Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 02 (of 10): Berna to Michelozzo MichelozziVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 02 (of 10): Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
By the hand of Spinello, also, on a wall of the Hospital of Spirito
Santo, is a scene of the Apostles receiving the Holy Spirit, which is
very beautiful; and so, too, are the two scenes below, wherein S. Cosimo
and S. Damiano are cutting off a sound leg from a dead Moor, in order to
attach it to a sick man, from whom they had cut off one that was
mortified; and likewise the very beautiful "Noli me tangere," which is
between those two works. In the Company of the Puraccioli, on the Piazza
di S. Agostino, in a chapel, he made an Annunciation very well
coloured, and in the cloister of that convent he wrought in fresco a
Madonna, a S. James, and a S. Anthony; and he portrayed there a soldier
in armour on his knees, with these words: HOC OPUS FECIT FIERI CLEMENS
PUCCI DE MONTE CATINO, CUJUS CORPUS JACET HIC, ETC. ANNO DOMINI 1367,
DIE 15 MENSIS MAII. Likewise, with regard to the chapel that is in that
church, with paintings of S. Anthony and other Saints, it is known by
the manner that they are by the hand of Spinello, who, shortly
afterwards, working in the Hospital of S. Marco (which is to-day the
Monastery of the Nuns of S. Croce, by reason of their monastery, which
was without the city, having been thrown to the ground), painted a whole
portico with many figures, and portrayed there Pope Gregory IX from
nature, to represent S. Gregory the Pope, who is standing beside a
Misericordia.
The Chapel of S. Jacopo e S. Filippo, which is in S. Domenico in the
same city, just as one enters the church, was wrought in fresco by
Spinello with beautiful and resolute handling, as was also the
half-length of S. Anthony painted on the facade of his church, so
beautiful that he appears alive, in the midst of four scenes of his
life; which same scenes, with many more also of the life of S. Anthony,
likewise by the hand of Spinello, are in the Church of S. Giustino, in
the Chapel of S. Antonio. In the Church of S. Lorenzo, on one side, he
made some stories of the Madonna, and without the church he painted her
seated, showing great grace in this work in fresco. In a little hospital
opposite to the Nunnery of S. Spirito, near the gate that leads to Rome,
he painted a portico entirely by his own hand, showing, in a Christ
lying dead in the lap of the Maries, so great genius and judgment in
painting, that he is recognized to have proved himself the peer of
Giotto in design, and to have surpassed him by a long way in colouring.
In the same place, also, he represented Christ seated, with a
theological significance very ingeniously contrived, having placed the
Trinity within a sun in such wise that from each of the three figures
there are seen issuing the same rays and the same splendour. But to this
work, to the great loss, truly, of the lovers of this art, there has
befallen the same thing as to many others, for it was thrown to the
ground in fortifying the city. Without the Church of the Company of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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