Giotto

Giotto (Giotto di Bondone), c.1266-c.1337, Florentine painter and architect. He is noted not only for his own work, but for the lasting impact he had on the course of painting in Europe.

Training

Giotto reputedly was born at Colle, near Florence. According to tradition, he was a pupil of Cimabue. Modern critics also see the influence of the Roman school exemplified by Pietro Cavallini and of the sculptors Nicola and Giovanni Pisano. Whatever his training, it is certain that Giotto broke with the formulas of Byzantine painting and gave new life to the art of painting in Italy.

Works of Art

Giotto designed a great number of works, many of which have disappeared. It is thought that he first participated in the decoration of the Upper Church at Assisi. Scenes from the Life of Christ, Legend of St. Francis, and Isaac and Esau have all been credited to Giotto (and questioned). About 1300 he was in Rome, where he executed the mosaic of the Navicella now in St. Peter's. He also worked on frescoes in the Lateran Basilica, which have been lost.

About 1304 he began to design the series of 38 frescoes in the Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel in Padua. These frescoes are among the greatest works of Italian art. The cycle consists of scenes from the Life of the Virgin, Life of Christ, the Last Judgment, and Virtues and Vices. His power of narration is exemplified by such episodes as the Flight into Egypt, Betrayal of Judas, Raising of Lazarus, and Lamentation. In Padua, Giotto also seems to have painted a fresco of the Crucifixion (Church of Sant' Antonio) and may have designed the astrological motifs for the Palazzo della Ragione (now repainted).

Returning to Florence, he decorated two chapels in the Church of Santa Croce; in the Peruzzi Chapel he painted frescoes of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist; in the Bardi Chapel he worked on the magnificent cycle of scenes from the Life of St. Francis. About 1330 Giotto went to Naples. Working in the service of King Robert, he painted a series of famous men in the Castelnuovo and executed works in the palace chapel and monastery of Santa Chiara. Nothing remains of these works or of the Vana Gloria executed later in Milan for Azzo Visconti. Upon the death of Arnolfo di Cambio Giotto became chief architect of the cathedral in Florence. During his last years he designed the campanile next to the cathedral, known as "Giotto's Tower." He is probably also responsible for the design of some of the relief decoration later completed by Andrea Pisano.

Among the panel paintings attributed to Giotto are the Madonna in Glory (Uffizi); an altarpiece created for the Badia (now in the Church of Santa Croce, Florence); a crucifix (Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence); altarpieces in the Vatican and Bologna galleries; Death of the Virgin and Crucifixion (Berlin); Madonna and Child (National Gall. of Art, Washington, D.C.); and Presentation in the Temple (Gardner Mus., Boston). His Wedding of St. Catherine in the Uffizi was badly damaged in the flood of 1966.

Style and Influence

Compared with the gracefulness of Byzantine forms, Giotto's figures are monumental, even bulky. As he creates figures that are solemn and slow-moving, Giotto builds up a mounting rhythm into a supremely forceful drama. His figures are imbued with a new compassion for the human being, probably inspired by the tenets of the Franciscan order. In his era, Giotto achieved a remarkably convincing representation of space, harmoniously allying figures and background. These effects were not obtained from a system of perspective, but through his own inherent clarity of conception and his ability to give strength and simplicity to his forms. His reforms in painting were carried throughout Italy by his many pupils and followers. Giotto's popularity as a great Florentine and artist is attested in literature by Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Sacchetti, and Villani.

Giotto’s bell tower (campanile) stands on the Cathedral square (Piazza del Duomo) in Florence, Italy.

This bell tower is one of the showpieces of the Florentine gothic style. Standing isolated next to the Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore and in front of the Baptistery of St. John, this splendid construction attracts the eye and the admiration of every art lover by its design, rich sculptural decorations and the many-coloured marble encrustations.

This slender structure stands on a square plan with a side of 14.45 meters (47.41 ft). It attains a height of 84.7 meters (277.9 ft) sustained by four polygonal buttresses at the corners. These four vertical lines are crossed by four horizontal lines, dividing the tower in five levels.

History

On the death in 1302 of Arnolfo di Cambio, the first Master of the Works of the Cathedral, and after an interruption of more than thirty years, the celebrated painter Giotto di Bondone was nominated as his successor in 1334. At that time he was 67 years old. Giotto concentrated his energy on the design and construction of a campanile (bell tower) for the cathedral. He had become an eminent architect, thanks to the growing autonomy of the architect-designer in relation to the craftsmen since the first half of the 13th century. The first stone was laid on 19 July 1334. His design was in harmony with the polychromy of the cathedral, as applied by Arnolfo di Cambio, giving the tower a view as if it were “painted”. In his design he also applied chiaroscuro and some form of perspective instead of a strict linear drawing of the campanile. And instead of a filigree skeleton of a gothic building, he applied a surface of coloured marble in geometric patterns.

When he died in 1337, he had only finished the lower floor with its marble external revetment: geometric patterns of white marble from Carrara, green marble from Prato and red marble from Siena. This lower floor is decorated on three sides with bas-reliefs in hexagonal panels, seven on each side. When the entrance door was enlarged in 1348, two panels were moved to the empty northern side and only much later, five more panels were commissioned from Luca della Robbia in 1437. The number “seven” has a special meaning in Biblical sense: it symbolizes human perfectibility. It is difficult to attribute artistic paternity to these panels, some may be by Giotto himself, the others by Andrea Pisano (or their workshops).

Through this work, Giotto has become, together with Brunelleschi (dome of the cathedral of Florence) and Alberti (with his treatise De re aedificatoria, 1450), one of the founding fathers of Italian Renaissance architecture.

