Giorgio Vasari. Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori. Ed. Gaetano Milanesi. 1906 ed. Florence, 1568, vol. 1, p. 574, mentions a painting and predella by Taddeo Gaddi, possibly this work, on the high altar of the church of Santo Stefano al Ponte Vecchio in Florence; later attributes the predella to Antonio Veneziano [p. 663].
Giuseppe Richa. Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine. Vol. 2, Florence, 1755, p. 77, reports that the altarpiece from the church of Santo Stefano in Florence, mentioned by Vasari, was painted by Taddeo Gaddi for the Bellandi family; adds that it had been removed from the high altar and placed in the sacristy, and that in 1728 the predella was divided into individual pieces for placement in the cells of the friars.
Corrado Ricci. Il Palazzo Pubblico di Siena e la mostra d'antica arte senese. Bergamo, 1904, p. 69, notes that it was reframed in the fifteenth century by a follower of Ghirlandaio who added the pilasters and the figures of the Evangelists.
F. Mason-Perkins. "La pittura alla mostra d'arte antica in Siena." Rassegna d'arte 4 (October 1904), p. 153 [same text as Burlington Magazine, September 1904], considers it Gaddesque, and notes that it was lent to the exhibition by sig. Galli Dunn.
F. Mason Perkins. "The Sienese Exhibition of Ancient Art." Burlington Magazine 5 (September 1904), p. 584 [same text as Rassegna d'arte, October 1904], considers it Gaddesque.
Osvald Sirén. Giottino und seine Stellung in der gleichzeitigen florentinischen Malerei. Leipzig, 1908, p. 88, lists it as a work of Taddeo Gaddi in the Galli-Dunn collection, Poggibonsi.
Roger E. Fry. Letter to Bryson Burroughs. March 12, 1909 [published in Letters of Roger Fry, ed. Denys Sutton, 1972, vol. 1, p. 316], recommends buying it.
Frank Jewett Mather Jr. "An Altarpiece by Taddeo Gaddi." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 5 (November 1910), pp. 252–54, ill., considers it a late work of Taddeo Gaddi and suggests that it may be the altarpiece from the church of Santo Stefano al Ponte Vecchio recorded by Vasari; mentions six scenes from the life of Saint Stephen in the Brooklyn Museum, but rejects the possibility that they once formed the predella.
Martin Wehrmann. Taddeo Gaddi, ein Florentiner Maler des Trecento. Stettin, 1910, p. 16.
Oswald Sirén. "Pictures in America by Bernardo Daddi, Taddeo Gaddi, Andrea Orcagna and His Brothers: I." Art in America 2 (June 1914), p. 268, considers it a late work of Taddeo Gaddi.
Basile Khvoshinsky and Mario Salmi. I pittori toscani dal XIII al XVI secolo. Vol. 2, I fiorentini del trecento. Rome, 1914, p. 16, list it with a question mark.
Osvald Sirén. Giotto and Some of His Followers. Cambridge, Mass., 1917, vol. 1, pp. 154, 269; vol. 2, pl. 132, believes that the Quattrocento transformation left the main figures unmodified.
B. C. Kreplin in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. Ed. Ulrich Thieme. Vol. 13, Leipzig, 1920, p. 32, lists it as a work of Taddeo Gaddi with Quattrocento additions.
Georg Graf Vitzthum and W. F. Volbach. Die Malerei und Plastik des Mittelalters in Italien. Wildpark-Potsdam, 1924, p. 294, relate it to other late works of Taddeo Gaddi from about 1353–55.
Raimond van Marle. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. Vol. 3, The Florentine School of the 14th Century. The Hague, 1924, p. 341, fig. 200, refers to the Evangelists in the spandrels as prophets, and suggests it is contemporary with a Madonna, signed and dated 1355 by Taddeo Gaddi, in the Uffizi.
Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 215, lists it as a work of Taddeo Gaddi, and refers to the Evangelists as "four small Prophets".
Lionello Venturi. Italian Paintings in America. Vol. 1, Romanesque and Gothic. New York, 1933, unpaginated, pl. 49.
Bernhard Berenson. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936, p. 185.
Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 10–11, ill., considers it a comparitively early work of Taddeo Gaddi.
Luigi Coletti. I primitivi. Vol. 2, I senesi e i giotteschi. Novara, 1946, pp. XLVI–VII, challenges the attribution to Taddeo Gaddi; names Giovanni and Agnolo Gaddi as possible alternatives.
Richard Offner. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Vol. 5, section 3, New York, 1947, pp. 88–89 n. 10, lists it among Gothic altarpieces that were modified, but not completely repainted, in Florence during the late fifteenth century.
