Andrea del Castagno is a name in the history of the Renaissance, which was long buried in the piles of famous artists like Veronese, Paolo Uccello, etc, but was rediscovered through the famous Florentine exhibition, ‘Quattro Maestri del Primo Rinascimento,’ held in the Palazzo Strozzi in 1954. It is a heartbreaking situation for art lovers when prominent artists like Castagno are not known widely in the world of artistry despite his excellence displayed through the famous frescoes from Sant’ Apollonia, Santa Maria degli Angeli, Villa Carducci to the Castello Trebbio. Being in the great company of artists like Masaccio, Uccello, and Piera della Francesco, Castagno was one of the greatest painters of the Quattrocento period that Florence ever got. Though he died young, at the age of 38, half of his works have survived, even though he left more than twenty. Vasari’s claim that he was an outstanding artist is fully substantiated by his sinopia, whose evidence compels us to discard most of the drawings previously attributed to him. Hence, this article is to commemorate the account of an artist’s life and his works, which is a treat to most art lovers. Hold me until the end of the journey to learn about Castagno.
Andrea del Castagno | Fast Knowledge
Andrea di Bartolo di Simone, commonly known as Andrea del Castagno, was a 15th-century painter of the Florentine School who worked on several important commissions of the time and showed masterfully the technical control of drawing. With only 20 of his artworks known to the world, his famous ones are Lamentation of Christ and The Last Supper, among others.
Artist Abstract: Andrea del Castagno.
Andrea del Castagno, pseudonym of Andrea di Bartolo di Simone, was one of the most influential 15th-century painters of the Italian Renaissance, who is best known for the emotional power and naturalistic treatment of figures in his work. As Castagno had little information on his early life, it is difficult to estimate his artistic development since many of his paintings are lost, and there is little documentation regarding his remaining works. As a teenager, he painted a mural of Cosimo de’ Medici’s adversaries at Florence’s Palazzo del Podesta in Florence, earning the byname Andreino degli Impiccati. A fresco in the chapel of Saint Tarasio in San Zaccaria signed and dated by both him and Francesco da Faenza, evidences the artist’s visit to Venice in 1442. The first notable works of the artist are the Last Supper and three scenes from the Passion of Christ- a Crucifixion, a Deposition, and a Resurrection. We will learn more about his life in the next section.
| Artist | Andrea del Castagno |
| Birth | About 1419 |
| Death | 19th August, 1457 |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Genre | Religious Historical Art |
| Period | Renaissance |
| Famous Paintings | David with the Head of Goliath, St. Julian, Last Supper |
Looking Through the Life of the Artist.
Andrea, not a native Florentine, came from a village lying 700 meters above sea level on the western slopes of Monte Falterone, Castagno. He was the son of Bartolo di Simone di Bargiella and his wife Lagia. His father owned a house with the profession of pasturage and chestnut woods. The early childhood of the artist coincided with the war between Milan and Florence, which grew so bad that the hostilities reached the frontiers of the Republic of Florence in 1423 when Giangalezzo Visconti occupied the Forli. And amidst this war, his father joined a group of peasants who left their native village to take refuge in the Corella in the Mugello valley under the protection of Belforte. We know very little information about his childhood from the 1427 tax return, which his father made, relating to the life of his son, to whom he referred as ‘Andreino suo figlio ani 6.’ It simply meant that Andrea was born in 1421. However, according to recent research, which complies with the fact that in 1437, Castagno must have been at least 18 years old, which is why he might have been born in 1419.
In the ‘Vota d’Andrea del Castagno di Mugello e di Domenico Veneziano’ in the second edition of The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Florence 1568 by Vasari, he wrote these lines for Castagno,
“… one day, he happened to take refuge from the rain in a house where one of those country painters, who work for very little, happened to be painting a tabernacle for a rustic. Andrea, who had never seen the like, was struck with wonder, and attentively looked on, observing the method of the work, so that he immediately became possessed of the desire to practice the art. Without losing any time, he began on the wall with a piece of coal or the point of his knife, scratching and drawing animals and figures so well that he aroused no small wonder in those who saw him. The fame of this new study of Andrea began to spread about the country, and as chance willed, came to the ears of a Florentine nobleman called Bernardetto de’Medici, who had property there, and who wished to see the child. After seeing him and hearing him speak with much intelligence, he asked the boy if he would like to be a painter. Andrea replied that he desired nothing better. In order that he might be perfected in the art, Bernardetto took the lad to Florence and put him to work with one of the masters than most in repute. In this way, Andrea studied the art of painting, and by devoting himself entirely to it, he showed intelligence in the difficulties of the art, and especially in design.”
