The abbot, Don Jacopo, afterwards left Florence to take the government of San Bernardo, a monastery belonging to the same order, in his native city of Arezzo, and built upon the site of the Colosseum, which had been made over to those monks. The arrival of the abbot occurred at the moment when the building had just been completed, and here he caused Spinello to paint, in fresco, the two chapels which are beside the principal chapel, with two others, which stand one on each side of the door leading from the transept into the choir. In one of these four chapels, that beside the principal chapel, is an Annunciation in fresco, painted with infinite care, and on a wall near is the Virgin ascending the steps of the temple, accompanied by Joachim and Anna. In the opposite chapel is a crucifix, with the Madonna and San Giovanni bewailing the crucified Saviour, and a figure of San Bernardo in adoration at the foot of the cross. On the inner wall of the same church, and near the altar of the Virgin, Spinello painted the Madonna with the child in her arms: a work of great beauty. This master executed many other paintings for the same church, over the choir of which he depicted the Virgin, Santa Maria Maddalena, and San Bernardo, with infinite truth and animation.nota
In the capitular church of Arezzo, in like manner, Spinello painted many pictures, those of the chapel of San Bartolommeo, for example, where he represented stories from the life of that saint, and in the corresponding chapel of the opposite aisle—that of St. Matthew—he decorated the walls with events from the life of St. Matthew, and painted the four evangelists in medallions on the ceiling. The mode in which our artist delineated these last figures is extremely fanciful, since he has placed heads of animals on the human bust and limbs of the evangelists; on that of St. John is the head of an eagle; St. Mark has the head of a lion; the head of an ox is on the figure of St. Luke; St. Matthew only retaining the face of a man, or rather, that of an angel.nota
The people of Arezzo had constructed a church on numerous columns of marble and granite, to honour and preserve the memory of the many holy martyrs put to death by Julian the Apostate on the spot where they built it, and [1] [2].
