DADDI, Bernardo

The scene of the coronation is surrounded by eighteen angels and , behind them, fourteen saints. the first in the row of saints are St Dominic at the left, and St Francis at the right. Leaning on such great models as the Baroncelli Polyptych by Giotto, This painting occupies an important place in Florentine painting of the Trecento.

The influence of Sienese painting can be seen in this mature work of the Florentine Bernardo Daddi.

This work must have been the central panel of a small triptych or portable altar, of which numerous examples by the artist and his workshop are known.

This panel was part of a larger altarpiece. It was the base of the Coronation of the Virgin, now in the National Gallery, London. It was cut from the bottom of the Coronation at some date before 1828 - the year in which the panel entered the Christ Church Collection in Oxford.

In the Oxford panel are the fragmentary figures of John the Baptist on the left, wearing a rich lilac cloak over his camel-hair tunic, and a deacon saint carrying a banner on the right, who is almost certainly identifiable as St Stephen.

This painting, a small cuspidate altarpiece depicting the Madonna and Child with eight Angels and Sts Peter and Paul, is signed and dated.

The piece reveals all the qualities of this painter, who was particularly devoted to works destined for the private worship of rich noble and well-to-do families: the symmetrical, harmonious composition, the refined setting, the gentle chiaroscuro and the soft colours blending in with the gold are all characteristics that confirm Bernardo Daddi as an artist of a delicate, intimate painting rather than large, solemn, historico-religious representations.

In this work note the stage-like architecture of the throne, whose almost towering cusp takes up the shape of the whole composition, and the ample yet almost weightless mass of the Virgin in the highly traditional arrangement of angels and saints that had been in vogue since the thirteenth century.

The panel is in the marble tabernacle made by Orcagna.

Late medieval and early Renaissance histories considered the replacement or recreation of an older painting as an act of homage. It was believed that the potency of the original was inherited or even intensified by the substitute. Such was the case with the monumental Madonna and Child with Angels by Bernardo Daddi in the church of Orsanmichele, which replaced two earlier miraculous images. Located in the oratory where all guilds met, and tended by its own confraternity whose members devoutly sang hymns before it, the Orsanmichele Madonna was among the city’s most venerated works.

This dismembered polyptych formed the high altarpiece painted by Bemardo Daddi during the 1330s for the church of San Pancrazio, Florence. Some parts are missing, nearly all of the remaining parts of the altarpiece are preserved in the Uffizi, Florence.

The design of the altarpiece was fairly elaborate, with panels ranged in three tiers extending downwards from the main field into the predella below and terminating above in a series of gabled pinnacles. The principal section shows the Virgin and Child Enthroned with three full-length saints on either side (Sts Pancrazio, Zenobius and John the Evangelist to the left and Sts John the Baptist, Reparata and Miniato to the right). The predella comprises scenes from the early life of the Virgin: Joachim being banished from the Temple, Joachim and the shepherds, Meeting at the Golden Gate, Birth of the Virgin, Presentation of Mary in the Temple, Annunciation, Birth of Christ. (The sixth panel in the narrative sequence, the Marriage of the Virgin is in the Royal Collection, Windsor.)

The scale of the altarpiece was no doubt inspired by the multi-tiered high altarpieces painted by the Sienese artist, Ugolino di Nerio, for the churches of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce, Florence, both of which can be dated before the San Pancrazio altarpiece.

It is apparent that the altarpiece began its peregrination as early as the end of the fourteenth century when San Pancrazio was rebuilt for the first time. By the second half of the eighteenth century, after much further reconstruction, the altarpiece had been dismembered and moved to the abbots apartment in the monastery attached to the church, which was suppressed in 1808. Shortly afterwards the altarpiece was transferred to the Uffizi.

The sizes of the panels are as follows.

Panel with the Madonna, 168 x 55,5 cm

Each panel with the saints, 127,5 x 41,5 cm

The panel depicting the Marriage of the Virgin originally formed part of the high altarpiece painted by Bemardo Daddi during the 1330s for the church of San Pancrazio, Florence. Nearly all of the remaining parts of the altarpiece are preserved in the Uffizi, Florence. The predella comprises scenes from the early life of the Virgin, of which the present panel is the sixth in the narrative sequence. The exact circumstances by which this single panel from the predella became detached are not known. It is notable that all the predella panels still attached to the altarpiece in the Uffizi have rounded tops set into cusped frames, which indicates that The Marriage of the Virgin has been fairly extensively cut at the top. Each of the other predella panels measures 50 x 38,5 cm.

The textual sources for The Marriage of the Virgin are the apocryphal Book of James (or Protoevangelicum), known as the Infancy Gospel, 8-9, or, alternatively, The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine. According to these sources, each of the suitors for the hand of the Virgin brought a rod to the Temple to be placed on the altar. Of these it is Joseph’s rod that flowers and onto which the Holy Spirit descends, thus indicating that he has been chosen to marry the Virgin. In Daddi’s panel the dove can be seen perched on the top of Joseph’s rod while the disappointed suitors break their rods over their knees as the marriage takes place.

This panel illustrates the Nativity and the Adoration of the Shepherds. Musical jubilation is everywhere: the angels play fanfares on trumpets and pluck sweet melodies on stringed instruments, while a joyous rustic tootles his humble bagpipe. The ass and ox look on as the Virgin tenderly swaddles the Christ Child.

This panel illustrates the Birth of the Virgin.

