Orcagna (nonfiction)

Statue of Andrea Orcagna in the Uffizi outside gallery in Florence. Carved by Niccolò Bazzanti at Pietro Bazzanti e Figlio Art Gallery, Florence.

Andrea di Cione di Arcangelo (c. 1308 – August 25, 1368), better known as Orcagna, was an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect active in Florence. He worked as a consultant at the Florence Cathedral and supervised the construction of the facade at the Orvieto Cathedral.

Orcagna's works include:

• "Altarpiece of the Redeemer" (1354–57) in the Strozzi di Mantova Chapel at Santa Maria Novella, Florence

The tabernacle in Orsanmichele (finished 1359) which was regarded as "the most perfect work of its kind in Italian Gothic".

• His fresco The Triumph of Death inspired Franz Liszt's masterwork Totentanz.
• His fresco Crucifixion with a multitude of angels surrounding the cross, portrayed on a dark background and a few fragments of the Last Supper (1365)
• The mosaic decoration and the rose window of the cathedral of Orvieto is attributed to Orcagna, who had become Master of the Works in 1359.

In the News

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  1838: The Orcagna scrying engine, under contract to the House of Malevecchio, downloads Abū Sahl al-Qūhī's Perfect Compass protocol. Malevecchio will attempt to monopolize the protocol, but five years later the French will announce Compas Parfait; within fifty years, all of Christendom will have similar systems.

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles
• House of Malevecchio
• Perfect Compass
• Orcagna scrying engine

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Art (nonfiction)

External links:

• Orcagna @ Wikipedia