he Dragon, and a skeleton, which bear
witness to the method and manner that he had in drawing.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 22: Guardaroba, the room or rooms where everything of value
was stored--clothes, linen, art treasures, furniture, etc.]

AGNOLO GADDI

LIFE OF AGNOLO GADDI,

PAINTER OF FLORENCE

How honourable and profitable it is to be excellent in a noble art is
manifestly seen in the talent and management of Taddeo Gaddi, who,
having acquired very good means as well as fame with his industry and
labours, left the affairs of his family so well arranged, when he passed
to the other life, that Agnolo and Giovanni, his sons, were easily able
to give a beginning to the very great riches and to the exaltation of
the house of Gaddi, to-day very noble in Florence and in great repute
throughout all Christendom. And in truth it has been very reasonable,
seeing that Gaddo, Taddeo, Agnolo, and Giovanni adorned many honoured
churches with their talent and their art, that their successors have
been since adorned by the Holy Roman Church and by the Supreme Pontiffs
of the same with the greatest ecclesiastical dignities.

Taddeo, then, of whom we have already written the Life, left his sons
Agnolo and Giovanni in company with many of his disciples, hoping that
Agnolo, in particular, would become very excellent in painting; but he,
who in his youth showed promise of surpassing his father by a great
measure, did not succeed further in justifying the opinion that had
already been conceived of him, for the reason that, being born and bred
in easy circumstances, which are often an impediment to study, he was
given more to traffic and to trading than to the art of painting; which
should not appear a thing new or strange, seeing that avarice very often
bars the way to many intellects which would ascend to the greatest
height of excellence, if the desire of gain did not impede their path in
their earliest and best years. Working as a youth in S. Jacopo tra'
Fossi in Florence, Agnolo wrought a little scene, with figures little
more than a braccio high, of Christ raising Lazarus on the fourth day
after death, wherein, imagining the corruption of that body, which had
been dead three days, with much thought he made the grave-clothes which
held him bound discoloured by the decay of the flesh, and round the eyes
certain livid and yellowish marks in the flesh, that seems half living
and half dead; not without stupefaction in