Orcagna

Orcagna (c. 1308-c. 1368) was an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect whose work greatly influenced Florentine and Tuscan art during the late 14th century.

Nothing is known of the early years of Andrea di Cione, called Orcagna. According to a document of June 1368, he fell ill and presumably died later that year. Giorgio Vasari reported that Orcagna was 60 years old at the time of his death; hence, he was born about 1308. In 1343/1344 his name first appeared on the register of the Florentine painters' guild (Arte dei Medici e Speziali) and in 1352 on the register of the stone workers' guild (Arte dei Maestri della Pietra). After 1352 Orcagna was mentioned in numerous documents relating to a number of projects in Florence, including the Strozzi Altarpiece in S. Maria Novella and the marble tabernacle in Orsanmichele. He was capomastro of the Cathedral in Orvieto (1359-1362), where he executed the mosaic decorations for the facade.

The signed and dated (1357) altarpiece commissioned in 1354 by Tommaso Strozzi, in the family chapel in S. Maria Novella, is the only painting entirely by Orcagna that has come down to us intact. It is a large polyptych depicting Christ as the Redeemer in the center flanked by (left) the Virgin and St. Thomas Aquinas and (right) John the Baptist and St. Peter. The outermost panels depict (left) St. Catherine and St. Michael and (right) St. Lawrence and St. Paul.

Most scholars view this unusual altarpiece as a conscious effort to return to pre-Giottesque conceptions of religious art. Orcagna rejected the logical and coherent spatial articulation of Giotto and his followers to return to the tense, cramped abstract space of earlier days. He filled the gold openings of the frame with insistently plastic and full forms, often using contradictory devices. The figure of Christ, for example, is brought forward to the foreground plane by his gestures to St. Thomas and St. Peter and simultaneously pushed back in space by the way the adoring angels overlap the seraphim of his mandorla.

The explanation for Orcagna's return to an earlier artistic conception is probably the shattering effect of the plague, or Black Death, of 1348. The survivors of the epidemic interpreted it as evidence of God's anger and vengeance against the moral corruption of mankind. Their efforts to appease Him took the form of returning to the sanctified ways of their ancestors. Artists, too, rejected the realism of their immediate predecessors, Giotto and his school, for the abstraction of late-13th-century art. Orcagna's Strozzi Altarpieceis the finest work of the period illustrating this attitude.

The marble tabernacle in Orsanmichele (1355-1359) was built to enclose a painting by Bernardo Daddi and depicts the life of the Virgin in a series of relief panels. The major panel depicts the Assumption of the Virgin and combines relief sculpture with mosaic decoration. According to Vasari, Orcagna learned the sculptor's art from Andrea Pisano, a plausible but unverified theory. Orcagna's sculptural style is close to Andrea Pisano's in its concern for sweeping rhythms and decorative surfaces. Generally the figures have a fullness and plasticity very similar to the painted figures on the Strozzi Altarpiece.

At the time of his death Orcagna was working on the St. Matthew Altarpiece (Uffizi, Florence) with his brother Jacopo di Cione, who finished the project. Some fragments of frescoes have been attributed to Orcagna, though they are probably by assistants. These include the Triumph of Death, the Last Judgment, and Hell in Sta Croce (ca. 1348), the Last Supper and the Crucifixion in the refectory of Sto Spirito, and some half-length figures of prophets in the choir of S. Maria Novella.

Further Reading

A valuable discussion of late-14th-century Florentine painting, including an especially good analysis of Orcagna's Strozzi Altarpiece, is in Millard Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death (1951). Evelyn Sandburg-Vavalà includes most of Orcagna's paintings in her books Uffizi Studies (1948) and Studies in the Florentine Churches (1959). For Orcagna's work as a sculptor see John Pope-Hennessy, Italian Gothic Sculpture (1955). □

