TADDEO di BARTOLO. - Painter, b. in Siena around 1362, d. there in 1422; son of Bartolo di Mino, a barber, and not of the painter Bartolo di Fredi (Vasari).
His earliest signed and dated work, a polyptych of 1389 formerly in S. Paolo at Collagarli (S. Miniato) and considered lost, reappeared in 1950 at a London auction. In 1393, in Genoa, he undertook the painting of two altars in the church of S. Luca; having returned to Tuscany, he executed the frescoes of the Last Judgment in the collegiate church of S. Gimignano; in 1395 he painted in Pisa for the Sardi chapel in S. Francesco an altarpiece, which later migrated to the Museum of Grenoble; in 1397 the Baptism of Christ for the baptistery of Triora; in 1400 he signs and dates the triptych in the Compagnia di S. Caterina della Notte in Siena, and in 1401 the very large triptych with the Assumption for the cathedral of Montepulciano, the most extensive painting on panel of the entire Sienese school. From 1406 to 1408 he frescoed the Stories of the Virgin (now partly repainted) in the inner chapel of the Palazzo pubblico in Siena: the cycle is completed by the frescoes of the ante-chapel, executed in 1414. Of 1409 is the Annunciation between Sts. Cosmas and Damian in the Pinacoteca of Siena (no. 131), one of his most important works. His last dated work is the Madonna of 1418 in the Fogg Museum of Cambridge, Mass. (U.S.A.). T. nobly concluded, on the threshold of the advanced Quattrocento, the pictorial tradition begun in the first half of the Trecento with the Lorenzettis: an artist devoid of flights of inspiration, but always dignified and correct, he helped to spread Sienese painting once again beyond the boundaries of his city, in Liguria as well as in Umbria and Sicily.
Bibliography4 works
Enzo Carli