View of the east wall of the Baroncelli Chapel

1330 · Cappella Baroncelli, Santa Croce, Florence

religious

The Baroncelli Chapel is consecrated to the Annunciation to the Virgin, and thus the pictorial program is devoted to the life of the Virgin. The fresco cycle covers only the two walls of the front section of the space, beginning on the east wall with the Expulsion of Joachim from the Temple (top left) and Joachim's Dream (top right). It is followed on the same wall by Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate (middle left) and the Birth of the Virgin (middle right), Presentation of the Virgin (bottom left) and Marriage of the Virgin (bottom right).

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View of the east wall of the Baroncelli Chapel

About the Artist

Taddeo Gaddi

1300 – 1366

Florentine painter, the son of a painter and mosaicist Gaddo Gaddi. According to Cennino Cennini, Taddeo was Giotto 's godson and worked with him for twenty-four years. In 1347 he headed a list of the best living painters compiled for the purpose of choosing a master to paint a new high altarpiece for Pistoia Cathedral. His best-known works were painted for Santa Croce, Florence: notably the frescoes devoted to the Life of the Virgin in the Baroncelli Chapel (finished 1338), and the panels illustrating the Life of Christ (c. 1330), originally meant for the doors of a sacristy cupboard and now scattered among museums in Florence (Accademia), Munich (Alte Pinakothek), and Berlin (Staatliche Museen). Many other panels are attributed to him and he must have had a flourishing workshop. Although transmitting the tradition of Giotto, his style is less heroic and more anecdotal. Gaddi's son Agnolo (active 1369-96) continued the Giotto tradition but modified it still further in the direction of decorative elegance.

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