Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/407

Rh with which he saw them daily occupied, although they never resolved on any thing that was not to the injury of the city, Tommasuolo waited until the whole council had assembled, when he gathered a vast mass of burning brands into the folds of his vestment, and entering the hall wherein the sixty, with all the other magistrates of the city were seated, he threw the whole among their feet, boldly exclaiming “Look to yourselves, rulers of Arezzo; the fire is among you; beware of your ruin;” this said, he departed. But such was the effect of his simplicity and zeal that, as it pleased God, these words and this action of the holy man accomplished what all his preachings and threatenings had hitherto failed to do; insomuch that the counsellors becoming thenceforward more united in purpose, ruled the city for many years in great concord, to the peace and quiet of the whole community.

But to return to Parri Spinelli: having completed the frescoes of the Duomo Vecchio, he painted a chapel, in fresco, in the church belonging to the hospital of San Cristofano, beside the Brotherhood of the Annunciation. This work was executed at the cost of Mona Mattea dei Testi, wife of Carcascion Florinaldi, who left a very handsome revenue to that little church: the subject is Christ crucified; while around and above are many angels hovering about in the darkened air, and weeping bitterly. At the foot of the cross, on one side, are seen Mary Magdalene and the other Maries, who hold the fainting Mother of Jesus in their arms, with San Jacopo and San Cristofano, on the other side. On the walls around, Spinelli depicted Santa Caterina, San Niccolo, the Annunciation, and Jesus Christ bound to the column; and in the arch above the door of the same church was a Dead Christ, with Our Lady and St. John: but the paintings of the chapel are ruined, and those over the door of the church were destroyed when the door was replaced by one of modern workmanship, in macigno, the revenues of the brotherhood being alienated