k, is espousing St Catherine, with
six small scenes in little figures of the acts of that saint, is also
a work of Spinello and much admired. Being afterwards invited to the
famous abbey of Camaldoli in Casentino in the year 1361, he painted
for the hermits of that place the picture of the high altar, which
was taken away in the year 1539, when the entire church was rebuilt
and Giorgio Vasari did a new picture, painting the principal chapel
of the abbey all in fresco, the transept of the church in fresco and
two pictures. Summoned thence to Florence by D. Jacopo d'Arezzo,
Abbot of S. Miniato in Monte of the order of Monte Oliveto, Spinello
painted the vaulting and four walls of the sacristy of that
monastery, besides the picture of the altar, all in tempera, with
many stories of the life of St Benedict, executed with much skill and
a great vivacity in the colouring, learned by him by means of long
practice and continual labour, with study and diligence, such as are
necessary to every one who wishes to acquire an art perfectly. After
these things the said abbot left Florence and received the direction
of the monastery of S. Bernardo of the same order, in his native
land, at the very time when it was almost entirely completed on the
land granted by the Aretines, on the site of the Colosseum. Here the
abbot induced Spinello to paint in fresco two chapels which are
beside the principal chapel, and two others, one on either side of
the door leading to the choir in the screen of the church. In one of
the two, next the principal chapel, is an Annunciation in fresco,
made with the greatest diligence, and on a wall beside it, is the
Madonna ascending the steps of the Temple, accompanied by Joachim and
Anna; in the other chapel is a Crucifix with the Madonna and St John
weeping, and a St Bernard adoring on his knees. On the inner wall of
the church where the altar of Our Lady stands, he painted the Virgin
with the child at her neck, which was considered a very beautiful
figure, and did many other things for the church, painting above the
choir Our Lady, St Mary Magdalene and St Bernard, very vivaciously.
In the Pieve of Arezzo in the Chapel of St Bartholomew, he did a
number of scenes from the life of that saint, and on the opposite
side of the church, in the chapel of St Matthew, under the organ,
which was painted by his master Jacopo di Casentino, besides many
stories of that saint, which are meritorious, he did the four
Evange