Spinello Aretino

1345 – 1410

Spinello Aretino (Spinello di Luca Spinelli), Italian painter and draughtsman. He came from Arezzo (hence the name Aretino) and probably trained in Florence, perhaps under Agnolo Gaddi. He was the most prolific muralist of his time and undertook large fresco cycles all over Tuscany. His last series was the cycle devoted to the Sienese pope Alexander III in Siena Town Hall (1408-10). He also painted altarpieces. Spinello borrowed ideas freely from other painters, notably Giotto, but his style was sturdy and vigorous. Several fresco fragments by Spinello are in the National Gallery, London. Spinello's most important commissions were painted in Arezzo, Lucca, Florence, Pisa and Siena. His concern for space and the powerful outlines of his figures reflect a greater understanding of Giottesque principles than that of many of his contemporaries, yet his keen sense of decoration reveals an equal sensitivity to Sienese painting. His influence, alongside that of Antonio Veneziano and Agnolo Gaddi, was fundamental for the course of Florentine painting in the period after the death of the Cione brothers, and it paved the way for such important Late Gothic painters as Lorenzo Monaco and the Master of the Straus Madonna. His son Parri Spinelli was his assistant.

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