Francesco giotto biography

He worked during the Gothic and Proto-Renaissance period. Giotto's masterwork is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel , in Padua , also known as the Arena Chapel, which was completed around 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 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.

Tradition says that Giotto was born in a farmhouse, perhaps at Colle di Romagnano or Romignano. However, recent research has presented documentary evidence that he was born in Florence, the son of a blacksmith.

When was giotto born

Most authors accept that Giotto was his real name, but may have been an abbreviation of Ambrogio Ambrogiotto or Angelo Angelotto. In his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects Vasari states that Giotto was a shepherd boy, a merry and intelligent child who was loved by all who knew him. The great Florentine painter Cimabue discovered Giotto drawing pictures of his sheep on a rock.

They were so lifelike that Cimabue approached Giotto and asked if he could take him on as an apprentice. Vasari recounts a number of such stories about Giotto's skill as a young artist. He tells of one occasion when Cimabue was absent from the workshop, and Giotto painted a remarkably lifelike fly on a face in a painting of Cimabue.

When Cimabue returned, he tried several times to brush the fly off. Vasari also relates that when Pope Benedict XI sent a messenger to Giotto, asking him to send a drawing to demonstrate his skill, Giotto drew a red circle so perfect that it seemed as though it was drawn using a pair of compasses and instructed the messenger to send it to the Pope.