This work being completed, Spinello returned to Arezzo, having received great kindness from the general and his monks, and being moreover very largely rewarded. But he did not long remain in Arezzo, the city being then much disturbed by the Guelphic and Ghibelline parties, and having been recently sacked.[1] Spinello therefore proceeded with his family, including his son Parri, who was also a painter, to Florence, where he had many relations and friends. Here Spinello painted a tabernacle, principally for his amusement; the subject of the work, now half-ruined, is the Annunciation; the tabernacle stands on the Roman road, without the gate of San Piero Gattolini, where you turn to go to Pozzolatico: this master also executed other pictures in another tabernacle near the hostelry of Galluzzo.
Spinello was thence invited to Pisa, for the purpose of finishing the decoration of certain spaces left unoccupied in the Campo Santo, beneath those wherein the life of San Ranieri had been depicted; these he connected with those painted by Giotto, Simon of Siena, and Antonio Veneziano, by the delineation of six stories in fresco, taken from the lives of San Petito and Sant’ Epiro.[2] In the first of these the painter has chosen the moment when Sant Epiro, then a youth, is presented by his mother to the Emperor Diocletian; he is further seen when appointed by the emperor to command
- ↑ The sack of Arezzo took place in 1384, which confirms the conjecture hazarded by us in the preceding note, wherein we express an opinion that the date on the picture of Monte Oliveto was 1384, not 85, as given by Vasari.— Ed. Flor. 1846.
- ↑ Della Valle and others, correcting these names, write “Efeso” and “Potito”; Ciampi reads “Efisio” and “Potito”. The little now remaining of these works is very much discoloured.— Ed. Flor. 1832, and 1846.
from each other by slight pilasters, on each of which are represented minute figures of saints standing erect. Above the predella, in raised and gilded letters, are the words—“Magister. Simon. Cini. De. Florentia. Intaliavit. Gabrie/lus. Saraceni. De. Senis. Avravit. mccclxxx.. .” The rest of the date is not clear, but seems rather to be a 3 or 4, than a 5. The part of the inscription on which was the name of the painter Spinello is wanting, because the middle part of the picture is lost; but there was certainly a figure of the Virgin in that portion of the work. The middle of the predella, however, is still in existence, having been conveyed, in the year 1810, from the convent of Monte Oliveto to the public Gallery of Siena, where it now is. It is a most beautiful fragment, representing the death of the Virgin, who is surrounded by figures of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. — Ed. Flor. 1846.
