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Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 - January 11, 1494) was
a Florence|Florentine painter from the Renaissance
and a contemporary of Sandro Botticelli|Botticelli
and Filippino Lippi, head of the large and
prosperous workshop. He studied with Baldovinetti
and later taught Michelangelo. 

== Early life ==

His full name is given as Domenico di Tommaso
Curradi di Doffo Bigordi; it appears therefore
that his father's surname was Curradi, and his
grandfather's Bigordi. The painter is generally
termed Domenico Bigordi, but some authors give
him, and apparently with reason, the paternal
surname Curradi. Ghirlandajo (garland-maker) was
only a nickname, coming to Domenico from the
employment of his father (or else of his earliest
instructor), who was renowned for fashioning the
metallic garlands worn by Florentine damsels; he
was not, however, as some have said, the inventor
of them. Tommaso was by vocation a jeweller on the
Ponte Vecchio, or perhaps a broker. 

Domenico, the eldest of eight children, was at
first apprenticed to a jeweller or goldsmith,
probably enough his own father; in his shop he was
continually making portraits of the passers-by,
and it was thought expedient to place him with
Alessio Baldovinetti to study painting and mosaic.
His youthful years were, however, entirely
undistinguished, and at the age of thirty-one be
had not a fixed abode of his own. This is
remarkable, as immediately afterwards, from 1480
onwards to his death at a comparatively early age
in 1494, he became the most proficient painter of
his time, incessantly employed, and condensing
into that brief period of fourteen years fully as
large an amount of excellent work as any other
artist that could be named; indeed, we should
properly say eleven years, for nothing of his is
known of a later date than 1491.

== His grand works in Florence ==

In 1480 Ghirlandajo painted a Saint Jerome and
other frescoes in the church of Ognissanti,
Florence, and a life-sized Last Supper in its
refectory, noticeable for individual action and
expression. From 1481 to 1485 he was employed upon
frescoes in the Sala dell Orologio in the Palazzo
Vecchio; he painted the apotheosis of St Zenobius,
a work beyond the size of life, with much
architectural framework, figures of Roman heroes
and other detail, striking in perspective and
structural propriety. While still occupied here,
he was summoned to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV to paint
in the Sixtine Chapel; he went thither in 1483. In
the Sixtine he executed, probably before 1484, a
fresco which has few rivals in that series, Christ
calling Peter and Andrew to their Apostleship, a
work which, though somewhat deficient in color,
has greatness of method and much excellence of
finish. The landscape background, in especial, is
very superior to anything to be found in the
works, which had no doubt been zealously studied
by Ghirlandajo, of Masaccio and others in the
Brancacci Chapel. He also did some other works in
Rome, now perished. Before 1485 he had likewise
produced his frescoes in the chapel of S. Fina, in
the Tuscan town of S. Gimignano, remarkable for
grandeur and grace, two pictures of Fina, dying
and dead, with some accessory work. Sebastian
Mainardi assisted him in these productions in Rome
and in S. Gimignano; and Ghirlandajo was so well
pleased with his co-operation that he gave him his
sister in marriage.

He now returned to Florence, and undertook in the
church of the Trinita, and afterwards in S. Maria
Novella, the works which have set the seal on his
celebrity. The frescoes in the Sassetti chapel of
S. Trinita are six subjects from the life of St
Francis, along with some classical accessories,
dated 1485. Three of the principal incidents are
St Francis obtaining from Pope Honorius the
approval of the Rules of his Order; his Death and
Obsequies, and the Resuscitation, by the
interposition of the beatified saint, of a child
of the Spini family, who had been killed by
falling out of a window. In the first work is a
portrait of Lorenzo de Medici; and in the third
the painters own likeness, which he introduced
also into one of the pictures in S. Maria Novella,
and in the Adoration of the Magi in the hospital
of the Innocenti. The altarpiece of the Sassetti
chapel, the Adoration of the Shepherds, is now in
the Florentine Academy. Immediately after
disposing of this commission, Ghirlandajo was
asked to renew the frescoes in the choir of S.
Maria Novella. This choir formed the chapel of the
Ricci family, but the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci
families, then much more opulent than the Ricci,
undertook the cost of the restoration, under
conditions, as to preserving the arms of the
Ricci, which gave rise in the end to some amusing
incidents of litigation. The frescoes, in the
execution of which Domenico had many assistants,
are in four courses along the three walls,the
leading subjects being the lives of the Madonna
and of the Baptist. Besides their general richness
and dignity of art, these works are particularly
interesting as containing many historical
portraitsa method of treatment in which
Ghirlandajo was preeminently skilled.

