regards invention or colouring, is the most perfectly executed, the most highly-finished, and the most beautiful of all that Spinello produced; the care with which it was done is made manifest by the fact, that it is so admirably preserved, as to astonish all who behold it by its freshness. Having completed these works of the Campo Santo, the master painted stories from the lives of San Bartolommeo, Sant’ Andrea, San Jacopo and San Giovanni the apostles, in a chapel of San Francesco,[1] the second from the principal chapel namely, and he would possibly have remained still longer in Pisa, where his works were appreciated as well as highly paid for, had not that city been thrown into commotion and uproar, because Messer Pietro Gambacortif had been killed by the Lanfranchi, who were citizens of Pisa;[2] but public affairs standing thus, Spinello, who was now become old, returned with all his family to Florence. He remained there a year and not more, during which period he painted stories from the lives of SS. Filippo and Jacopo, in the chapel dedicated to those saints, in the church of Santa Croce, and which belongs to the Macchiavelli family. He further painted the death of the saints, with the altar-piece for the same chapel; but as he greatly desired to return to Arezzo, his native city, or to speak more exactly, the city which he considered his native place, he executed his work in Arezzo, whence he sent it finished to Florence in the year 1400.[3] Spinello was seventy-seven years old or perhaps more, when he returned to Arezzo, were he was most amicably received by his friends and relations, and was esteemed and honoured to the end of his life: which endured until he had reached the age of
- ↑ These paintings met the fate of the many other pictures in that suppressed church.—Ibid.
- ↑ The death of Gambacorti happened in the year 1392. Professor
Tomei of Lucca is in possession of a picture painted the year before
that date; it represents the Virgin with four saints, and has the following mutilated inscription:—
“s. pinxit spinellus lvce.... aritio.... a 1391”; that is—“hoc. opus. pinxit. spinellus. luce de aritio. in a. 1391.”
Ed. Flor. 1846. - ↑ From the days of Biscioni (see his notes to the Riposo of Borghini), these paintings have been no longer to be seen in Santa Croce. The picture of the altar may be in existence, but its history is not known.— Montani.
