GADDI, TADDEO, 1300-66; son of Gaddo; a Florentine artist, bectrme one of Giotto's assistants. He was a painter, mosaist, and architect. He 'executed in frescos for the Baroncelli chapel, in the Florentine church of St. Croce, "The Virgin and Child between Four Prophets," on the funeral monument at the entrance; and on the walls various incidents in the legends of the Virgin, from the expulsion of Joachim from the temple to the nativity of Christ. His " Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple" con tains the two heads which have been traditionally accepted as portraits of Gaddo Gaddi and Andrea Tall. On the ceiling of the same chapel are " The Eight Virtues." In the museum of Berlin is an altar-piece by Taddeo; Thu Virgin and Child;" and some other subjects, dated 1334; in the Naples gallery, a triptych, of "The Virgin enthroned with Four Saints," " The Baptism of Jesus," and his " Deposition from the Cross;" in the sacristy of St. Pietro a Megognano, near Poggibonsi, an altar piece dated 1335, "The Virgin and Child enthroned among Angels." A series of
paintings, partly from the life of St. Francis, are now divided between the Florentine academy and the Berlin museum; the compositions are taken from or founded on Giotto, to whom, indeed, the Berlin authorities have ascribed their examples. His figures are vehement in action, long and slender in form; his execution is rapid and somewhat conventional. To Taddeo are generally ascribed the celebrated frescos on the ceiling and western wall in the " Cappella degli•Spagnunli," in the church of St. Maria Novella, Florence. Three pictures in the London national gallery are doubtfully ascribed to him, As a mosaist, lie left some works in the baptistery of Florence. As an architect, he supplied in 1336 the plans for the present Ponte Vecchio, and those for the original (not the present) Ponte St. Trinita; in 1337, he was engaged on the church of Oisan Michele; and he carried on after Giotto's death the work of the unrivaled Campanile.