The painting is an iconical representation of a saint who has always enjoyed much popularity. The statuesque figure, portrayed standing against a gold background, holds out the folds of her cloak to protect the donor of the panel, kneeling at her feet. The form, type and dimensions of the painting indicate that it was made in the 14th century to adorn columns in churches, a decorative element common in Florentine art of the period.

The gold background is enhanced on the halo with a minute engraved decoration.

This panel, formerly attributed to both Jacopo di Cione and his brother, Andrea Orcagna, was probably part of a larger altarpiece. It has undergone two interventions. The base with Four Musical Angels was cut from the bottom of the Coronation of the Virgin at some date before 1828 - the year in which the panel entered the Christ Church Collection in Oxford. A second intervention occurred sometime after the cutting when the top and bottom additions were made to the panel. The current frame is not original.

The Coronation of the Virgin is almost identical to the central panel of an altarpiece from Santa Maria Novella, Florence, now in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence. Mary’s gesture of drawing her mantle around her, with the fabric held between her fingers, seems to have been an invention of Daddi’s.

This altarpiece came from the Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Mary’s gesture of drawing her mantle around her, with the fabric held between her fingers, seems to have been an invention of Daddi’s.

The detail shows the head of the Virgin.

This panel, formerly attributed to both Jacopo di Cione and his brother, Andrea Orcagna, was probably part of a larger altarpiece. It was bought by the National Gallery from a private collection in 2004.

Daddi was one of the most important Florentine painters of the first half of the fourteenth century. It is now generally thought that he was taught by Giotto himself, and he remained closely acquainted with his workshop and following. His style was rather sweeter and less austere than Giotto’s, tempering the latter’s gravity with a new grace and refinement. The typically tender and expressive gestures, the subtle colour harmonies and above all the attention to detail are all characteristic of his work.

This charming but somewhat damaged panel (the lower half of the landscape is abraded and largely reconstructed) is now attributed to an anonymous painter familiar with the work of Bernardo Daddi, referred to as the Maestro Daddesco, rather than Daddi himself.

This small predella panel was part of an altar signed and dated 1338. It shows the kneeling saint praying for strength in the face of temptation. He is quite literally backed up by angels as his temptress, the devil, stands uncertainly to the right.

Bernardo Daddi is a painter, whose sensitivity was more suited to panel painting then to frescoes, which he rarely painted. This triptych intended for personal devotion is typical; his pictures are intimate, even those intended for important public places. In the centre the Virgin smiles gently as she admonishes the playful Christ Child. The delicate Gothic forms of the throne provide ample space for her, yet seem to diminish her monumental size. The two donors are made small for the sake of convention. The surrounding saints and prophets rise like a rose trellis. Intimacy extends to the side wings where the Nativity and the Crucifixion are represented.

The triptych portrays the half-length figures of the Virgin holding the Child in her arms with St Nicholas of Bari on the right and St Matthew the Evangelist on the left; the cusps contain roundels with busts of the Redeemer and two angels. It is signed and dated on the base; it is the painter’s first dated work.

The layout of the triptych, in which the figures with their clear, bold outlines look like cut-outs set against the gold background, is inspired by Giotto’s Badia Polyptych. The Madonna is wearing her characteristic blue robe over a white gown, decorated with golden cross and star-shaped patterns. The Divine Infant in her arms is grabbing on to a flap of her dress, as babies often do. St Nicholas can be recognised by his bishop’s mitre, the richly decorated planet and the pastoral he is clutching in his right hand. In his left hand, he is holding a closed liturgical book, with an exquisite historiated cover. The Gospel that St Matthew the Evangelist holds close to his chest, indicating that he is the author, is just as finely decorated. The saint’s robe has been pulled down towards his elbow, revealing a tunic underneath in a beautiful iridescent shade of olive green.

Bernardo Daddi was the owner of a successful workshop in Florence, specialised in the production of small panel paintings and small portable altars for private use and for home environments. Here, and in his other paintings, he focuses mainly on the narrative and decorative elements of his work, considered more important by his private customers than how the volumes of the figures were depicted.

This painting shows Daddi to be already a mature painter very close to Giotto, particularly the Giotto of the Paduan frescoes, and therefore contemporary with and similar to the Saint Cecilia Master.

In the centre the Coronation of the Virgin is depicted. The left wing shows the Nativity, while the right wing the Crucifixion.

In the centre the Mary with Child on an ornamented throne, on the left the birth of Jesus, on the left the crucifixion, while above the side panels the annuciation can be seen. The triptych is a small home altarpiece but the style has fresco-like monumentality, showing the influence of Giotto, the master of Daddi.

As a Florentine painter Daddi was undoubtedly influenced by Giotto. His figures therefore have a monumentality and dignity worthy of that master, but Daddi was also aware of contemporary Sienese painting, especially the works of Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti, which invested his style with a lyricism and an incandescent sense of colour that give his smaller panels a remarkable intensity. The artist is seen at his best in works on this compact scale, especially in the portable triptychs of which several examples have survived. It is now recognised that these works introduced what has been called ‘the miniaturist tendency’ into Florentine painting, a style that prevailed until just after the middle of the century with the emergence of Andrea Orcagna. Daddi, therefore, holds a position of singular importance in the development of Florentine art.

This panel, in which the artist combined Florentine (Giotto) and Sienese (Ambrogio Lorenzetti) influences, once belonged to a larger ensemble, the other parts of which are now lost.

This small panel formed one wing of a diptych executed for private devotion. The other wing representing a Crucifixion is also in the Museo Horne. The diptych was painted by a follower of Bernardo Daddi.