Giotto
Giotto is credited as one of the most important painters in Italian art, yet much of his early work is no longer in existence, and some works attributed to him remain in dispute. Some of his earliest work can be found at the Basilica of St. Francis, in Assisi. After St. Francis was canonized in 1228, artists from all over Italy were called to work on the building, which consisted of an Upper and Lower Church. The walls of the Upper Church are decorated with frescoes of the story of St. Francis and are generally attributed to Giotto, who probably directed a group of apprentices. In his later works, Giotto departed from the Italo-Byzantine style of the late 13th and early 14th century, which was stylized and emotionally remote. His frescoes and panel paintings exhibit greater realism, the creation of a fuller sense of space and form to his figures, and understated but striking emotion through a turn of the wrist or a gaze. Giotto was called to Rome in 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII to work on frescoes in the Lateran Basilica. Giotto also created frescoes and paintings in Padua at the Arena Chapel, and the Peruzzi Chapel and Bardi Chapel in Florence. In 1334 Giotto became capomaestro of the Cathedral in Florence and chief architect of that city. Giotto died in 1337.
