Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/273

Rh with other figures, which are greatly admired. All the works in fresco which Spinello executed in this church were painted with infinite boldness and facility; they were completed between the years 1334 and 1338. In the capitular church of Arezzo, this master painted the chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul, with that of St. Michael the archangel, which is immediately below. He also decorated the chapel of SS. Jacopo and Filippo in fresco, for the Brotherhood of Santa Maria della Misericordia; this is on the same side of the church; over the principal door of the brotherhood’s house, which is in the piazza, he painted a Dead Christ (Pieta), with a San Giovanni, works executed at the request of the rectors of that Brotherhood, which had its origin in this wise: a certain number of good and honourable citizens had begun to gather alms for the poor who were ashamed to beg for themselves, and to solace all who needed their help in every possible manner. These citizens, thus succouring the sick and infirm, burying the dead, and performing many similar acts of charity, acquired so much credit for their good deeds during the plague of 1348, that large donations were made to them, and extensive possessions were left them by will, insomuch that one third part of all the riches of Arezzo passed into the hands of that fraternity. The same thing occurred in the year 1383, when there likewise raged a terrible pestilence. Spinello was a member of this society, and as it frequently came to his turn to visit the sick, bury the dead, and perform other pious duties, as the best citizens ever have done, and still continue to do, in that city, he desired to leave some memorial of these things in his paintings, and to that end he executed a picture for the Brotherhood on the façade of SS. Laurentino and Pergentino. The subject of this work is a Madonna, whose mantle, opening in front, discloses the people of Arezzo sheltered beneath it, and among them are the portraits of many men belonging to the chiefs of that brotherhood, each bearing the wallet on his