GIOTTO, j6t't6 (called Giorro DI Box DONE), Italian painter and architect: b. Ves pignano, near Florence, about 1266; d. Florence, 8 Jan. 1337. He was the son of a peasant and his first employment was in the tending of sheep and cattle. But having been on one occasion seen by Cimabue, as he was drawing figures of his sheep upon a piece of slate with a stone, that artist obtained leave from his father to take him with him, carried him to Florence and taught him painting. This may be a mere story, but at any rate his first teacher was Cimabue. His natural talent, and especially the gracefulness so peculiar to him, developed so rapidly that he soon surpassed all contem porary artists. lie represented the human figure in his pieces with truth and nature and excelled in the dignity and pleasing arrange ment of his figures and in his regard to cor rect proportions and natural disposition of the drapery. His earliest extant works are mural paintings in the church of Saint Francis at Assisi, executed before the end of the 13th century. He• was now called to Rome, and after painting various works there he went to Padua in 1303 and adorned the chapel of the Annun data dell' Arena with a series of famous fres coes, including 38 subjects, disposed in three rows, on the sides of the chapel and the front of the chancel wall, with a vast representation of the Judgment' filling the west end. Dante was his guest at Padua in 1306, and he is celebrated in the great poet's (Divina Corn media.> He was also a friend of Petrarch.
He worked at Milan, Verona, Ravenna, Rimini and Arezzo. In 1330-33 he was at Naples and in 1334 was appointed master of the cathedral works and other undertakings at Florence, where he designed the celebrated Campanile, a structure finished by his scholar and godson, Taddeo Gaddi. Besides the fres coes at Assisi and Padua, comparatively few works of Giotto are extant. Among his most celebrated pieces is the 'Navicella> (ship) at Rome (a picture of Walking upon the Waves,> in mosaic). ' The National Gallery possesses a of the Virgin' painted in tempera, on wood. "The influence of Giotto was profoundly felt over the greater part of Italy. His example caused a revolution in art, the effects of which are traceable into the 15th century.° Many anecdotes of more or less authenticity are told regarding this painter. On one occasion, when asked for a sample of his art to show the Pope as a guarantee of his ability, Giotto is said to have drawn a perfect circle with a single stroke; whence "round as the 0 of Giotto° became proverbial. Consult Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 'History of Painting In Italy> (1864-66) ; janitscheck, Kunstlehre Danteu and Giottos Kunst> (1892) ; Ruskin, 'Giotto, and His Works in Padua> (1854-60) ; and monographs by Perkins (1902) ; Thiorle, (1902) ; and Zimmermann (1899).