artists, “ the ape of nature”.[1]
Being afterwards invited to Milan, Stefano commenced various undertakings for Maestro Visconti; but he could not remain to finish them, the change of air having caused him to fall sick, so that he was compelled to return to Florence. Here, having recovered his health, he executed a painting in fresco, in the transept of the church of Santa Croce, and in the chapel of the Assisi. The subject is the martyrdom of St. Mark, and the work has many figures of considerable merit.[2] Stefano was, at a later period, invited to Rome as a disciple of Giotto; and there he painted certain frescoes, in the principal chapel of St. Peter’s, where stands the altar of the saint; the subjects being stories from the life of Christ.[3] These pictures are between the windows in the great recess, and are finished with so much care, that it is obvious Stefano approached closely to the manner of the moderns, surpassing his master Giotto considerably, whether in design or other artistic qualities. He subsequently painted a St. Louis, in fresco, on a pillar in the church of Ara Celi. It is beside the principal chapel, on the left hand, and is highly commended, as exhibiting a life-like animation, not previously seen even in the works of Giotto. And of a truth, Stefano
- ↑ Cristofano Landino, in the “Apology” preceding his Commentary on Dante, says:—“ Stefano is called the ‘Ape of Nature’ by every one, so accurately does he express whatever he designs to represent”.
- ↑ This picture has perished.
- ↑ The works here, and afterwards, described as executed in Rome, are wholly destroyed.
Ghiberti has described this picture as existing in the crypt, in the following terms;—“In the church of the Preaching Friars is a St. Thomas Aquinas, extremely well done; the figure seems quite to stand out from the wall, and is finished with great care.”—Ed. Flor. 1846.
