Taddeo Leaving Home Escorted by Two Guardian Angels

Against his father's wishes, the fourteen-year-old Taddeo Zuccaro leaves his hometown to study painting in Rome, accompanied by two guardian angels--or possibly the figures of Hope and Charity. Federico Zuccaro included himself in the scene, aged two or three and clinging behind his mother's skirts. Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance author and painter, mentioned this event in his Lives of Painters, Sculptors and Architects, noting that Taddeo "went off alone, at the age of fourteen, to Rome." In his own copy of Vasari's book, Federico elaborated on Vasari's account: "when Taddeo grew older and able to judge things for himself, realizing that there was little more that he could learn from his father . . . and that he was still not experienced enough to be of any help to him, at the age of fourteen he went by himself to Rome."