Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/93

1430] battle-pieces and crowded and animated scenes finds expression both in his Campo Santo works and in the sixteen frescoes representing the wars of Barbarossa and the ultimate triumph of the Sienese Pope, Alexander III., which he painted in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena, in 1408. Like Orcagna and most of the later Giotteschi, Spinello combines many of the characteristics of Florentine and Sienese artists, but his skill in telling a story and his bright and decorative colouring are marred by superficial and hasty execution. Some of his best compositions are to be seen in the sacristy of S. Miniato al Monte, which he adorned with legends of the life of St Benedict, and some of his worst in the Pharmacy of the Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella, where he executed a series of scenes from the Passion in his last years. He retired to his native town of Arezzo at the end of 1408, and died there in March 1410, painting frescoes up to the last. According to Vasari, his end was hastened by a sudden fright which he received from a vision of Lucifer, who appeared to him in his sleep, and reproached him for having represented him in so hideous a form in his fresco of the fallen angels. In his work at Siena, Spinello had an able and efficient helper in his son Gaspare, better known as Parri Spinello, who has left many examples of his art in Arezzo, and who carried on Giottesque traditions into the middle of the next century.

Another painter who, although he worked in the first quarter of the fifteenth century, may be classed among Trecento artists, was Lorenzo Monaco, the Camaldolese monk belonging to the convent of S. Maria degli Angeli in Florence. A native of Siena,