Now, the story of Vasari is simply an embroidery on earlier reports like that of Antonio Billi between 1516 and 1530, which said,
“Andreino da Castagno was taken from guarding cattle by a Florentine gentleman who found him drawing a sheep on a slab of stone and brought him to Florence.”
In the summer of 1440, Andrea del Castagno must have left Florence after the party-political commission that gave him his nickname. Neither the date nor the location of his departure nor where he went before arriving in Venice are known. In August 1442, he was found there with Francesco da Faenza, painting six apostles and saints surrounding the Almighty in the apse of the Gothic chapel of San Tarasio. Then again, for the next two years, we rarely have anything on him. And then, on 26 February 1444, he received 50 lire to design a round window in the drum of the Cathedral in Florence, with the special mention of his spectacular and masterly design. Furthermore, this document tells us that at this same time, Andrea also drew the cartoon for the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, thereby joining the ranks of established artists Donatello, Ghiberti, and Uccello. Following that, on 24 March 1444, the Guild of Judges and Notaries commissioned a portrait of the historian Leonardo Bruni to add to their series of portraits of famous lawyers. For the representation and painting of the figure in front of the Guild house based on the likeness of Dominus Leonardus Franciscus brunus in 1445, half of the agreed-upon price was paid to Andrea by 30 April 1445.
As early as 30 May, 1444, Castagno was admitted into the Painters’ Guild, the Arte dei Medici e Speziali or Guild of St Luke. This guild met in the choir of Sant’ Egidio from 1345 until about 1450. Because of this, he declared himself a member of the parish of Santa Maria del Fiore, being a member of the society that lived beneath the Cathedral dome. In the following years, his father was also employed by the Cathedral Opera as a forester of Corniolo, in the Casentino near Campagna on the eastern slope of the Falterona, and then he was a tenant of a sawmill in Castagno for five years. The Florentine lily and the two putti were painted above the organ on the day of his appointment under the Cathedral Opera. On 19 December of the same year, he was paid 6 lire for gold to decorate an Agnus Dei on the Cathedral organ and some capitals.
Andrea del Castagno worked once more for the Guild of Judges and Notaries, where he painted Three Virtues behind seats in their large council hall, bringing 10 lire to the painter, Master Andrea. During the summer of 1447, Castagno was commissioned to paint frescoes of the Last Supper and Passion for the north wall of the refectory of the Convent of Sant’Apollonia. We don’t know when or by whom Castagno started or finished his work. In contrast, documents found by Gino Corti identify Castagno’s work in the refectory as taking place between June and October 1447. With all these details, it is clear that the career of Andrea was really good and he was quite popular during his time.
From January 1451, Andrea received commissions from the convent of S. Maria Nuova to decorate the choir chapel of Sant’Egidio. According to the books of the monastery or convent which recorded his life incidents, we know that he stayed there for more than two years from January 1451 until September 1453, which included painting one side of the choir with the Virgin’s life like the Annunciation, a Presentation in the Temple, and a Death of the Virgin.
Hence, through the various documents, we somehow know his artistic life. In his short yet productive life, Andrea created numerous works in churches, monasteries, palaces, and villas, but we will discuss the ones that still survive, celebrating his achievement.
A Brief Look at Andrea del Castagno’s Artworks.
1. Venice, San Zaccaria, Capella San Tarasio (Plates 2-13).
San Zaccaria was the most distinguished and oldest church in Venice after San Marco, so getting a commission as a very young artist in such a place is a big task or opportunity. After its foundations were laid in 827, the body of Prophet Zacharias was housed in it, and its crypt popes, emperors, and kings worshipped Tarasius’ relics. In addition to its spiritual and cultural importance, many people might invoke the often-quoted artistic connections between Florence and Venice: Ghiberti arrived in 1424, Uccello worked on the mosaics of San Marco from 1425 to 1430, and Michelozzo was an architect from 1433 to 1434; or Florentine sculptors in Venice before 1440, who were the first to make great advances in art; but none of these explanations suffice for the appointment of Castagno, a 23-year-old. So, there might be a situation in which the Benedictine nun of the San Zaccarian convent might have arranged this commission. Now, the apse of the Gothic chapel of San Tarasio in the convent of San Zaccaria contains the first surviving work by the young Castagno, which is signed with his name and dated. There are two small cartouches engraved in the two spandrels between the vault and the chancel arch: on the left, OPVS ANDR/ AS. DE FLORETIA/ FRANCISVS/ O [sic] FAVETIA; on the right, MCCCCX/ L II. M/ AGVSTI.
