Giotto di Bondone, the father of modern painting and one of the greatest figures in the history of Western art, was born in a small hamlet in the valley of the Mugello, twenty miles north of Florence.
Giotto signed his name to only three of his paintings. His most famous attributed works are the Arena Chapel frescoes (1305-10) in Padua, the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapel frescoes in Santa Croce in Florence, and the magnificent Ognissanti Madonna for the Church of All Saints. The twenty-eight frescoes based on the life of St. Francis and located in the Upper Church of the Franciscans in Assisi are accepted as Giotto's by some art historians and denied him by others. The controversy, which has now raged for a century and a half, fills volumes and has yet to be resolved.
Giotto was a painter during the renaissance period and this influenced his paintings to be mostly based on the bible. During this period a Dante of the devine comedy said "Giotto is regarded as the founder of the central tradition of western painting because his work broke free from the stylizations of Byzantine art, introducing new ideals of naturalism and creating a convincing sense of pictorial space."
At the Uffizi Gallery you could see the "Ognissanti Madonna" , the "The Badia Polyptych" and others. As written by Vasari:
“One day Cimabue was going about his business between Florence and Vespignano, and he came upon Giotto who, while his sheep were grazing, was sketching one of them in a lifelike way with a slightly pointed rock upon a smooth and polished stone without having learned how to draw it from anyone other than Nature. This caused Cimabue to stop in amazement…”
Another very good reason to visit Florence, you cannot imagine how many great masterpieces you are gonna see here. Start your days at Hotel Mario's, we are in the centre of the city, next to the train station Santa Maria Novella, a very nice and typical 3 stars Hotel in an historical palace. Enjoy Hotel Mario's, enjoy Giotto...
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