Giotto was succeeded as Master of the Works in 1343 by Andrea Pisano, famous already for the South Doors of the Baptistery. He continued the construction of the bell tower, scrupulously following Giotto’s design. He added, above the lower level of Giotto, a second fascia, this time decorated with lozenge-shaped panels (1347–1341). He built two more levels, with four niches on each side and each level, but the second row of niches are empty. Construction came to a halt in 1348, year of the disastrous Black Death.

Pisano was replaced in his turn by Francesco Talenti who built the top three levels, with the large windows, completing the bell tower in 1359. He did not build the spire designed by Giotto, thus lowering the designed height of 122 meters (400 ft) to 84.7 meters (277.9 ft) The top, with its breathtaking panorama of Florence and the surrounding hills, can be reached by climbing 414 steps.

Works of art

All the present works of art in the campanile are copies. The originals were removed between 1965 and 1967 and are now on display in the Museum of the Opera del Duomo, behind the cathedral.

The hexagonal panels

The hexagonal panels on the lower level depict the history of mankind, inspired by Genesis, starting with on the west side:

• The creation of man and woman: Creation of Adam, Creation of Eva, Labours of our first parents
• The beginnings of “mechanical arts” and “creative arts” (according to the Bible): Jabal (animal husbandry), Jubal (music, harp and organ), Tubalcain (first blacksmith), Noah (first farmer). This series continues on the south side and the east side of the campanile.

The Genesis panels are attributed to Andrea Pisano, except “Jubal” to Nino Pisano and “Tubalcain” to an assistant of Andrea Pisano.

The seven hexagonal panels on the south side show us Gionitus (Astronomy), the Art of Building, Medicine, Hunting, Wool-working, Phoroneus (Legislation), Daedalus (flight). They are again attributed to Andrea Pisano, except Gionitus and the Art of Building to his workshop, and Medicine and Phoroneus to Nino Pisano.

The east side only contains five panels, because of the entrance door. They depict the ‘liberal arts’: Navigation, Social Justice, Agriculture, Art of festivals and Euclid (architecture). The first three panels are attributed to Andrea Pisano, while the last two to Nino Pisano. "The Madonna and Child" in the lunette and the "Two Prophets and the Redeemer" on top of the gable above the entrance door, are both attributed to Andrea Pisano.

The north side hexagonal panels depict: Sculpture, Phidias (both moved to this side from the east side in 1347–1348), Painting, Harmony, Grammar, Logic and Dialectic (represented by Plato and Aristotle), Music and Poetry (represented by Orpheus), Geometry and Arithmetic (represented by Euclid and Pythagoras). The first panel is attributed to Andrea Pisano, the second to Nino Pisano, the others to Luca della Robbia. The last five panels were added after removal of the raised passageway between the campanile and the cathedral.

The lozenges

The lozenges, on the next level, already show a different style: the marble figures stand out on a background of blue majolica. These allegorical representations are almost all attributed to Andrea Pisano or his school:

• West side: The Planets — Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon. (Venus and Mercury are attributed to Nino Pisano).
• South side: The three Theological and four Cardinal Virtues — Faith, Charity, Hope, Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude (Faith is attributed to Gino Micheli da Castello).
• East side: the seven "Liberal Arts" — Astronomy, Music, Geometry, Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, and Arithmetic. (Geometry and Rhetoric are attributed to Andrea Pisano; the others, except Astronomy, are attributed to Gino Micheli da Castello).
• North side: the Seven Sacraments (represented realistically and not allegorically) — Baptism, Confession, Matrimony, Holy Order, Confirmation, the Eucharist, and the Extreme Unction. They are all attributed to Maso di Banco, except Matrimony, attributed to Gino Micheli da Castello.

The statues in the niches

On the next level on each side there are four statues in niches. They have been sculpted in different periods:

• The four statues on the west side were sculpted by Andrea Pisano and date from 1343. These Gothic statues are rather high-reliefs, left unfinished at the back. They represent the Tiburtine Sibyl, David, Solomon and the Erythraean Sibyl.
• The four Prophets on the south side are already more classical in style and date between 1334 and 1341. The statue of Moses and the fourth statue are attributed to Maso di Banco.
• The four Prophets and Patriarchs on the east side date from between 1408 and 1421: the beardless Prophets by Donatello (probably a portrait of his friend, the architect Filippo Brunelleschi), the Bearded Prophet (perhaps by Nanni di Bartolo), Abraham and Isaac (by Donatello and Nanni di Bartolo) and Il Pensatore (the thinker) (by Donatello).
• The four statues on the north side were added between 1420 and 1435: Prophet (probably by Nanni di Bartolo, however signed by Donatello), Habacuc (a masterpiece of Donatello, a tormented and emaciated prophet, portraying Giovanni Chiericini, an enemy of the Medicis), Jeremias (by Donatello, portraying Francesco Soderini, another enemy of the Medicis), Abdias (by Nanni di Bartolo).

The three top levels

These levels were built by Francesco Talenti, Master of the Works from 1348 to 1359. Each level is larger than the lower one and extends beyond it in every dimension such that their difference in size exactly counters the effect of perspective. As a result, the top three levels of the tower, when seen from below, look exactly equal in size. The vertical windows open up the walls, a motif borrowed from the Siena campanile. Instead of a spire, Talenti built a large projecting terrace.

The reliefs, statues and decoration make a coherent whole when interpreted in terms of medieval scholastic philosophy.

Notes

References

External links

• Florence Art Guide
• Walks in Florence