Hence, in 1442 August, the work was finished, which consisted of the frescoes filling the seven compartments of an apse vault. In the central panel of the work, God the Father enthrones in the golden aureole with his six seraphim. His right hand is raised to give the blessing, whereas his left holds the globe, which has the words ASIA and Africa. Moreover, the four Evangelists stand on either side of him, accompanied by his attribute; in his uterine compartments stands Acharias, the patron saint of the church, and his son John. Now, the standing figures of saints who occupied a separate field of the Gothic vault were known to have been made by Castagno, who knew this kind of art from the trecento paintings in Florentine churches. The Evangelists, however, were constructed in the style of the leading contemporary Florentine sculptor, not based on the traditional presentation: they are made of tree blocks, a head, chest, and lower boy, and the fullness of draperies draped over one shoulder falls obliquely below the hip as it advances. By stirring the folds into eddies, the artistic focus is shifted from the core of the figure itself, which has a striking resemblance to Donatello’s early standing statues on the Campanile. The head and pose of St John the Evangelist are taken from Donatello’s Bearded Prophet on the eastern facade of the Companile, as he gazes down in contemplation. St Luke is a Zuccone turning and looking backward. Both Donatello’s Abraham and Andrea del Castagno’s Zacharias share the same arrangement of drapers, with the overgarment resting across the upper left arm. With the aid of white lights on either side of the pupil, Castagno intensifies the spontaneous effect on the beholder in the style of Masaccio’s head. Hence, the artwork is a fusion of different artistic styles and foundations. Besides, the thoughtfulness of Castagno’s artistic ability in this composition, his set of colors on the plain surface are extraordinarily laid; red on red-gold, blue on blue-green, and salmon pink on green-blue. Hence, his technique of creating shot colors al fresco created such clarity in the composition that insistently they look like those realistic life-size figures with such gracious expressions.
2. The Death of the Virgin: Venice, San Marco, Mascoli Chapel.
During the period between 1444 and 1449, when Castagno was still in Florence, he submitted his design for the mosaic for the Mascoli chapel endowed by the Doge Francesco Foscari. This design was none other than the composition, The Death of the Virgin. Longly confused as attribution, Henry Thode was the first one, who instantly recognized the artwork through his expertise on the artist Castagno, twenty years before his signature and date was discovered in San Tarasio. Hence, the deduced date of The Death of the Virgin by Castagno was around the mid-1450s.
The composition includes an architectural structural feature, reminiscent of a triumphal arch, with a coffered barrel vault flanked by two fluted Corinthian columns and topped with a balustrade. At the center, the Virgin’s bier stands, draped in red and gold brocade. Standing at her head, St John mourns in a red cloak as he looks down at her, and beside him, there stands an aged Apostle in blue robes with his one head on his cheeks. At the upper side of the canvas, Andrea del Castagno formed clouds with God the Father enthroning with an aureole behind him, wearing a robe in green. Free of any dramatic gesture, Castagno composed a calm and contemplative painting with everything in coordination and balance, overtopping the monumental architecture that lifts the figure of God into a higher sphere, hence connecting architecture, art, and God all at a single canvas.
Based on Venetian frescoes, Castagno provided a brilliant example of the monumental style that he had come to appreciate in Florence through Brunelleschi’s buildings, Masaccio’s frescoes, and Donatello’s sculpture. According to Vasari’s description, the mosaic must have preceded the lost fresco in Sant’Egidio painted by Castagno, since it implies experience and extension of a project already in progress. On the bier is the dead Virgin, which is foreshortened with incredible care. While the bier is only 1 1/2 ells long in the painting, it appears to be three ells long in reality. Unlike the Florentine Brunelleschi-style architecture, the triumphal arch in this Venetian mosaic, Giambono is more comfortable with rows of box-like houses and the crowded right-hand group of apostles. When translating the design into mosaic, Giambono was able to make changes of his own as the leading mosaicist. The Venetian mosaic, however, is more comfortable with rows of box-like houses and the crowded right-hand group of Apostles than with Brunelleschi’s Florentine architecture with a triumphal arch. Since Giambono was the leading mosaicist of the Mascoli chapel, he was able to make alterations to the design.
3. The First Crucifixion From S. Maria degli Angeli.
In Florence, Castagno has a Crucifixion in the cloisters of St.,
“It is still possible to see a Crucifixion in the cloisters of the Angeli in Florence, opposite the doors that allow you to enter.”
Until 1952, this fresco composition was in the eastern cloister, but after it was removed because of restoration reasons, the preparatory drawing on the wall was revealed by the sinopia. The composition takes inspiration from traces. For instance, the great fresco of Deposition by Pietro Lorenzetti in Assisi conveys Mary Magdalen distressed with grief, seen from the back, dominating the foreground of the picture. Then, on the other hand, he painted the architectural frame surrounding Castagno’s fresco with Brunelleschi’s classical architectural elements wholly at one with the early Florentine Renaissance.
