After the death of Andrea, his brother Jacopo, who had applied himself to sculpture and architecture, as we have before said, was occasionally employed; as, for example, in the year 1328,[1] when the tower and gate of San Piero Gattolini were founded and built. It is also asserted that the four stone lions, which were placed on the four corners of the ducal palace of Florence, and entirely covered with gold, are from his hand.[2] This work was severely criticised, a much heavier weight than was advisable having been laid on those points, without any reason for its being there; and many thought, that if those lions had been made hollow within, and constructed of plates of copper, gilded in the fire, they would have been much better suited to that place, as being much lighter and more durable. The horse, in full relief and gilded, which stands over one of the doors in Santa Maria del Fiore (the door leading to the oratory of the confraternity of St. Zenobius), is also said to be by this master. It was erected, as is affirmed, in memory of Piero Farnese, Captain of the Florentines; this I will not avouch, but I know nothing to the contrary.[3] At the same period, Mariotto, the nephew of Andrea, painted the Paradise in fresco, still to be seen in the church of San Michele Bisdomini, in the Via de’ Servi, in Florence, with the picture of the Annunciation for the altar. He also painted a second picture, which contained many figures, for the lady Cecilia de’ Boscoli, which was likewise placed in the same church, near the door.[4]
But among all the disciples of Orgagna, none was found
- ↑ Here there is a manifest confusion of dates. Viliam says 1327; but then Andrea Orgagna was not dead;—he was not born, indeed, according to Vasari, who makes him die in 1389, at the age of sixty.
- ↑ The Roman edition of Vasari, published in 1759, has a note to the effect that one of these lions, greatly dilapidated, was then still remaining “ on the corner next the great fountain.” The Florentine edition of 1846, has the following query: “ On a pedestal, at one corner of the piazza of the Palazzo Vecchio (that opposite to the great fountain), is a lion, half-consumed by time. Can this possibly be one of those sculptured by Jacopo Orgagna?”
- ↑ This horse, made of wood, covered with canvas, was removed in the year 1842, when the cathedral was restored.
- ↑ The pictures of Mariotto, in San Michele Bisdomini (now San Michelino), were destroyed in the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the church was rebuilt.
