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    Museum collections / Art Institute of Chicago
    Saint Francis before the Pope (The Approval of the Franciscan Rule)
    Spinello Aretino. Saint Francis before the Pope (The Approval of the Franciscan Rule), 1390–1400. The Art Institute of Chicago. Public domain (CC0).
    AT-00000705

    Public data from the Art Institute of Chicago. Learn more

    Saint Francis before the Pope (The Approval of the Franciscan Rule)

    by Spinello Aretino

    Provenance

    Private collection, Città di Castello, Umbria, possibly that of Count Donino Pierleoni (according to Frederick Mason Perkins, “Una tavola d’altare di Spinello Aretino,” Rassegna d’arte 18 (1918), p. 6 n. 4 and Giovanni Magherini Graziani, L’arte a Città di Castello, Città di Castello, 1897, p. 159 n. 5); sold by a dealer in Città di Castello to Horace Morison, Boston, by 1915 (according to Frederick Mason Perkins, see above; a letter from Morison to Martin A. Ryerson of December 17, 1915, indicates that Morison owned the painting by that time, Archives, The Art Institute of Chicago); sold by Morison to Martin A. Ryerson (d. 1932), Chicago, 1916 (according to a letter from Morison to Ryerson of February 16, 1916, Archives, The Art Institute of Chicago); intermittently on loan to the Art Institute from 1916; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1933.

    Exhibition history

    Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1 - November 1, 1933, no. 96. Art Institute of Chicago, A Century in Progress, June 1 - November 1, 1934, no. 38. Cleveland Museum of Art, The Caporali Missal: A Masterpiece of Renaissance Illumination, February 17 - June 2, 2013, no. 14 (entry by Virginia Brilliant) Nashville, TN, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy, October 31, 2014 - January 25, 2015.

