| This Jacopo di Casentino had for his pupil the painter Spinello.
For Luca Spinelli having gone to dwell at Arezzo at a time when
the Ghibellines were driven out of Florence, there was born to
him there a son to whom he gave the name of Spinello. He was so
naturally inclined to painting that when he was a mere boy, and
almost without teaching, he seemed to know much that those who
have been under the discipline of the best masters do not know.
Having formed a friendship with Jacopo di Casentino while he was
working in Arezzo, he learned somewhat from him, but before he
was twenty years old he became a far greater master than old Jacopo
was.
Beginning soon then to acquire a name as a good painter, Spinello
was called to Florence, and painted in the churches of S. Niccolo
and S. Maria Maggiore, and in other places, until the sixty citizens
who governed Arezzo recalled him, and gave him work in the old
cathedral outside the city.
A little before this time a number of good and honourable citizens
had begun to go round collecting alms for the poor to aid them
in their need; and in the plague of the year 1348, the good men
of this fraternity, called the Fraternity of S. Mary of Mercy,
acquired so great a name by helping the poor and sick, burying
the dead, and like works of charity, that gifts and legacies fell
into their hands until they became possessors of the third part
of the wealth of Arezzo. Spinello therefore, being of the fraternity,
and having often to visit the sick and bury the dead, painted
for the company in the church of S. Laurentino and Bergentino,
a Madonna spreading her mantle over the people of Arezzo, among
whom are many of the first men of the fraternity, painted from
life, with the wallet on their shoulder, and the wooden mallet
in their hands that they used in knocking at the doors when they
went seeking alms.
In the church of S. Stefano he painted a Madonna giving the Child
a rose, which was held in such veneration by the people of Arezzo
that when the church was pulled down, regardless of difficulty
and expense they cut it out of the wall, and carried it into the
city and placed it in a chapel, that they might honour it with
the same devotion as heretofore. Nor was this strange, for Spinello
had a natural power of giving to his figures a certain simple
grace, so that his saints, and especially his virgins, breathe
a divine holiness, which draws men to hold them in the highest
reverence. Having painted in many other cities whither his fame
carried him, he returned to Arezzo, his home, or rather that which
he considered his home, at the age of seventy seven, and was received
by his friends and relatives with affection, and held in honour
to the end of his life, which was in the ninety second year of
his age. And although he was very old when he returned, and being
rich, might have ceased from working, he knew not how to rest,
but took upon him to paint for the Company of S. Agnolo the story
of S. Michael. He painted the Fall of the Angels, who are changed
into devils as they fall from heaven, and S. Michael in the air
fighting with the old serpent with seven heads and ten horns,
and Lucifer changed already into a horrible beast. And because
Spinello took great pleasure in making him horrible and deformed,
it is said that the figure as he had painted it appeared to him
in a dream, demanding why he had made him so ugly and done him
so much injury with his pencil. He then awaking from his sleep,
could not cry from the greatness of his terror, but such a trembling
fell upon him that his wife awoke and hastened to his succour.
He was near dying of terror at the moment, and though he lingered
a short time with an affrighted air and wide staring eyes, yet
it led to his death. Such a sad event grieved the Aretines much,
and they lamented him for his talents and goodness, although he
was so old. He died at the age of ninety, and was buried in S
Agostino, where may be seen a stone bearing his arms, designed
by himself, containing a hedgehog.
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