What is Duccio?
[[Image:Madonna Rucellai.jpg|thumb|250px|The Rucellai Madonna]] '''Duccio di Buoninsegna''' ({{IPAc-en|UK|ˈ|d|uː|tʃ|i|oʊ}} {{respell|DOO|chee|oh}},<ref>{{Cite Oxford Dictionaries|Duccio|access-date=4 August 2019}}</ref> {{IPA-it|ˈduttʃo di ˌbwɔninˈseɲɲa|lang}}; {{circa|1255–1260}} – {{circa|1318–1319}}) was one of the most important [[painter]]s in [[Italy]] in the Late [[Middle Ages]]. He worked mainly in the city of [[Siena]] in [[Tuscany]] but one of his largest works was done for a church in [[Florence]]. He is most famous for his [[altarpiece]]s of the [[Madonna and Child]]. Duccio painted in the [[Byzantine art|Byzantine]] style, similar to Greek [[icon]]s. ==Duccio's life== The first written record of Duccio is dated 1278, when he was painting in Siena. His paintings, of which only a few remain, are all [[Holy picture]]s. Two of them are very large and were painted as [[altarpiece]]s. Some of them are very small and were for private owners, not for churches. At that time, many artists painted pictures that were specially for people to look at while they were praying. The pictures are most often of the [[Madonna and Child]]. They often have gold backgrounds which glow when they are lit by candlelight. The figures in the paintings do not look very solid or realistic. They look very still, calm and holy. These paintings had been done in the same style for many hundreds of years, in Greece, Constantinople and many other countries where the [[Greek Orthodox Church]] was the main church. The style, which was called the [[Byzantine art|Byzantine style]], had also spread to Italy where several Orthodox [[icon]]s (Holy picture), had become famous and were copied by many artists. Duccio was one of the greatest painters in the Byzantine style in Italy at the time. He had a famous rival who worked in Florence. His name was [[Cimabue]]. One of Cimabue's pupils, [[Giotto]], was to become even more famous, and is remembered as having begun the [[Renaissance]] style of painting in Florence. Even though Duccio probably