Alighieri, a man very learned in Theology and in Canon Law, wrote in
days gone by of his journey to Hell and Purgatory and Paradise, whither
by the singular great merits of his lady, he was able to make his way
alive. So everything in these paintings was instructive and true, and we
may say surely less profit is to be had of reading the most full and
ample Chronicle than from contemplating such representative, works of
art. Moreover, the Florentine masters took heed to paint, under the
shade of orange groves, on the flower-starred turf, fair ladies and
gallant knights, with Death lying in wait for them with his scythe,
while they were discoursing of love to the sound of lutes and viols.
Nothing was better fitted to convert carnal-minded sinners who quaff
forgetfulness of God on the lips of women. To rebuke the covetous, the
painter would show to the life the Devils pouring molten gold down the
throat of Bishop or Abbess, who had commissioned some work from him and
then scamped his pay.

This is why the Demons in those days were bitter enemies of the
painters, and above all of the Florentine painters, who surpassed all
the rest in subtlety of wit. Chiefly they reproached them with
representing them under a hideous guise, with the heads of bird and
fish, serpents' bodies and bats' wings. This sore resentment which they
felt will come out plainly in the history of Spinello of Arezzo.

Spinello Spinelli was sprung of a noble family of Florentine exiles, and
his graciousness of mind matched his gentle birth; for he was the most
skilful painter of his time. He wrought many and great works at
Florence; and the Pisans begged him to complete Giotto's wall-paintings
in their Campo Santo, where the dead rest beneath roses in holy earth
shipped from Jerusalem. At last, after working long years in divers
cities and getting much gold, he longed to see once more the good city