Allegories and Figures from Roman History

mythological

In 1412-14 the Priors of the Palazzo Pubblico commissioned Taddeo di Bartolo to paint a cycle of paintings for the antechapel of the Palazzo Pubblico, a space that functioned as an important passage between other rooms of the palace. On one wall, shown in this picture, Taddeo painted allegories of Justice and Magnanimity under the two arches; beneath each he placed a figure from Roman history exemplifying the concept. Below Justice (at left) there are Cicero, M.

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Allegories and Figures from Roman History

About the Artist

Taddeo Di Bartolo

1362 – 1422

Sienese painter, active in Pisa, Perugia, San Gimignano, and Volterra, his native city. He was the son of the barber Bartolo di Mino, and he was under 25 in 1386 when he was first recorded, painting statuettes of angels for the new choir-stalls in Siena Cathedral. In 1388–89 he was a counsellor to the Cathedral Works and in 1389 he was first listed as an independent painter. His earliest dated work is the polyptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints (1389; private collection), painted for the chapel of S Paolo at Collegarli, near San Miniato al Tedesco. The thin, elegant figures and curvilinear drapery patterns show aspects of Taddeo's early style to be linked with the works of the preceding generation of Sienese painters, and, like his contemporaries, he looked back to earlier models by Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti. He was a conservative artist, but is noteworthy for his series of frescos on Roman Republican heroes and civic Virtues (1406-14) in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, which are early examples of a type that became popular in the Renaissance.

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