There are no less than twenty-one portraits of the
Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families; in the
subject of the Angel appearing to Zacharias, those
of Politian, Marsilio Ficino and others; in the
Salutation of Anna and Elizabeth, the beautiful
Ginevra de Benci; in the Expulsion of Joachim from
the Temple, Mainardi and Baldovinetti (or the
latter figure may perhaps be Ghirlandajo's
father). 

The Ricci chapel was reopened and completed in
1490; the altarpiece, now removed from the chapel,
was probably executed with the assistance of
Domenico's brothers, David and Benedetto, painters
of ordinary calibre; the painted window was from
Domenico's own design. Other distinguished works
from his hand are an altar-piece in tempera of the
Virgin Adored by Sts Zenobius, Justus and others,
painted for the church of St Justus, but now in
the Uffizi gallery, a remarkable masterpiece;
Christ in Glory with Romuald and other Saints, in
the Badia of Volterra; the Adoration of the Magi,
in the church of the Innocenti (already
mentioned), perhaps his finest panel-picture
(1488); and the Visitation, in the Louvre, bearing
the latest ascertained date (1491) of all his
works. Ghirlandajo did not often attempt the nude;
one of his pictures of this character, Vulcan and
his Assistants forging Thunderbolts, was painted
for Lo Spedaletto, but (like several others
specified by Vasari) it exists no longer. Two
portraits by him are in the National Gallery,
London. The mosaics which he produced date before
1491; one, of especial celebrity, is the
Annunciation, on a portal of the cathedral of
Florence.

== General considerations and assessment ==

In general artistic attainment Ghirlandajo may
fairly be regarded as exceeding all his precursors
or competitors; though the names of a few,
particularly Giotto, Masaccio, Lippo Lippi and
Botticelli, stand higher for originating power.
His scheme of composition is grand and decorous;
his chiaroscuro excellent, and especially his
perspectives, which he would design on a very
elaborate scale by the eye alone; his color is
more open to criticism, but this remark applies
much less to the frescoes than the
tempera-pictures, which are sometimes too broadly
and crudely bright. He worked in these two methods
alone never in oils; and his frescoes are what the
Italian's term buon fresco, without any finishing
in tempera. 

A certain hardness of outline, not unlike the
character of bronze sculpture, may attest his
early training in metal work. He first introduced
into Florentine art that mixture of the sacred and
the profane which had already been practised in
Siena. His types in figures of Christ, the Virgin
and angels are not of the highest order; and a
defect of drawing, which has been often pointed
out, is the meagreness of his hands and feet. It
was one of his maxims that painting is designing.
Ghirlandajo was an insatiate worker, and expressed
a wish that he had the entire circuit of the walls
of Florence to paint upon. He told his
shop-assistants not to refuse any commission that
might offer, were it even for a lady's
petticoat-panniers: if they would not execute such
work, he would. Not that he was in any way
glasping or sordid in moneymatters, as is proved
by the anecdote of the readiness with which he
gave up a bonus upon the stipulated price of the
Ricci chapel frescoes, offered by the wealthy
Tornabuoni in the first instance, but afterwards
begrudged. 

Vasari says that Ghirlandajo was the first to
abandon in great part the use of gilding in his
pictures, representing by genuine painting any
objects supposed to be gilded; yet this does not
hold good without some considerable exceptions the
high lights of the landscape, for instance, in the
Adoration of the Shepherds, now in the Florence
Academy, being put in in gold. Many drawings and
sketches by this painter are in the Uffizi
gallery, remarkable for vigour of outline. One of
the great glories of Ghirlandajo is that he gave
some early art education to Michelangelo, who
cannot, however, have remained with him long. 

This renowned artist died of pestilential fever on
the 11th of January 1494, and was buried in S.
Maria Novella. He had been twice married, and left
six children, three of them being sons. He had a
long and honorable line of descendants, which came
to a close in the 17th century, when the last
members of the race entered monasteries. It is
probable that Domenico died poor; he appears to
have been gentle, honorable and conscientious, as
well as energetically diligent.

