St. Francis giving away his cloak,
from Assisi, Italy, by Giotto
Giotto (jee-OTT-oh) worked mainly in fresco painting. He is known for beginning to put in natural landscape backgrounds to his painting, as opposed to the plain gold backgrounds favored by the older Cimabue.
One of Giotto's great achievements was that he painted the inside of the Franciscan church at Assisi, near Florence, with a series of huge frescoes showing the life of Francis of Assisi, who had started the Franciscan movement.
Giotto died in Florence in 1337 AD.
(about 1300 AD in Pisa) (Louvre Museum, Paris)
To find out more about medieval art, check out these books from Amazon or from your local library:
The cathedral of Florence
The baptistery of Florence
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