in the mortuary chapel of the Strozzi, Florence, and in a panel in the Uffizi, the Bewailing of Christ. The last is given in the catalogue to Giottino, but whether it and other works mentioned belong to him or to Maso remains to be proved.—C. & C., Italy, i. 410; Lübke, Gesch. ital. Mal., i. 153; Baldinucci, i. 253; Vasari, ed. Mil., i. 622; W. & W., i. 453.
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GIOTTO, born at Colle in the district of
Vespignano in 1266;
died in Florence,
Jan. 8, 1337. Florentine
school. Son
of a shepherd named
Bondone; found
drawing sheep upon
flat stones, by Cimabue,
who, struck
with his talent, took
him to Florence and
taught him to paint. Dante tells in the
Divina Commedia (Purgatorio, xi. 93) how
the master was outdone by the pupil, who
is called the reviver of painting, because he
broke loose from Byzantinism and took nature
for his guide. In simple and unaffected,
although necessarily imperfect, language, he
represented scenes from holy writ, legends
and allegories, according to the dogmas of
the Church; and, though living at a time
when art was wholly in her service, worked
in a comparatively independent spirit. In
his pictures there is no striving after ideal
beauty, no attempt at deceptive imitation of
natural objects, no difference of handling in
the treatment of flesh, drapery, or architecture,
and but a scant supply of that technical
knowledge which in later times enabled
men of infinitely less genius to surpass them
in execution, in chiaroscuro, perspective,
drawing, and colour. In all these things
the apprentices of the next century were
Giotto's superiors; though in earnestness,
in the power of telling a story with dramatic
effect, and in truth of expression, but few of
their masters equalled, and still fewer surpassed,
him. He worked in many parts of
Italy: in Assisi before 1296; in Rome from
1298 to 1300; in Florence from 1300 to 1304;
in Padua from 1304 to 1306; later in Rimini,
and in Naples, where he painted the Miracle
of the Loaves and Fishes in the old convent
church of S. Chiara (but not the Incoronata
frescos), from 1330 to 1333. In the following
year he was appointed master of the
works at the Duomo, Florence, for which he
designed the façade, commenced but afterwards
destroyed, and built its exquisite campanile.
Giotto's twenty-eight frescos representing
scenes from the lives of the Saviour
and of St. Francis, in the aisle of the upper
church of S. Francesco, Assisi, were probably
painted before the ceilings of the lower
church (1296), in which he allegorized the virtues
of the Franciscans, Poverty, the spouse
chosen by St. Francis, Obedience and Chastity,
the rules of his Order. In Rome Giotto
next decorated the tribune of the church of
S. Giorgio in Velabro with frescos, designed
the so-called Navicella represented by a mosaic
in the portico of St. Peter's, and painted
the three panels of a predella now in the
sacristy of the canons of St. Peter, representing
the Redeemer and Angels, the donor
Cardinal Stefaneschi, and the Martyrdoms
of St. Peter and St. Paul. The same Apostles,
with the Madonna and Saints, appear
upon other predella panels in the sacristy.
In the Lateran Basilica is a fragment of a
fresco by Giotto representing Pope Boniface
VIII. proclaiming the opening of the
Jubilee in 1300, when Giotto and Dante
were in Rome. The frescos of the Palazzo
del Podesta or Bargello, Florence, portions
of which have been recovered, were painted
about 1302 or 1303. As containing the
well-known portraits of Dante, and some of
his contemporaries, that which represents an
incident in the feud of the Bianchi and the
Neri factions has a peculiar interest. About
1305, Giotto went to Padua to paint the thirty-eight
frescos of the Cappella dell' Arena of Enrico
degli Scrovegni. They represent scenes
from the lives of Christ and the Virgin, the
Last Judgment, and the Virtues and Vices,