A life-size figure stands on a neutral ground, symmetrically arranged, with the cross parallel to the picture surface, just as Taddeo Gaddi’s Crucifixion in the refectory of S. Croce or the fresco of the same subject in Ognissanti’s sacristy. However, there are close links between the Virgin and St John, and they are included in the crowd of other saints there. The composition shows the central focus of the picture as the crucified Christ, hanging his head as if slightly drooping, seeming almost weightless on a cross-cut from fresh wood. With his arms stretched out right to the fingertips, his over-extended slender body has a soft outline, and his open hands, pierced by nails driven into the wood perpendicularly, are flowing with blood, as in Masaccio’s Trinity, which was Castagno’s model with his face shown frontally and his eyes closed. The hesitant step Mary takes forward does not convey any sense of spatial depth, just as the gathered mass of her cloak gives no sense of gravity in its folds since Mary Magdalen is crouching in front of her revealing only her feet. Furthermore, using a color variation, Castagno uses graded light and shade to fill the entire fresco with spectacular artistic value.
4. The Lamentation Over the Dead Christ: Florence, Cathedral Window.
The first firmly dated Andrea del Castagno artwork from Florence is this composition, Lamentation Over the Dead Christ over the round window in the drum of the dome for which he received 50 lire on 26 February 1444. At first, he submitted a preliminary drawing with five meters of diameter, which is why he further joined the great masters Donatello, Uccello, and Ghiberti, who between 1434-45, received immense fame due to their excellent work for the round windows under Brunelleschi’s dome. Ghiberti expressly showed stress in his Commentari: ‘nella tribuna sono tre occhi disegnati di mia mano’, which means in the drum, there are three round windows designed by my hand. This mere statement gives a clear note of Castagno’s pro-mastery painting technique as a matter of fact, he was just 25 when he made it.
The Lamentation by Castagno is an extended view of the Pieta group, which has a gradual development in the Florentine wall painting of the fourteenth century. One of the significant contributions of the composition is the use of verticals created by the cross and the figures of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea standing parallel to it. The only diagonal line in such profusely complex artwork is the raised right and falling left arms of Christ. The colors are brilliantly organized with sapphire-blue on the background and cloak of Mary, ruby-red for the cloak and cowl of the old man raising Christ’s hand while pressing the dead hand to his chin, and emerald-green for the scarf of Mary Magdalen with her golden hair.
5. The Last Supper.
Previously, I covered the most exceptional and famous painting, Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci, but we must know that Vinci came much later than Castagno. And Castagno’s Last Supper is a significant Renaissance painting.
The Last Supper of the artist introduces fresh colors in an open hall with a span roof: the rafters of the wood are yellow, the tiles terracotta, and the beams on the underside of the roof are black and white with a rich blue-green background. The side walls are foreshortened as they change from green da Prato to porphyry to alabaster in a sequence of colors. Green, reddish-purple, and golden yellow marble panels continue these vertical lines of color until the center of the table, whereas a cornelian panel behind Christ symbolizes the event’s color symbolism: its salmon, white, and green ovals are surrounded by flamingo-red borders that seem to tint the Lord’s garments with pink as they converge towards him. At the same time, the Last Supper is a point of chromatic crystallization. There is a complete use of sorrow, own devotions, weighed down by calamitous foreboding. To understand the entire relevance of the Last Supper, you can refer to my previous article. The painting Last Supper is a spatial continuation of the hall of the refectory, seeming to give a greater depth. With the use of linear perspective, as if the beholder stands in the middle of the hall, the single vanishing point meets at the center of the picture field.
Final Words.
Being one of the finest painters of the Renaissance, Andrea del Castagno is one of the most significant and talented artists who with his exceptional ability of observation, formed the greatest and peaceful Biblical art. Among all his artworks, The Lamentation Over the Dead Christ is one the most provoking compositions of Castagno with an ability to express emotions but with soothing and peacefulness. Though we don’t know his early teachers, one thing is sure he had a powerful gift for drawing. Vasari says,
“a good and lovable personality.”
Resources.
- The 100 Most Influential Painters and Sculptors of the Renaissance by Kathleen Kuiper.
- Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects by Giorgio Vasari.
- Andrea del Castagno by Marita Horster.
- Featured Image: Assumption of the Virgin Between St Minias and St Julian by Andrea del Castagno; Andrea del Castagno, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Frequently Asked Questions.
Andrea del Castagno was of importance for his quality of drawing and handling of emotions as well as his background during the Quattrocento period. It not only limits us to learning about the painter’s expertise but also understand some of the crucial works of the time and the capabilities masters of the time possessed.
There is no information on who commissioned the Last Supper to Andrea del Castagno as most of the details about the artist’s life remain unknown, including some of his paintings.
Andrea del Castagno was a painter of the 15th century and a Florentine master who worked during the Quattrocento period, specifically before 1457 (the time of his death).
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