Giotto (di Bondone) c.1267-1337
Italian painter and architect

Born near Florence, he was the most innovative artist of his time, and is generally regarded as the founder of the Florentine school. At the age of 10, he was supposedly found by Giovanni Cimabu� tending sheep and drawing a lamb on flat stone and was taken by him to study art in Florence. His earliest work may have been connected with the making of mosaics for the Florence Baptistery. As a painter he worked in all the major artistic centres of Italy, but his most important works are the frescoes in the Arena Chapel, Padua, the Navicella mosaic in Saint Peter's, Rome, the cycle of frescoes depicting scenes from the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, frescoes in the Peruzzi Chapel in the church of S Croce, Florence, and the Ognissanti Madonna, now in the Uffizi, Florence. Stylistically he broke with the rigid conventions of Byzantine art typified by the work of Cimabu�, and composed simplified and moving dramatic narratives peopled by realistically observed and believable figures. Irrelevant detail is absent and the figures are left to tell the stories for themselves. The repercussions of these innovations can be seen in the work of Masaccio a century later and ultimately in the work of Michelangelo himself, who studied and made copies of Giotto's compositions. In 1334 Giotto was appointed Master of Works for the cathedral and city of Florence. Aided by Andrea Pisano he decorated the fa�ade of the cathedral with statues and designed the campanile himself. It still bears his name, though much altered.