Orcagna
Andrea di Cione di Arcangelo (c. 1308 – 25 August 1368), better known as Orcagna, was an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect active in Florence. He worked as a consultant at the Florence Cathedral and supervised the construction of the façade at the Orvieto Cathedral.[1] His monumental marble tabernacle (1352–1359), commissioned by the confraternity of Orsanmichele to protect the Maestà by Bernardo Daddi (1347) at Orsanmichele, was immediately praised.[2] The tabernacle, executed according to his design with the assistance of a team of selected sculptors and masons, included 117 figural sculptures or reliefs as part of a domed structure.[3]
His Strozzi Altarpiece (1354–1357) is noted as defining a new role for Christ as a source of Catholic doctrine and papal authority, as central figure enthroned actively handing out the (Dominican, or generally the Mendicant theology to Thomas Aquinas, and the keys of the church to St. Peter.[4][5]
Works
Orcagna's works include:
- Fresco of Saint Anne calling the citizens of Florence to arms against the tyrant Walter VI, Count of Brienne, Duke of Athens, formerly in the Stinche Prison (c. 1343), a huge circular painting with a truthful depiction of the Palazzo Vecchio, where it is displayed today.
- Altarpiece of the Redeemer (1354–1357) in the Strozzi di Mantova Chapel at Santa Maria Novella, Florence
- The tabernacle in Orsanmichele (1352–1359)
- The mosaic decoration and the design for the rose window of the cathedral of Orvieto is attributed to Orcagna, who had become Master of the Works in 1359.
- His fresco of the Crucifixion with a multitude of angels surrounding the cross, portrayed on a dark background and a few fragments of the Last Supper (1365).[6]
Pupils
Among Orcagna's pupils and legacy were:
- Nello di Vanni, a Pisan painter of the 14th century, who also worked for the Campo Santo. Nello di Vanni is conjectured to be identical with Bernardo Nello or Giovanni Falcone.[7]
- Tommaso del Mazza, called Tomasso di Marco by Giorgio Vasari.[8]
- Jacopo di Cione, brother of Andrea and mainly sculptor and architect.[9]
From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia
Orcagna — (The conventional name in art history of ANDREA DI CIONE, also called ARCAGNUOLO or ARCANGIO).
Born at Florence, early in the fourteenth century; died there, 1368. The son of a goldsmith, he became architect, sculptor, mosaist, painter, and poet.
His brothers, Nardo, Jacopo, and Matteo, were also architects, sculptors, and painters: Nardo, the eldest, painted the famous fresco of "The Last Judgment", still to be seen in the Strozzi chapel in S. Maria Novella, a composition inspired by the "Divina Commedia" and comprising the Judgment, Paradise, and Hell as its three parts. This fresco has been erroneously attributed to Andrea, who became the most famous of the Cioni, but Lorenzo Ghiberti testifies to its being the work of Nardo. In the same way, the "Triumph of Death" and the "Last Judgment" in the Campo Santo of Pisa, owing to their similarity to the S. Maria Novella fresco, used to be attributed to Nardo and Andrea di Cione. Both these brothers were registered in the Florentine Guild of Painters in 1357. In that year Andrea (Orcagna) collaborated with Francesco di Talento on plans for the enlargement of S. Maria del Fiore. In 1358 he executed the mosaics for the façade of the cathedral of Orvieto. Vasari makes Andrea Pisano his master in the art of sculpture, but this honour is more probably due to Neri di Fieravante, his sponsor when he matriculated in the Guild of "masters of stone and wood", in 1352. According to Vasari, the Brotherhood of Orsammichele took the offerings made to the Blessed Virgin during the plague of 1348 and used them to build around her image an elaborately ornamented marble tabernacle. Orcagna was entrusted with this work, which he completed in 1359. For brilliancy and richness of architecture as well as of decoration, Burckhardt regards this tabernacle as the most perfect work of its kind in Italian Gothic. The mysteries of the life of the Blessed Virgin are represented in bas-relief with a series of allegorical figures of the Virtues. The Announcement of Mary's Death and the Assumption are especially worthy of note. This tabernacle of Orsammichele is Orcagna's only authentic sculptural work, but his manner is discernible in the "Annunciation" of Santa Croce and in the bas-reliefs of the Campanile of S. Maria del Fiore which represent the Virtues and Liberal Arts. The chief paintings of Orcagna which have survived are: a St. Matthew, painted, in collaboration with his brother Jacopo, for S. Maria Novella, now in the Uffizi; a "Virgin with Angels", in the Somzée collection at Brussels; a "Vision of St. Bernard", in the Academy of Florence; a "Coronation of the Virgin", executed for San Pier Maggiore, Florence, now in the National Gallery, London. In 1357 Tommaso di Rossello Strozzi commissioned Orcagna to paint an altar-piece for the same chapel in which Nardo had painted the frescoes. This re-table is divided into five parts: in the centre Christ is enthroned, a pyramidal crown on his brow, two little angels at his feet, playing music; at Christ's right hand is the Blessed Virgin, presenting St. Thomas Aquinas to Him; at His left hand is the Precursor who indicates Christ to a kneeling St. Peter. In the last two compartments are seen, on one side St. Lawrence and St. Paul, on the other St. Michael and St. Catherine. Orcagna was commissioned in the following year to paint the life of the Blessed Virgin on the walls of the choir of S. Maria Novella. These paintings were ruined by damp, owing to a leaking roof, but were restored by Ghirlandajo who drew his inspiration from the happy "inventions of Orcagna" (Vasari).
VASARI, Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, ed. MILANESI, I (Florence, 1878), 593, with the editor's Commentario alla vita di A. Orcagna, ibid., 615; BALDINUCCI, Vita dell' Orcagna in Notizie dei professori del disegno, II (Florence, 1768); CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE, A New History of Painting in Italy, II (London, 1865); BURCKHARDT AND BODE, Le Cicerone, II, 328; Fr. tr. GÉRARD (Paris, 1892); BRYAN, Dict. Painters and Engravers, I (London, 1903); SUIDA, Florentinische Maler um die Witte des XIV Jahrhunderts (Strasburg, 1905); VENTURI, Storia dell' arte italiana, IV, 637; V, 767 (Milan, 1906-07).
References
- Back to citation "Uffizi Gallery". Museumsinflorence.com.
- Back to citation Wolfgang Braunfels (1966) [1953]. Mittelalterliche Stadtbaukunst in der Toskana (in German) (3 ed.). Berlin: Gebrüder Mann. pp. 212 f.
- Back to citation Kreytenberg, G. (2003). "Cione, Andrea di". Grove Art Online. Retrieved 27 September 2025.
- Back to citation Millard Meiss (1978) [1951]. "I. The New Form and Content: Orcagna's Altarpiece". Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death. The Arts, Religion, and Society in the Mid-Fourteenth Century (4 ed.). Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. pp. 9 ff. ISBN 0-691-00312-2.
- Back to citation Eimerl, Sarel (1967). The World of Giotto: c. 1267–1337. et al. Time-Life Books. p. 187. ISBN 0-900658-15-0.
- Back to citation "Cenacolo by Andrea". www.visitflorence.com.
- Back to citation Bryan, Michael (1889). Walter Armstrong; Robert Edmund Graves (eds.). Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical. Vol. II L-Z. London: George Bell and Sons. p. 586.
- Back to citation Gaetano Milanesi, ed. (1906) [1878]. Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori scritte da Giorgio Vasari. Volume 1. Florence: G. C. Sansoni. p. 609.
- Back to citation Vasari/Milanesi 1906, p. 610.
External links
- Middleton, John Henry (1911). "Orcagna". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 165–167.