Walter Paatz and Elisabeth Paatz. Die Kirchen von Florenz. Vol. 5, Q–Z. Frankfurt am Main, 1953, pp. 222–23, 234 n. 95, tentatively identify it with the altarpiece from the church of Santo Stefano al Ponte Vecchio in Florence recorded by Vasari; suggest that the predella was composed of scenes from the lives of Saints Stephen and Lawrence possibly by Bernardo Daddi in the Pinacoteca Vaticana [a hypothesis first published by Mario Salmi in "Antonio Veneziano," Bollettino d'arte 8 (1928), p. 452 n. 17].
Theodore Rousseau Jr. "A Guide to the Picture Galleries." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 12, part 2 (January 1954), p. 1, ill. p. 9.
Richard Offner. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Vol. 8, section 3, New York, 1958, p. 202, note to p. 68 in vol. 3, rejects as arbitrary the suggestion that the panels by Bernardo Daddi in the Pinacoteca Vaticana originally formed the predella of this painting [see Ref. Paatz and Paatz 1953].
Dario Covi. "A XIV Century Italian Altarpiece." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 16 (January 1958), p. 155, ill. p. 153 (detail), compares the head of Saint James to that of Christ in "The Coronation of the Virgin, and Saints" by Giovanni di Tano Fei, also in the Metropolitan Museum (50.229.2).
Roberto Longhi. "Qualità e industria in Taddeo Gaddi ed altri, II." Paragone 9 (March 1959), pp. 4, 8, supports the hypothesis that its predella was composed of panels by Bernardo Daddi in the Pinacoteca Vaticana; dates it early 1340s.
Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School. London, 1963, vol. 1, p. 71, lists it as a work of Taddeo Gaddi.
Luisa Marcucci in Kindlers Malerei Lexikon. Ed. Rolf Linnenkamp. Vol. 2, Zürich, 1965, p. 523, ill. p. 522, dates it about 1345–50.
Pier Paolo Donati. Taddeo Gaddi. Florence, 1966, p. 28, dates it 1345–53.
Brigitte Klesse. Seidenstoffe in der italienischen Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts. Bern, 1967, p. 454, dates it 1360–70 based on the pattern of the textile behind the Madonna.
Everett Fahy. Letter to Elizabeth E. Gardner. 1967, attributes the spandrels to Davide Ghirlandaio, comparing them with the "Crucifixion" in the Musée Dobrée, Nantes.
Introduction by Kenneth Clark in Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1970, p. 196, no. 179, ill., attributes the Evangelists to a follower of Ghirlandaio, and dates them around the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Florentine School. New York, 1971, pp. 23–25, ill., date it about 1340 on the basis of style, and note the influence of Maso di Banco.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 77, 221, 315, 393, 403, 410, 422, 450, 606, attribute the four Evangelists to an unknown fifteenth-century Florentine painter.
Miklòs Boskovits. Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, 1370–1400. Florence, 1975, pp. 194–95 n. 40, accepts it as the altarpiece from the church of Santo Stefano al Ponte Vecchio in Florence, and agrees that its predella was composed of scenes from the lives of Saints Stephen and Lawrence by Bernardo Daddi in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.
Massimo Ferretti. "Una croce a Lucca, Taddeo Gaddi, un nodo di tradizione giottesca." Paragone 27 (July–September 1976), p. 28, dates it late 1340s.
Richard Offner. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Ed. Hayden B. J. Maginnis. supplement, A Legacy of Attributions. New York, 1981, p. 69.
Marvin Eisenberg. "The First Altar-piece for the 'Cappella de'Signori' of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena: '. . . tales figure sunt adeo pulcre . . .'." Burlington Magazine 123 (March 1981), p. 145 n. 41.
Keith Christiansen. "Fourteenth-Century Italian Altarpieces." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 40 (Summer 1982), p. 7, fig.6, states that it cannot be proven to be the altarpiece mentioned by Vasari as in the church of Santo Stefano.
Andrew Ladis. Taddeo Gaddi: Critical Reappraisal and Catalogue Raisonné. Columbia, Mo., 1982, pp. 48, 142, 149–52, 155, 183, 217–18, 220–22, 224, no. 14, figs. 14–1, 14–2 (overall and detail), dates it about 1340–45 and compares it stylistically with other works by Taddeo Gaddi; rejects the connections proposed with the altarpiece mentioned by Vasari and the predella panels by Bernardo Daddi in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.
Collaborations: Artists Working Together. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Uris Center. New York, 1983, unpaginated, unnumbered, ill. (detail), describes the fifteenth-century alterations.
