D

DADDI, BERNARDO

(fl. c. 1320–1348)
The Florentine Bernardo Daddi, “an artist of rare and
exquisite gifts” (Offner and Steinweg, 1930–1947), may
have been trained in Giotto’s workshop. Daddi’s early
panels, such as the triptych from the church of Ognis-
santi in Florence (signed and dated 1328), are strongly
infl uenced by Giotto; but as Daddi matured, he began
to diverge from Giotto’s weighty forms and developed a
style that united the Florentine heritage with the Sienese
affi nity for graceful fi gures, decorative settings, and
more spontaneous interactions between the Madonna
and child. The large number of panels executed in a
Daddesque idiom indicates that Daddi himself had a
large and productive workshop in Florence.
In his best works—such as the San Pancrazio Polyp-
tych (c. 1340), now thought to have been commissioned
for the cathedral of Florence; and the Madonna and
Child of the Berenson Collection (Florence, I Tatti, c.
1340)—Daddi’s fi gures are imbued with emotional ten-
derness and grace, in contrast to Giotto’s more massive
and somber mode of expression. The intimacy between
the Madonna and child is characteristic of Daddi and
his school; often, the Madonna holds up an index fi nger
to present the child with a bird or a fl ower, or in some
examples to admonish him.
Daddi appears to have been partly responsible for the
popularization of the triptych in Florence. The portable
hinged triptych, derived from Byzantine prototypes,
could be closed to protect the image and opened for
times of private devotion. During the 1320s and 1330s,
painters including Daddi and Taddeo Gaddi developed
a Gothic format for the panel type. Daddi’s Bigallo
Triptych (dated 1333, although the last digits have
been repainted), a relatively large and richly decorated
example that is closely related to a similar triptych by

Taddeo Gaddi (1334, now in Berlin), may have been

intended as a votive offering.

Daddi had close stylistic affi nities to painters of the

“miniaturist tendency” such as the Saint Cecilia Master,

and his intimate, lyrical style was best suited to works

on a small scale. The only frescoes attributed to him

are those depicting the martyrdom of saints Lawrence

and Stephen in the Pulci-Berardi Chapel of Santa Croce

in Florence (c. 1330). A Madonna and Child with An-

gels painted for the confraternity of Or San Michele

in 1347 was meant to recall a miracle-working image

of the Duecento that had previously been in Or San

Michele. Daddi’s panel, which was eventually set into

Andrea Orcagna’s imposing marble tabernacle (1357),

attracted many survivors of the plague and accelerated

the transformation of Or San Michele from a granary

into a church. The Gambier-Parry Polyptych (signed and

dated 1348), with its pronounced compression of space

and form, provides further evidence that by midcentury

Daddi had moved away from the spacious monumental-

ity of the Giottesque tradition.

Like many other artists of his time, Daddi died during

the black death of 1348.

See also Gaddi, Taddeo; Giotto di Bondone;

Orcagna, Andrea di Cione

Further Reading

Cole, Bruce. Giotto and Florentine Painting, 1280–1375. New

York: Harper and Row, 1976.

Fabri, N., and Nina Rutenberg. “The Tabernacle of Orsanmichele

in Context.” Art Bulletin, 53, 1981, pp. 385–405.

Lusanna, E. “Daddi, Bernardo.” In The Dictionary of Art, Vol.

8. New York, 1996, pp. 441–444. Offner, Richard, and Klara
   Steinweg. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine
   Painting, Section 3, Vols. 3–5, Daddi and His School. New
   York, 1930–1947. (See also: Corpus, Section 3, Vol. 3, ed.