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Madonna in Maest (Ognissanti Madonna)

Giotto di Bondone · 1306-1310

Giotto di Bondone: c. 1265–1337

Proto-RenaissanceItaly
Other names (17)

Ambrogio Bondone, Ambrogio Bondone Giotto, Ambrogio di Bondone, Ambrogio di Bondone Giotto, Angelus de, detto Giotto Bondonis, di Bondone Giotto, Dzhiotto, Dzhotto di Bondone, Giott`e, Giottè, Giotti, Giotto da Vespignano, Giotto de Bondone, Giotto Di Bondone, Giotto Fiorentino, L. di Giotto, Le Giotto

Biography

Giotto di Bondone was a Florentine painter whose work gave figures a striking sense of weight, gesture and emotional presence. His surviving paintings include religious panels and large fresco cycles in Padua and Florence. The Scrovegni Chapel's account of the lives of Mary and Christ places expressive figures within carefully organised settings. Giotto's activity also extended to Naples and other Italian centres. His early training remains debated: older accounts associate him with Cimabue, while scholarship also emphasises Roman painting. Artline's selection brings together a museum panel and scenes from the Padua cycle, preserving approximate dates and the distinction between a complete cycle and individual scenes.

Reference biography

Giotto di Bondone (Italian: [ˈdʒɔtto di bonˈdoːne]; c. 1267 – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic and Proto-Renaissance period. Giotto's contemporary, the banker and chronicler Giovanni Villani, wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature" and of his publicly recognized "talent and excellence".

Giorgio Vasari described Giotto as making a decisive break from the prevalent Byzantine style and as initiating "the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years".

Giotto's masterwork is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel, in Padua, also known as the Arena Chapel, which was completed around 1305. The fresco cycle depicts the Life of the Virgin and the Life of Christ. It is regarded as one of the supreme masterpieces of the Early Renaissance.

The fact that Giotto painted the Arena Chapel and that he was chosen by the Commune of Florence in 1334 to design the new campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral are among the few certainties about his life. Almost every other aspect of it is subject to controversy: his birth date, his birthplace, his appearance, his apprenticeship, the order in which he created his works, whether he painted the famous frescoes in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, and his burial place.

Wikipedia contributors. Opening excerpt, formatted for reading. CC BY-SA 4.0. Source revision.

Influenced by

  • Roman paintingscholarly consensus
    Evidence

    The National Gallery of Art identifies Roman painting as an influence on Giotto; a Roman period of training is a scholarly proposal, not an established apprenticeship.

  • Cimabueeditorial inference
    Evidence

    Wikidata assertion retained for review; its references, if supplied, have not been independently verified. Teaching is recorded separately and does not itself establish artistic influence.

Later influence

Artworks by year

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Museums & collections

Documented holdings of works attributed to Giotto di Bondone. Check the museum’s record for current display information.

Read the painter essay

Reading a painted room

The Scrovegni Chapel offers a way to study several of Giotto's works in their original architectural setting. Its decoration follows the lives of Mary and Christ around the walls, with the Last Judgement on the entrance wall. The institution dates the fresco cycle to 1303–1305.

The selection in this record concentrates on that single commission. It is a starting point for comparison, and does not yet represent the full range of Giotto's career.

A note on dates

The National Gallery gives Giotto's birth as about 1265. The initial project seed used about 1267. The catalogue retains an approximate date and records this difference in the source notes.

For the chapel paintings, the institution's cycle date is used as a range. Wikimedia's image record for The Arrest of Christ gives 1304–1306; that difference remains open for editorial review.

Sources 16

Giotto di Bondone

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Madonna in Maest (Ognissanti Madonna) — Giotto di Bondone

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