----

1911
Commons|

	Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 - January 11, 1494) was
a Florence|Florentine painter from the Renaissance
and a contemporary of Sandro Botticelli|Botticelli
and Filippino Lippi, head of the large and
prosperous workshop. He studied with Baldovinetti
and later taught Michelangelo. 

== Early life ==

His full name is given as Domenico di Tommaso
Curradi di Doffo Bigordi; it appears therefore
that his father's surname was Curradi, and his
grandfather's Bigordi. The painter is generally
termed Domenico Bigordi, but some authors give
him, and apparently with reason, the paternal
surname Curradi. Ghirlandajo (garland-maker) was
only a nickname, coming to Domenico from the
employment of his father (or else of his earliest
instructor), who was renowned for fashioning the
metallic garlands worn by Florentine damsels; he
was not, however, as some have said, the inventor
of them. Tommaso was by vocation a jeweller on the
Ponte Vecchio, or perhaps a broker. 

Domenico, the eldest of eight children, was at
first apprenticed to a jeweller or goldsmith,
probably enough his own father; in his shop he was
continually making portraits of the passers-by,
and it was thought expedient to place him with
Alessio Baldovinetti to study painting and mosaic.
His youthful years were, however, entirely
undistinguished, and at the age of thirty-one be
had not a fixed abode of his own. This is
remarkable, as immediately afterwards, from 1480
onwards to his death at a comparatively early age
in 1494, he became the most proficient painter of
his time, incessantly employed, and condensing
into that brief period of fourteen years fully as
large an amount of excellent work as any other
artist that could be named; indeed, we should
properly say eleven years, for nothing of his is
known of a later date than 1491.

== His grand works in Florence ==

In 1480 Ghirlandajo painted a Saint Jerome and
other frescoes in the church of Ognissanti,
Florence, and a life-sized Last Supper in its
refectory, noticeable for individual action and
expression. From 1481 to 1485 he was employed upon
frescoes in the Sala dell Orologio in the Palazzo
Vecchio; he painted the apotheosis of St Zenobius,
a work beyond the size of life, with much
architectural framework, figures of Roman heroes
and other detail, striking in perspective and
structural propriety. While still occupied here,
he was summoned to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV to paint
in the Sixtine Chapel; he went thither in 1483. In
the Sixtine he executed, probably before 1484, a
fresco which has few rivals in that series, Christ
calling Peter and Andrew to their Apostleship, a
work which, though somewhat deficient in color,
has greatness of method and much excellence of
finish. The landscape background, in especial, is
very superior to anything to be found in the
works, which had no doubt been zealously studied
by Ghirlandajo, of Masaccio and others in the
Brancacci Chapel. He also did some other works in
Rome, now perished. Before 1485 he had likewise
produced his frescoes in the chapel of S. Fina, in
the Tuscan town of S. Gimignano, remarkable for
grandeur and grace, two pictures of Fina, dying
and dead, with some accessory work. Sebastian
Mainardi assisted him in these productions in Rome
and in S. Gimignano; and Ghirlandajo was so well
pleased with his co-operation that he gave him his
sister in marriage.

He now returned to Florence, and undertook in the
church of the Trinita, and afterwards in S. Maria
Novella, the works which have set the seal on his
celebrity. The frescoes in the Sassetti chapel of
S. Trinita are six subjects from the life of St
Francis, along with some classical accessories,
dated 1485. Three of the principal incidents are
St Francis obtaining from Pope Honorius the
approval of the Rules of his Order; his Death and
Obsequies, and the Resuscitation, by the
interposition of the beatified saint, of a child
of the Spini family, who had been killed by
falling out of a window. In the first work is a
portrait of Lorenzo de Medici; and in the third
the painters own likeness, which he introduced
also into one of the pictures in S. Maria Novella,
and in the Adoration of the Magi in the hospital
of the Innocenti. The altarpiece of the Sassetti
chapel, the Adoration of the Shepherds, is now in
the Florentine Academy. Immediately after
disposing of this commission, Ghirlandajo was
asked to renew the frescoes in the choir of S.
Maria Novella. This choir formed the chapel of the
Ricci family, but the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci
families, then much more opulent than the Ricci,
undertook the cost of the restoration, under
conditions, as to preserving the arms of the
Ricci, which gave rise in the end to some amusing
incidents of litigation. The frescoes, in the
execution of which Domenico had many assistants,
are in four courses along the three walls,the
leading subjects being the lives of the Madonna
and of the Baptist. Besides their general richness
and dignity of art, these works are particularly
interesting as containing many historical
portraitsa method of treatment in which
Ghirlandajo was preeminently skilled.