Stefania Ricci in La pittura in Italia: il Duecento e il Trecento. Ed. Enrico Castelnuovo. Milan, 1986, vol. 2, p. 573, mentions it with other Gaddi works of the 1340s.
Wolfgang Fritz Volbach. Catalogo della Pinacoteca Vaticana. Vol. 2, Il Trecento: Firenze e Siena. Vatican City, 1987, p. 28, under no. 27.
Miklós Boskovits in Richard Offner et al. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Vol. 3, section 3, The Fourteenth Century: The Works of Bernardo Daddi. new ed. Florence, 1989, p. 54 n.81, pp. 267, 306–7 n. 2, p. 386, notes that most critics no longer accept the hypothetical connection to the predella panels by Daddi in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.
George Bisacca and Laurence B. Kanter in Italian Renaissance Frames. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1990, p. 23, fig. 17, detail the Renaissance alterations, noting that the modernization of Gothic polyptychs was common in fifteenth-century Florence.
Cecilia Filippini in Maestri e botteghe: pittura a Firenze alla fine del quattrocento. Ed. Mina Gregori, Antonio Paolucci, and Cristina Acidini-Luchinat. Exh. cat., Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. Milan, 1992, pp. 205–6, discusses the fifteenth-century alterations attributed to the workshop of Ghirlandaio.
Magnolia Scudieri in Il Museo Bandini a Fiesole. Ed. Magnolia Scudieri. Florence, 1993, p. 82.
Keith Christiansen. "Simone Martini's altar-piece for the commune of Siena." Burlington Magazine 136 (March 1994), p. 154, p. 153 fig. 11, maintains that its provenance is unknown.
Erling S. Skaug. Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico: Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting. Oslo, 1994, vol. 1, pp. 93, 97 n. 89; vol. 2, punch chart 5.2, figs. 31, 42 (details of punch marks), states that "although brocade patterns have a restricted value alone in questions of attribution and workshop relationships . . . , it should be noted that the Metropolitan polyptych is the only case where Taddeo Gaddi's patterns coincide with one of Daddi's" [see Ref. Klesse 1967].
Cathleen Hoeniger. The Renovation of Paintings in Tuscany, 1250–1500. Cambridge, 1995, pp. 101–4, 154, 156, 167–68 n. 3, colorpl. 7, dates it about 1340–45, and discusses the Quattrocento alterations.
Keith Christiansen in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 1996–1997." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 55 (Fall 1997), p. 24, considers it contemporary with the Saint Julian by Taddeo also in the MMA (1997.117.1); dates both pictures to the early 1340s.
Mojmír S. Frinta. "Part I: Catalogue Raisonné of All Punch Shapes." Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998, pp. 442, 519, classifies the punch marks appearing in this painting.
Klaus Krüger. "Medium and Imagination: Aesthetic Aspects of Trecento Panel Painting." Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento. Ed. Victor M. Schmidt. Washington, 2002, p. 57, fig. 2.
Michel Laclotte. "Observations on Some Polyptychs and 'Altaroli' by Ambrogio Lorenzetti." Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento. Ed. Victor M. Schmidt. Washington, 2002, p. 191.
Angelo Tartuferi in Dagli eredi di Giotto al primo Cinquecento. Ed. Gabriele Caioni and Flavio Gianassi. Florence, 2007, pp. 18, 24.
Erling Skaug. "The Santa Felicita Altarpiece and Some Observations on Taddeo Gaddi's Punchwork and Halo Style c. 1345–1355." Il polittico di Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Felicita a Firenze: restauro, studi e ricerche. Ed. Mirella Branca. Florence, 2008, p. 53, notes that two kinds of tooling can be found in this altarpiece—stippling with a tiny ring punch, such as Gaddi used before the mid-1340s, and granulation with a stylus, which he used afterwards—and that this marks a transitional moment in his career.
Mirella Branca. "Il polittico di Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Felicita." Il polittico di Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Felicita a Firenze: restauro, studi e ricerche. Ed. Mirella Branca. Florence, 2008, p. 20.
Isabella Bigazzi. "Motivi tessili nel polittico di Taddeo: raffronti e approfondimenti o 'l'arte dell'inganno'." Il polittico di Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Felicita a Firenze: restauro, studi e ricerche. Ed. Mirella Branca. Florence, 2008, p. 69.
Angelo Tartuferi in L'eredità di Giotto: arte a Firenze 1340–1375. Ed. Angelo Tartuferi. Exh. cat., Galleria degli Uffizi. Florence, 2008, p. 122.
Stefan Weppelmann. Spinello Aretino e la pittura del Trecento in Toscana. Florence, 2011, p. 85 n. 30.