    Publications

    The Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, and Architecture, August 1917, p. 166. Frederick Mason Perkins, “Una tavola d’altare di Spinello Aretino,” Rassegna d’arte 18 (1918), pp. 5–6 (ill.). Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Collection of Medieval and Renaissance Paintings, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1919, p. 41. The Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, Paintings, and Drawings, 1920, p. 64. R. Wyer, “Two Panels by Spinello Aretino,” Art in America 8, 4 (1920), p. 211 n. 1. The Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, and Paintings, May 1922, p. 74. The Art Institute of Chicago, The Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, and Paintings, 1923, p. 74. Raimond van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, 19 vols., The Hague, 1923–38, vol. 3, 1924, p. 606 n. 1. The Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection, 1925, p. 160, no. 2078. György Gombosi, Spinello Aretino: Eine stilgeschichtliche Studie über die florentinische Malerei der ausgehenden XIV. Jahrhunderts, Budapest, 1926, pp. 39–40, p. 135. Rose Mary Fischkin, Martin A. Ryerson Collection of Paintings and Sculpture, XIII to XVIII Century, Loaned to The Art Institute of Chicago, unpublished manuscript, Ryerson Library, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1926, pp. 11–12. Ugo Procacci, review of Spinello Aretino by György Gombosi, in Rivista d’arte 11 (1929), p. 276. Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford, 1932, p. 348. Bernard Berenson, Pitture italiane del Rinascimento, Milan, 1936, p. 471. Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School, 2 vols., London, 1963, vol. 1, p. 203. Daniel Catton Rich, “The Paintings of Martin A. Ryerson,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 27 (1933), p. 12. The Art Institute of Chicago, A Brief Illustrated Guide to the Collections, 1935, p. 20. Frederick Mason Perkins in Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig, 1907–50, vol. 31, 1937, p. 386. Armando Ottaviano Quintavalle, “Precisioni e restauri nella riordinata Galleria di Parma,” Bollettino d’arte 31 (1937), p. 230. René Brimo, Art et gout: L’Evolution du gout aux Etats-Unis d’après l’histoire des collections, Paris, 1938, p. 92. Armando Ottaviano Quintavalle, La Regia Galleria di Parma, Rome, 1939, p. 180, under no. 452. The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection, 1961, pp. 439–40. Hans Huth, “Italienische Kunstwerke im Art Institute von Chicago, USA,” in Miscellanea Bibliothecae Hertzianae, Munich, 1961, p. 516. Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972, pp. 192, 398, 571. Hendrik William van Os, “St. Francis of Assisi as a Second Christ in Early Italian Painting,” Simiolus 7 (1974), pp. 125 n. 25, 127, fig. 14. Miklós Boskovits, Pittura fiorentina alla viglia del Rinascimento, 1370–1400, Florence, 1975, pp. 146–47, 249 n. 244, 434, fig. 513. James R. Banker, “The Program for the Sassetta Altarpiece in the Church of S. Francesco in Borgo S. Sepolcro,” I Tatti Studies 4 (1991), pp. 26, 53–54, doc. 5. Christopher Lloyd, with contributions by Margherita Andreotti, Larry J. Feinberg, and Martha Wolff, Italian Paintings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection, Chicago, 1993, pp. 222–25 (ill.). Andrea De Marchi, “Maestri gotici,” in Oro. Maestri gotici e Lucio Fontana, Turin, 1998, p. 42 n. 14. Christa Gardner von Teuffel, “Niccolò di Segna, Sassetta, Piero della Francesca and Perugino: Cult and Continuity at Sansepulcro,” Städel Jahrbuch 17 (1999), pp. 190, 192, 206–7 n. 145, fig. 63. Donal Cooper, “The Lost Model for Sassetta’s Sansepulcro Polyptych,” Apollo 154 (April 2001), pp. 23–24, 27–29 nn. 6–10, 15–17, 21, 45, 49–50, fig. 2. Donal Cooper, “Franciscan Choir Enclosures and the Function of Double-Sided Altarpieces in Pre-Tridentine Umbria,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 64 (2001), pp. 21, 25 n. 69, fig. 16. Stefan Weppelmann, Spinello Aretino und die toskanische Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts, Florence, 2003, pp. 75, 116, 168–72, cat. 29, figs. 8 (detail) and 29. Donal Cooper, “Le tombe del Beato Ranieri a Sansepolcro e del Beato Giacomo a Città di Castello” Arte e santità francescana nella terra altotiberina prima di Sassetta,” in Il Beato Ranieri nella storia del francescanesimo e della terra altrotiberina,” Sansepolcro, 2006, pp. 118–120, 131, fig. 10. Michel Laclotte, "Autour de Starnina, de Lucques à Valence" in Intorno a Lorenzo Monaco: Nuovi studi sulla pittura tardogotica (Atti del convegno Intorno a Gentile da Fabriano e a Lorenzo Monaco), ed. Daniela Parenti and Angelo Tartuferi, Livorno, 2007, pp. 74-75. Keith Christiansen, "Sassetta a Century Later" in Sassetta: The Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece, ed. Machtelt Israëls, 2 vols, Leiden, 2009, vol. 1, p. 33 n. 23. Christa Gardner von Teuffel, "Sassetta's Franciscan Altarpiece at Borgo San Sepolcro: Precedents and Context" in Sassetta: The Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece, ed. Machtelt Israëls, 2 vols, Leiden, 2009, vol. 1, p. 219 n. 47. Stefan Weppelmann, "A Saint Francis 'in un Trono' at Città di Castello: Considerations on a Presumed Model for Sassetta's Borgo San Sepolchro Altarpiece" in Sassetta: The Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece, ed. Machtelt Israëls, 2 vols, Leiden, 2009, vol. 1, pp. 231–35, 238, 240–41, fig. 186. Andrea De Marchi, "Il polittico di Sassetta per San Francesco a Sansepolchro perlustrato," Prospettiva, no. 139-40 (2010), pp. 124, 126, 129. Stefan Weppelmann, Spinello Aretino e la pittura del Trecento in Toscana, Florence, 2011, pp. 70, 107-8, 169-74, fig. 29. Nashville, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy, October 31, 2014 - January 25, 2015, no. 32 (entry by Donal Cooper).

    Quick Overview

    Artist
    Spinello Aretino (Spinello di Luca Spinello; Italian, 1345/52-1410)
    Date
    1390–1400
    Medium
    Tempera on panel
    Dimensions
    88.7 × 62.9 cm (34 7/8 × 24 3/4 in.); Framed: 105.4 × 79.4 cm (41 1/2 × 31 1/4 in.)
    Type
    Painting
    Classification
    tempera
    Style
    14th century
    Place
    Italy
    Department
    Painting and Sculpture of Europe
    Credit line
    Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
    Accession no.
    1933.1031

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    Open-access museum data

    This record comes from the open-access collection data that the Art Institute of Chicago publishes for unrestricted use (Creative Commons Zero). Art Trackers shows a selection of the museum's published fields. The Art Institute of Chicago is not an Art Trackers client and has not reviewed or endorsed this page; the museum's own website is the authoritative record.

    • View this work at the Art Institute of Chicago
    • The Art Institute of Chicago: open-access terms

    Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.

    Open-access museum record · AT-00000705

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