There are no less than twenty-one portraits of the
Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families; in the
subject of the Angel appearing to Zacharias, those
of Politian, Marsilio Ficino and others; in the
Salutation of Anna and Elizabeth, the beautiful
Ginevra de Benci; in the Expulsion of Joachim from
the Temple, Mainardi and Baldovinetti (or the
latter figure may perhaps be Ghirlandajo's
father). 

The Ricci chapel was reopened and completed in
1490; the altarpiece, now removed from the chapel,
was probably executed with the assistance of
Domenico's brothers, David and Benedetto, painters
of ordinary calibre; the painted window was from
Domenico's own design. Other distinguished works
from his hand are an altar-piece in tempera of the
Virgin Adored by Sts Zenobius, Justus and others,
painted for the church of St Justus, but now in
the Uffizi gallery, a remarkable masterpiece;
Christ in Glory with Romuald and other Saints, in
the Badia of Volterra; the Adoration of the Magi,
in the church of the Innocenti (already
mentioned), perhaps his finest panel-picture
(1488); and the Visitation, in the Louvre, bearing
the latest ascertained date (1491) of all his
works. Ghirlandajo did not often attempt the nude;
one of his pictures of this character, Vulcan and
his Assistants forging Thunderbolts, was painted
for Lo Spedaletto, but (like several others
specified by Vasari) it exists no longer. Two
portraits by him are in the National Gallery,
London. The mosaics which he produced date before
1491; one, of especial celebrity, is the
Annunciation, on a portal of the cathedral of
Florence.

== General considerations and assessment ==

In general artistic attainment Ghirlandajo may
fairly be regarded as exceeding all his precursors
or competitors; though the names of a few,
particularly Giotto, Masaccio, Lippo Lippi and
Botticelli, stand higher for originating power.
His scheme of composition is grand and decorous;
his chiaroscuro excellent, and especially his
perspectives, which he would design on a very
elaborate scale by the eye alone; his color is
more open to criticism, but this remark applies
much less to the frescoes than the
tempera-pictures, which are sometimes too broadly
and crudely bright. He worked in these two methods
alone never in oils; and his frescoes are what the
Italian's term buon fresco, without any finishing
in tempera. 

A certain hardness of outline, not unlike the
character of bronze sculpture, may attest his
early training in metal work. He first introduced
into Florentine art that mixture of the sacred and
the profane which had already been practised in
Siena. His types in figures of Christ, the Virgin
and angels are not of the highest order; and a
defect of drawing, which has been often pointed
out, is the meagreness of his hands and feet. It
was one of his maxims that painting is designing.
Ghirlandajo was an insatiate worker, and expressed
a wish that he had the entire circuit of the walls
of Florence to paint upon. He told his
shop-assistants not to refuse any commission that
might offer, were it even for a lady's
petticoat-panniers: if they would not execute such
work, he would. Not that he was in any way
glasping or sordid in moneymatters, as is proved
by the anecdote of the readiness with which he
gave up a bonus upon the stipulated price of the
Ricci chapel frescoes, offered by the wealthy
Tornabuoni in the first instance, but afterwards
begrudged. 

Vasari says that Ghirlandajo was the first to
abandon in great part the use of gilding in his
pictures, representing by genuine painting any
objects supposed to be gilded; yet this does not
hold good without some considerable exceptions the
high lights of the landscape, for instance, in the
Adoration of the Shepherds, now in the Florence
Academy, being put in in gold. Many drawings and
sketches by this painter are in the Uffizi
gallery, remarkable for vigour of outline. One of
the great glories of Ghirlandajo is that he gave
some early art education to Michelangelo, who
cannot, however, have remained with him long. 

This renowned artist died of pestilential fever on
the 11th of January 1494, and was buried in S.
Maria Novella. He had been twice married, and left
six children, three of them being sons. He had a
long and honorable line of descendants, which came
to a close in the 17th century, when the last
members of the race entered monasteries. It is
probable that Domenico died poor; he appears to
have been gentle, honorable and conscientious, as
well as energetically diligent.

----

1911
Commons|