Art in Tuscany | Bernardo Daddi | Podere Santa Pia, Holiday house in the south of Tuscany

Bernardo Daddi

Bernardo Daddi (active ca. 1280-1348) 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. Florentine painter, the outstanding painter in Florence in the period after the death of Giotto (who was possibly his teacher). Daddi ran a busy workshop specializing in small devotional panels and portable altarpieces. His signed and dated works include a polyptych of The Crucifixion with Eight Saints (Courtauld Institute, London, 1348) and the works attributed to him include frescos of the Martyrdoms of SS. Lawrence and Stephen in Santa Croce. His style is a sweetened version of Giotto's, tempering the latter's gravity with Sienese grace and lightness. He favoured smiling Madonnas, teasing children, and an abundance of flowers and trailing draperies. His lyrical manner was extremely popular and his influence endured into the second half of the century.

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.

Bernardo Daddi, St Catherine of Alexandria with Donor and Christ Blessing (detail), , c. 1340, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence


This eloquent depiction of the Crucifixion was painted early in Daddi's career, when he was deeply under the spell of Giotto. It dates about 1325–30. The Virgin and Saint John are shown seated humbly on the ground in poses of mourning that derive from Roman sarcophagi. This painting was originally the right shutter of a diptych for private devotion.		Bernardo Daddi, The Crucifixion, ca. 1325–30, tempera on wood, gold ground, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The Madonna of Mercy (Misericordia) was painted by the Bernardo Daddi school in 1342 in the building now dedicated to the Bigallo orphanage, and which had been the Misericordia Confraternity. Across from it the newer headquarters of the Misericordia still dispense medical care and run ambulances. The members of the Misericordia had laid the first stone of Florence's Cathedral seven hundred years ago. Every Maundy Thursday the Cardinal of Florence washes the feet of eleven Misericordia workers. This fresco is one of the most important keys for unlocking the vocation and for deepening the meaning of Florence. The Madonna wears a crown like that of the Empress Matilda, with the saving Tau in blood, and it is she who protects the city with the weapons of the acts of mercy as Jesus had listed them in the Gospel, these acts being given in the medallions of her mantle that contain these words.		The Madonna della Misericordia, an anonymous 14th century fresco in the Bigallo, Florence


Bernardo Daddi, The Martyrdom of St Stephen, 1324, fresco, Santa Croce, Florence
The typically tender and expressive gestures, the subtle colour harmonies and above all the attention to detail are all characteristic of his work.

GIANNOZZO PUCCI \| La Madonna della Misericordia, Il Bigallo, Firenze Art in Tuscany \| Madonna della Misericordia \| Madonna of Mercy Art in Tuscany \| Loggia del Bigallo (Museo del Bigallo) Miklós Boskovits in Richard Offner et al. "The Fourteenth Century: The Works of Bernardo Daddi." A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. 3, section 3, new ed. Florence, 1989, pp. 88, 391. [1] The Virgin of Mercy is a subject in Christian art, showing a group of people sheltering for protection under the outspread cloak of the Virgin Mary. It was especially popular in Italy from the 13th to 16th centuries, often as a specialised form of votive portrait, and is also found in other countries and later art, especially Catalonia and Latin America. In Italian it is known as the Madonna della Misericordia (Madonna of Mercy), in German as the Schutzmantelmadonna (Sheltering-cloak Madonna), and in French as the Vièrge au Manteau or Vierge de Miséricorde (Virgin with a cloak or Virgin of Mercy). The subject was often commissioned by specific groups such as families, confraternities, guilds or convents or abbeys, and then the figures represent these specific groups, as shown by their dress, or by the 15th century individual portraits. Sometimes arrows rain down from above, which the cloak prevents from reaching the people. Usually the image, whether in sculpture or painting, stands by itself, but in the most famous example, the Madonna della Misericordia altarpiece in Sansepolcro by Piero della Francesca, of 1445-62, the subject is the central panel of a large altarpiece, with a smaller Crucifixion above it, and many other panels. Probably the oldest version known is a small panel by Duccio of ca. 1280, with three Franciscan friars under the cloak. Here the Virgin sits, only one side of the cloak is extended, and the Virgin holds her child on her knee with her other hand. The Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie in Arezzo houses a fresco of the Madonna della Misericordia by Parri di Spinello (1387-1452), the son of the more celebrated Spinello of Arezzo. Art in Tuscany \| Madonna della Misericordia \| Madonna of Mercy [1] Miklós Boskovits in Richard Offner et al. "The Fourteenth Century: The Painters of the Miniaturist Tendency." A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. 9, section 3, new ed. Florence, 1984, pp. 339, 607, pl. CLXVIb, as location unknown; attributes it to Bernardo Daddi; calls it the fragmentary right shutter of a diptych and notes that the angels are largely a modern restoration.
Holiday accomodation in Toscany \| Podere Santa Pia .



Podere Santa Pia	Podere Santa Pia, giardino	Podere Santa Pia


Villa I Tatti	Villa di Geggiano	Loggia del Bigallo, Florence


Florence, Duomo Santa Maria del Fiore	Florence, Santa Croce	Florence, Piazza della Repubblica