Read "Knights of Art" by Amy Steedman online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Ghirlandaio! what a difficult name that sounds to our English ears. But it has a very simple meaning, and when you understand it the difficulty will vanish.
It all happened in this way. Domenico's father was a goldsmith, one of the cleverest goldsmiths in Florence, and he was specially famous for making garlands or wreaths of gold and silver. It was the fashion then for the young maidens of Florence to wear these garlands, or 'ghirlande' as they were called, on their heads, and because this goldsmith made them better than any one else they gave him the name of Ghirlandaio, which means 'maker of garlands,' and that became the family name.