Giorgio Vasari

“ He left a chapel, in the same church, commenced, but not completed. The angels cast from heaven, with Lucifer, are seen falling in various attitudes. The work has suffered greatly from time; but it is still obvious that the foreshortening of the arms, legs, and trunks, is much better than was usual at that time: so that we perceive Stefano to have made some acquaintance with, and even pointed out to his contemporaries, those difficulties which must have beset the painters in their first attempts at foreshortening, but which, by careful study, they afterwards so completely overcame. ”

“ Here, having recovered his health, he executed a painting in fresco, in the transept of the church of Santa Croce, and in the chapel of the Assisi. The subject is the martyrdom of St. Mark, and the work has many figures of considerable merit. [7] Stefano was, at a later period, invited to Rome as a disciple of Giotto; and there he painted certain frescoes, in the principal chapel of St. Peter’s, where stands the altar of the saint; the subjects being stories from the life of Christ. ”

“ John the Evangelist in the Apocalypse; and these angels are drawn with so much grace, that it amazes me to find any one in that age capable of so much. Stefano evidently commenced this work with the purpose of completing it in the utmost perfection; and he would have succeeded, had he not been compelled by certain important affairs to return to Florence, and leave it unfinished. [9] Whilst detained by these matters in Florence, he employed the time in painting a small oratory, for the Gianfigliazzi, in an angle of the Lung ’Arno, between their houses and the bridge of the Carraja. ”

“ There is, moreover, such sweetness of expression and harmony in those blessed spirits, that their being done in the time of Stefano might well be considered impossible, although they certainly were by his hand. Of the figures that form this circle, however, the heads only are finished, and above them hovers a choir of angels, in various attitudes, gracefully bearing theological symbols in their hands, and all turning towards a figure of Christ crucified, who is seen in the midst of the picture, above the head of a St. ”

“ The work is partly destroyed by time, yet we clearly perceive the energy with which the apostles are defending themselves from the fury of the winds and waves. The painting has been greatly commended by the moderns, and at the time when it was completed, must certainly have seemed something wonderful to all Tuscany. [4] At a later period, Stefano painted a St. ”

“ Vix. an. xxxxix.”
↑ Baldinucci makes Stefano to have been not only the pupil but the grandson of Giotto—the son, that is, of his daughter Catherine, married to the painter, Riccio di Lapo. ↑ This is the only authenticated painting of this master still existing. Lanzi declares it to be in a grander manner than that of Stefano, but sajs it has been retouched.—See History of Painting, vol. i, p. 65. ↑ Vasari should rather have said by Giuliano da San Gallo, who was the arehitect of the staircase at Poggio Cajano ”

“ Among these, is that incident wherein the wife of Zebedee and mother of the apostles requires from Jesus Christ that he will place her two sons, the one on his right hand, and the other on his left, in the kingdom of his Father. ”