Territorial Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore

God, it sounds amazing.

Now, going back to the monks you mentioned, you grew up visiting them frequently in Monte Oliveto Maggiore.

They grow almost everything they cook.

What was it like spending time with them?

In this work, among other things, he showed art and beautiful judgment in a dragon that is at the feet of St. Margaret, which is so strange and horrible that it is revealed to us as a true fount of venom, fire, and death, and the whole of the rest of the work is so fresh and vivacious in coloring that it deserves infinite praise.

He also wrought certain things in Lucca, particularly a panel in a chapel of the church of San Ponziano, which belongs to the monks of Monte Oliveto, in the center of which chapel there is a niche containing a very beautiful St. Anthony in relief by the hand of Andrea Sansovino, a most excellent sculptor.

Being invited to go to Hungary by King Matthias, Filippo refused, but made up for this by painting two very beautiful panels for that king in Florence, and sending them to him, and in one of these he made a portrait of the king, taken from his likeness on medals.

He also sent certain works to Genoa, and beside the chapel of the high altar in San Domenico at Bologna, on the left hand, he painted a St. Sebastian on a panel, which was a thing worthy of much praise.

A very grave heresy in our art.

In the Castello di Sant'Angelo, he painted a vast number of rooms with grotesques, and in the great tower, in the garden below, he painted stories of Pope Alexander, with portraits of the Catholic Queen Isabella, Niccolo Orsino, Count of Pitigliano, Gian Giacomo Trivulzi, and many other relatives and friends of the said Pope, in particular Cesare Borgia and his brother and sisters, with many talented men of those times.

At Monte Oliveto in Naples, in the chapel of Paolo Tolosa, there is a panel with an assumption by the hand of Pintoriccio.

This master made an infinite number of other works throughout all Italy, which, since they are of no great excellence and wrought in a superficial manner, I will pass over in silence.

But because it is of little importance to know this exactly, it is enough to say that he was a good master.

Likewise a disciple of Giotto and a very masterly painter was Ottaviano de Faenza, who painted many works at Ferrara in St. Giorgio, the seat of the monks of Monte Oliveto, and in Faenza, where he lived and died, he painted in the arch over the door of San Francesco a Madonna, St. Peter and St. Paul, and many other works in his said birthplace and in Bologna.

A disciple of Giotto also was Pace de Faenza, who stayed with him long and assisted him in many works, and in Bologna there are some scenes in fresco by his hand, on the facade of San Giovanni Decollato.

This Pace was an able man, particularly in making little figures, as can be seen to this day in the church of San Francesco at Forli, in a tree of the cross, and in a little panel in distemper, wherein is the life of Christ, with four little scenes from the life of Our Lady, all very well wrought.

Being next summoned to the famous abbey of Camaldolo in the Cosentino in the year thirteen sixty-one, he made for the hermits of that place the panel of the high altar, which was removed in the year fifteen thirty-nine, when that church having been just rebuilt completely anew, Giorgio Vasari made a new panel and painted in fresco the whole of the principal chapel of that abbey, and the trommezzo of the church also in fresco, and two other panels.

Summoned thence to Florence by Don Jacopo de Arezzo, Abbot of Saint Miniato sul Monte of the Order of Monte Oliveto, Spinello painted on the vaulting and on the four walls of the sacristy of that monastery, besides the panel in distemper for the altar, many scenes in fresco of the life of Saint Benedict, with great mastery and with much vivacity of coloring, learned by him by means of long practice and of laboring continually with zeal and diligence, even as in truth all must do who wish to acquire any art perfectly.

After these works, the said abbot departed from Florence, having been made governor of the monastery of Saint Bernardo of the same order in his own country, precisely when the building was almost wholly finished on the site conceded by the Aretines to those monks, just where there was the Colosseum.

And he caused Spinello to paint in fresco two chapels that are beside the principal chapel, and two others that are one on either side of the door that leads into the choir in the trommezzo of the church.

