Spinello Aretino

Spinello Aretino, an Italian painter, was born at Arezzo about 1330, his father being a Ghibelline exile from Florence. The painter spent nearly all his life between his birthplace and his father's city, and died at Arezzo about 1410. His principal frescoes were done for the sacristy of the church of St Miniatus near Florence, for the campo santo (cemetery) of Pisa, and for the municipal buildings of Siena (a series illustrating the Italian wars of Frederick Barbarossa), with several others in and near Arezzo. Spinello enjoyed a great reputation in his own day, being compared, and by some preferred, to Giotto, whose style his own in some respects resembles. Unfortunately his frescoes have mostly disappeared; and his panel and easel pictures, of which there are several in the galleries of Europe, do not equal his frescoes in excellence.