Giotto.
The first Great Artist of the Italian Renaissance.

Giotto di Bondone was born in 1267 in or around Florence. His early years were spent as an apprentice to Cimabue, another great Florentine painter. He was recognised, in his own lifetime, as being a revolutionary who evolved the earlier, flat, decorative Byzantine-style into three dimensional realism.

At the age of 20 he married Ricevuta di Lapo del Pella and had many children, some say six, but eight is a possibility.

Remembered as a great wit and personality, and for his ugly appearance, (there is some suggestion that he may also have been a dwarf) he is the superstar of early Renaissance painting.


Giotto, a giant of Italian Renaissance History, counted Dante as a friend and he was a contempory of Duccio (1255/60-1318/9) and of Simone Martini (1284-1344) both from Siena. His lifelike drawings astounded his contempories and his skill was legendary.

He travelled with his master Cimabue to Rome in or around 1280, and then on to Assisi, where Cimabue had been commissioned to paint frescoes. It is thought that the fresco cycle, The life of St Francis, is Giotto's work, but this is disputed by some historians because of the differences between them and the frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua.

The church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence is home to some of the early work. There is a huge Crucifix and a Fresco of the Annunciation, these date from about 1290. The Stigmata of St Francis (now in the Lourve, Paris) are among his works, as is a crucifixion in the Church of St Francis in Rimini.

Crucifixion, Rimini. (W)

Seeing this panel brought home the importance of an artist that I remember as a student (over 30 years ago). Giotto was always the starting point when studying European art and was often dismissed as a pagan by my fellow art students at the time, but when rediscovering his work, in the flesh, I found the power of his art to be truly uplifting.

Deposition, from The Scrovegni Chapel (W)

The decoration of The Scrovegni Chapel was the artist's great work in Padua. Sometimes known as the Arena Chapel the works include paintings of the Angel Gabriel and of the Virgin Mary. These paintings are regarded as the great masterpieces of the early renaissance.

Work in the Scrovegni Chapel.

The Campanile of Florence Cathedral. (P)

From 1306 to 1311 Goitto painted frescoes in Assisi using stories from the Golden Legend, a medieval bestseller by Jacobus de Voragine, as his inspiration. The Stefaneschi Polyptych was completed in 1320 and is now in the Vatican museum in Rome. He travelled to Rome staying for six years and in 1328 he was in Naples where he remained until 1333.

The Campanile of Florence Cathedral was designed when he was appointed chief architect to the city in 1334 and the Campanile still bears his name.

Giotto died in 1337 and was buried in Florence Cathedral, and his work has become the very starting point For Renaissance art.

The Stefaneschi Polyptych. The Vatican, Rome.(s)




Cimabue's Page
Work in the Scrovegni Chapel.
Home Page