In the company of the Perucpioli, on the Piazza dei Saint Augustino, in a chapel, he made an Annunciation very well colored.

and in the cloister of that convent he wrought in fresco a Madonna, a St. James, and a St. Anthony, and he portrayed there a soldier in armor on his knees with these words, hoc opus fecit fieri clemens pusi de monte catino cuius corpus hate hic etc.

anno domino thirteen sixty-seven dia fifteen mensis mai likewise with regard to the chapel that is in that church with paintings of St. Anthony and other saints it is known by the manner that they are by the hand of Spinello who shortly afterwards working in the hospital of St. Marco which is today the monastery of the nuns of St. Croce by reason of their monastery which was without the city having been thrown to the ground painted a whole portico with many figures and portrayed there Pope Gregory IX from nature to represent St. Gregory the Pope who is standing beside a misericordia the chapel of St. Jacopo e St. Filippo which is in St. Domenico in the same city just as one enters the church was wrought in fresco by Spinello with beautiful and resolute handling as was also the half-length of St. Anthony painted on the facade of his church so beautiful that he appears alive in the midst of four scenes of his life which same scenes with many more also of the life of St. Anthony likewise by the hand of Spinello are in the church of St. Giustino in the chapel of St. Antonio in the church of St. Lorenzo on one side he made some stories of the Madonna and without the church he painted her seated showing great grace in his work in fresco in a little hospital opposite to the nunnery of St. Spirito near the gate that leads to Rome he painted a portico entirely by his own hand showing in a Christ lying dead in the lap of the Marys so great genius and judgment in painting that he is recognized to have proved himself the peer of Giotto in design and to have surpassed him by a long way in coloring in the same place also he represented Christ seated with a theological significance very ingeniously contrived having placed the Trinity within a sun in such wise that from each of the three figures there are seen issuing the same rays and the same splendor but to this work to the great loss truly of the lovers of this art there has befallen the same thing as to many others for it was thrown to the ground in fortifying the city without the church of the company of the Trinity there is seen a shrine wrought very well in fresco by Spinello containing the Trinity St. Peter and St. Cosimo and St. Damiano clothed in such garments as physicians used to wear in those times the while that these works were in progress Don Jacopo de Arezzo was made general of the congregation of Monte Oliveto nineteen years after he had caused many works to be wrought in Florence and in Arezzo as it has been said above by our Spinello and living according to the custom of these dignitaries at Monte Oliveto Maggiore de Di Sciosuri in the district of Siena as the most honored seat of that order he conceived a desire to have a very beautiful panel made in that place sending therefore for Spinello by whom he had found himself very well served at another time he caused him to paint in distemper the panel of the principal chapel wherein Spinello made an infinite number of figures both great and small on a ground of gold with much judgment and an ornament being made for it afterwards carved in half relief by Simone Sini the Florentine he made for it in certain parts with gesso mixed with size and rather thick or truly gelatinous another ornament which turned out very beautiful and which was afterwards all overlaid with gold by Gabriello Saracini who wrote at the foot of the said panel these three names Simone Sini the Florentine made the carving Gabriello Saracini overlaid it with gold and Spinello de Luca of Arezzo painted it in the year 1385 this work finished Spinello returned to Arezzo having received from that general and from the other monks besides payment many kindnesses but making no long stay there because Arezzo was harassed by the Guelph and Gibellini parties and was sacked in those days he betook himself and his family and his son Pari who was studying painting to Florence where he had friends and relatives enough there without the Porta a St. Piero Catellini on the Strada Romana where one turns to go to Pazzo Latiko he painted an Annunciation as it were to pass the time in a shrine that today is half ruined and other pictures in another shrine near the hostelry of Galluzzo he was then summoned to Pisa in order to finish below the stories of St. Ranieri in the Campo Santo certain stories that were lacking in a space that had remained not painted and in order to connect them together with those that had been made by Giotto Simone Sanese and Antonio Veneziano he made in that place in fresco six stories of St. Patito and St. Epiro in the first is St. Epiro as a youth being presented by his mother to the emperor Diocletian and being made general of the armies that were to march against the Christians and also Christ appearing to him as he is riding showing him a white cross and commanding the saint not to persecute him In another story there is seen the angel of the Lord giving to that saint, who is writing, the banner of the faith with the white cross on a field of red, which has been ever since the ensign of the Pisans, by reason of St. Apero having prayed to God that he should give him a standard to bear against his enemies.

Beside this story there is seen another wherein, a fierce battle being contested between the saint and the pagans, many angels in armor are combating to the end that he may be victorious.