which was founded in the year 1294,[1] by Fra Guittone d’Arezzo, who belonged to the order (military as well as religious) of the Virgin Mother of Jesus, or, as the monks of that order are vulgarly called, the Joyous Friars (Frati Gaudenti). In his earliest years Lorenzo devoted himself with so much zeal to the arts of design and painting, that he was afterwards deservedly enumerated among the best of the age in that vocation. The first works of this painter-monk, who adhered to the manner of Taddeo Gaddi and his disciples,[2] were executed in his own monastery of the Angeli, where, in addition to many other pictures, he painted that of the High Altar, which is still to be seen in their church, and was finished, as we learn from letters written on the lower part of the framework, in the year 1413, when it was placed where it still remains.[3] Don Lorenzo then painted a Coronation of the Virgin in a picture which was in the monastery of San Benedetto, outside the gate of Pinti. This monastery likewise belonged to the order of the Camaldolines, and was destroyed at the siege of Florence, in 1529. He had also previously selected the same subject for the picture of his own church of the Angeli. The picture painted for San Benedetto is now in the first cloister of the aforesaid monastery of the Angeli, in the chapel of the Alberti, on the right hand.[4]
- ↑ Del Migliore gives the date of the contract for the foundation of this monastery, 14th January 1295. See Firenze Illustrata, p, 326.
- ↑ “And was a very laborious man,” adds the first edition of Vasari, “as we still see proved by the infinite number of boohs, adorned with miniatures by his hand, yet remaining in the monastery of the Angeli and in the hermitage of Camaldoli, and by the many pictures in distemper, also by Don Lorenzo, preserved in the same places.”—Schorn.
- ↑ This picture was removed towards the end of the sixteenth century, to make way for that of Alessandro Allori, which still occupies the place. It was then lost sight of, and accounted lost; but in the year 1840, while making an artistic pilgrimage in the Val d’Elsa, we had ourselves the good fortune to discover this picture, banished to the church of the abbey of San Piero at Cerreto, near Certaldo, which abbey had been united to the monastery of the Angeli by Pope John XXIII, in the year 1414. We have to remark, however, that at the moment of our discovery, the learned Prussian, Dr. Gaye, was announcing to the public, without our knowledge, that he also had discovered this important work. See Carteggio Inedito di Artisti, etc., vol. ii, p. 433.—Ed. Flor. 1846.
- ↑ A picture painted at the same period with that described in the preceding note, but much smaller, was also discovered by us in a chapel of the suppressed Adelmi abbey, situated at no great distance from that of Cerrete, and which also once belonged to the Camaldoline monks of Florence. —I.