Orcagna, Andrea ( Andrea di Cione) (b Florence, ?c.1320; d Florence, ?1368). The leading Florentine artist of the third quarter of the 14th century, a painter, sculptor, architect, and administrator. His nickname ‘ Orcagna’ was evidently local slang for ‘ Archangel’ (Arcangelo). In 1343/4 he was admitted to the painters' guild in Florence and in 1352 to that of the masons. His only certain work as a painter is the altarpiece of The Redeemer with the Madonna and Saints (1354–7) in the Strozzi Chapel of S. Maria Novella. This is the most powerful Florentine painting of its period, and in spite of the massiveness of the figures it represents a reversion from Giotto's naturalism to the hieratic ideals of Byzantine art. Colours are resplendent, with lavish use of gold, and the figures are remote and immobile. Among paintings attributed to Orcagna, the most important is a fragmentary fresco trilogy of the Triumph of Death, Last Judgement, and Hell in S. Croce. As a sculptor and architect he is known through one work, the tabernacle in Orsanmichele (finished 1359), a highly elaborate ornamental structure housing a painting of the Virgin Enthroned by Bernardo Daddi. Orcagna was capomaestro of Orvieto Cathedral from 1358 to 1362, supervising the mosaic decoration of the façade. He was also an adviser on the construction of Florence Cathedral. During 1368 he fell mortally ill while painting the St Matthew altarpiece (Uffizi, Florence) and this work was finished by his brother Jacopo di Cione (d 1398/1400), who worked in his style and continued it to the end of the century. Another brother, Nardo di Cione (d 1365/6), was also a painter. Ghiberti attributes to him the series of frescos of the Last Judgement, Hell, and Paradise in the same chapel in S. Maria Novella that houses Andrea's great altarpiece. A fourth brother, Matteo di Cione (d c.1390), was a sculptor, but almost nothing is known of his work.

Orcagna, Andrea ( Andrea di Cione) (d. c.1368). The leading Florentine artist of the third quarter of the 14th century, a painter, sculptor, architect, and administrator. His nickname ‘Orcagna’ was evidently local slang for ‘Arcangelo’ (‘Archangel’). In 1343/4 he was admitted to the painters' guild in Florence and in 1352 to that of the masons. His only certain work as a painter is the altarpiece of The Redeemer with the Madonna and Saints (1354–7) in the Strozzi Chapel of S. Maria Novella. This is the most powerful Florentine painting of its period, and in spite of the massiveness of the figures it represents a reversion from Giotto's naturalism to the hieratic ideals of Byzantine art. Colours are resplendent, with lavish use of gold, and the figures are remote and immobile. Among paintings attributed to Orcagna, the most important is a fragmentary fresco trilogy of the Triumph of Death, Last Judgement, and Hell in S. Croce. As a sculptor and architect he is known through one work, the tabernacle in Orsanmichele (finished 1359), a highly elaborate ornamental structure housing a painting of the Virgin Enthroned by Bernardo Daddi. Orcagna was capomaestro of Orvieto Cathedral from 1358 to 1362, supervising the mosaic decoration of the façade. He was also an adviser on the construction of Florence Cathedral. During 1368 he fell mortally ill while painting the St Matthew altarpiece (Uffizi, Florence) and this work was finished by his brother Jacopo di Cione (d. 1398/1400), who worked in his style and continued it to the end of the century. Another brother, Nardo di Cione (d. 1365/6), was also a painter. Ghiberti attributes to him the series of frescos of the Last Judgement, Hell, and Paradise in the same chapel in S. Maria Novella that houses Andrea's great altarpiece. A fourth brother, Matteo di Cione (d. c.1390), was a sculptor, but almost nothing is known of his work.

Orcagna or Arcagnolo , c.1308–1368, Florentine painter, sculptor, and architect, whose original name was Andrea di Cione. He was one of the leading artists of his day. According to Vasari, writing more than 200 years later, Orcagna studied sculpture under Andrea Pisano. In 1343 he enrolled in St. Luke's Guild as a painter. The only extant authenticated painting is his famous altarpiece in the Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, Florence. It represents The Redeemer with the Madonna and Saints (1537). In his painting he reverted from a more naturalistic style to the Byzantine remote and monumental figural type. He usually worked in collaboration with his brothers Nardo, Jacopo, and Matteo di Cione. They were all strongly influenced by the naturalism of Giotto. Fragments of the Prophets by Orcagna and his assistants have come to light in Santa Maria Novella, as well as portions of his Triumph of Death, Last Judgment, and Hell in the Church of Santa Croce (1530s). In 1355 he was appointed chief architect of Orsanmichele in Florence, for which he executed an elaborate marble tabernacle depicting The Death and Assumption of the Virgin. In 1359 he became chief architect of the cathedral at Orvieto and designed a mosaic for the facade.

Orcagna, Andrea (1308–68) ( Andrea di Cione) Florentine painter, sculptor and architect. His single surviving altarpiece, The Redeemer with the Madonna and Saints (begun 1354), shows a turning back to the style of Byzantine art. He was head architect of Orvieto Cathedral.