Taddeo Returning Home with the Sack of Stones and in Bed Recovering from His Fever

This story in three scenes moves from right to left. First Taddeo Zuccaro returns home, slack-mouthed with exhaustion, carrying the heavy sack of stones he gathered on his back. As biographer Giorgio Vasari explained, Taddeo "carried them home and gave them to his mother, telling her they were even more precious than himself." In the center, Taddeo's parents welcome the young man warmly as he deliriously points to his heavy bag. On the left, he lies in bed, watched over by his parents and his little brother, the artist Federico Zuccaro. A large carved wooden bed with a canopy nearly fills the room. Several paintings and a frescoed cornice on the far wall and a fireplace projecting from the hidden wall form the other handsome furnishings.