Giotto (1267-1337)

Giotto di Bondone – painter, sculptor and architect – was born in the village of Vicchio in the area of Mugello, probably in 1267. His work heralded a radical change in the figurative language of his time, a new way of doing art that spread across the peninsula from Padua to Rome, from Milan to Naples, and from Rimini to Assisi. In Florence he was appointed magister of the Opera di Santa Reparata and the architect of the city’s defensive walls. Among the works realized by Giotto in the city are the bell tower of the city’s cathedral, the fresco cycle in the Church of Santa Croce and the Madonna in Gloria in the Uffizi. Leonardo mentions Giotto in the most complimentary of terms in the Codex Atlanticus (ca. 1490), crediting him with revitalizing painting after a long period of “decadence and imitation”. As he wrote, Giotto, having “turned from nature to such art” began to paint “in such a way that he greatly superseded not only what had been achieved by the masters of his period, but also all of those of many past centuries; after this art declined once again, because everyone imitated the paintings he made.”