_Spinello Aretino_ (Tuscan: about 1333-1410).
_See also_ (p. xix)
Spinello di Luca Spinelli is commonly called Spinello Aretino,
from Arezzo, his native town. As is the case with most of the
early Tuscan painters, he is seen to greater advantage in his
frescoes than in his panel pictures. Some fragments of frescoes
by him are in our Gallery (1216). Important frescoes may be
seen in the sacristy of S. Miniato above Florence (the life of
St. Benedict); in the Campo Santo at Pisa (the histories of SS.
Efeso and Potito); and in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena (scenes
in the life of Pope Alexander III.). Spinello "represents the
spirit of Giotto at the close of the fourteenth century better
than any other painter of the time." He belonged to a family
of goldsmiths. It is interesting to note on an altar-piece
executed by him for Monte Oliveto (now in the Gallery of
Siena), that the names of the carver and gilder of the frame
are inscribed as conspicuously as that of Spinello the painter
of the picture. He was the pupil of Jacopo di Casentino.
Certainly not an adequate, and perhaps not an authentic, specimen
of the master. The saints are St. John the Baptist, St. John the
Evangelist, and St. James the Greater.