Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today we are traveling
back, way back, to a real turning point in Western
art. We are indeed. We're looking at a man whose
reputation was just immense, even in his own
time. Right. His contemporary, the chronicler
Giovanni Villani, he didn't mince words, called
him the most sovereign master of painting in
his time. It's incredible praise. We're talking
about Giotto di Bondone, born around 1267, and
he really is that pivotal figure, late Gothic,
proto -Renaissance, whatever you call the period.
He's the one making the break. A decisive break,
you said, away from that very stylized, very
flat Byzantine look that had dominated for, well...
Exactly. And that's our mission today, really,
to get a handle on Giotto's revolution. We have
some amazing, solid evidence, you know, the Cervini
Chapel, the Florence Campanile design. But everything
else, it seems like smoke and mirrors, his birth,
his training, sorting the facts from the, well,
the legends. That's the challenge. It is. And
it's crucial because the stakes are just so high.
You have Giorgio Vasari, the big art historian
writing later. Oh, yeah, Vasari. He claims Giotto
basically kick -started... the great art of painting
as we know it today, introducing drawing accurately
from life. Drawing accurately from life. I mean,
it sounds so basic now. But Vasari says it was
a skill neglected for 200 years. If he's right,
Jadot didn't just tweak things. He essentially
rebooted Western painting. He sort of ended the
Middle Ages, artistically speaking. Okay, let's
wade into this fog then. Start at the start.
If he was so incredibly famous, why is even his
birthplace a question mark? Well, the legend
is always better, isn't it? The traditional story,
the romantic one, puts him in a farmhouse out
in the countryside near Florence. Colle di Romagnano,
maybe Romignano. Right, and there's even a tower
house you could visit today claiming he was born
there. Colle Vespignano. Exactly, and that narrative,
it really feeds into the idea of this rustic,
untaught genius discovered out in nature. Pure
talent. But the paper trail often tells a different
story. What's the more recent thinking? Well,
recent documentary finds suggest something maybe
less romantic, but perhaps more plausible. He
might have been born right in Florence. Son of
a blacksmith named Bondone. Ah, so not a shepherd
boy at all. A city kid. Son of a craftsman. Which
means he would have had access to Florence's
whole artistic and commercial scene from the
get -go. Makes his rise maybe less miraculous,
but, you know, more understandable in a way.
And even his name, Giotto. That's likely a nickname
too, right? Almost certainly. Probably short
for Ambrogio Ambrogiato. Or maybe Angelo Angelato.
But history just remembers Giato. The name stuck.
Okay, so let's get to the big one. The foundational
myth. The shepherd boy drawing sheep on a rock,
discovered by the great Simabue. This is pure
Vasari. It is, and it's brilliant storytelling.
Vasari paints this picture. Giotto, this clever,
happy shepherd kid out with his flock. Along
comes Cimabue, already a big deal Florentine
painter. And he catches Giotto sketching. Yeah,
sketching his sheep on a flat stone with, like,
another sharp stone. But the drawings aren't
just symbols. They look real, lifelike. So Cimabue,
blown away by this raw talent, just takes him
on as an apprentice right there. That's the story.
It neatly connects Giotto to the master before
him, but also frames his genius as this innate,
natural gift. Perfect origin story. And then
there's that other story from the apprenticeship,
the one with the fly, that really cements the
idea of his skill. Oh, the fly anecdote. Yeah,
supposedly Giotto, while Chimabue is out, painted
this tiny, incredibly realistic fly on the face
of a figure in Chimabue's current painting. And
Chimabue comes back. And tries to brush it off.
Again and again, until he realizes it's paint.
It's the ultimate proof, right? His realism could
even fool the master's eye. But hang on, that
story, it sounds familiar. It's not original
to Giotto, is it? It feels like something from,
like, ancient Greece or Rome. You nailed it.
It's almost identical to a story Pliny the Elder
tells about the Greek painter Zeuxis. You know,
the one who painted grapes so real that birds
tried to eat them. Right, so Vasari using that
story for Giotto wasn't just saying he was good.
No, it was a deliberate power move. It links
Giotto directly back to the legendary artists
of classical antiquity, skipping right over the
whole Byzantine period. It's basically saying,
real art is back, picking up where the Greeks
left off. It's historical marketing. Wow. Okay,
so the legend itself is crafting history. What
about the story of the Pope's test, the perfect
circle? That seems more about his professional
clout. The O of Giotto, yeah. Another great story.
Pope Benedict XI, or maybe the one before him,
is looking to commission work and wants proof
of skill from various artists. He sends a courtier
to Giotto. Asking for a sample drawing. Right.
So Giotto takes a sheet, dips his brush in red
paint, rests his arm, and just draws a perfect
circle. Free hand, no compass, nothing. And just
hands that to the courtier. I bet the courtier
was confused. Or insulted. Totally. He thought
Giotto was messing with him, maybe mocking the
Pope. But back at the Vatican, the Pope and his
advisors look at all the elaborate sketches from
other artists. Lots of effort. Complex designs.
And then they see Giotto's circle. Simple. Perfect.
Effortless. They got it instantly. What exactly
did they get? That he was good at geometry? No,
it was about mastery, absolute control, confidence,
speed. It showed a level of skill and, frankly,
intellectual command that was just beyond his
rivals. He didn't need to show off with complexity.
Perfection was his signature. It really highlights
Johto as this dominant personality, not just
a painter. Okay, so whether through legend or
actual skill, his reputation clearly exploded.
Let's try to nail down some facts about his early
career before we hit the big controversies. Right.
We know he married around 1290. They called her
Chuta. Had a bunch of kids, eight apparently.
One son, Francesco, also became a painter. And
by the early 1300s, he wasn't just getting by.
No, definitely not. By 1301, the records show
he's pretty well off. Owns property in Florence.
comfortable and already getting major commissions
that required travel including jerome right which
was a hotbed for stylistic innovation then absolutely
he was definitely in rome around 1297 to 1300
he did a fresco cycle for pope boniface viii
for the huge jubilee year of 1300 anything left
of that sadly just a tiny fragment it's at the
arch basilica of saint john lateran now But more
famously, he designed the Navicella. The huge
mosaic for old St. Peter's facade. Yeah, a massive
undertaking, depicting Christ walking on water.
Also, mostly lost now, known only through later
copies and bits and pieces. But the point is,
very early on, he's getting these top -tier monumental
commissions at the very heart of the church.
So back in Florence, there are some key early
works that help us track his style. Yes. Definitely.
For the Dominicans at Santa Maria Novella, there's
that incredible suspended crucifix. It's huge,
like five meters tall, dated around 1290. And
you can already see the difference there. Oh,
yeah. The figure of Christ has real volume, real
weight. It's already moving away from that flat,
symbolic Byzantine Christ. And there's the body
of Polyptych, now in the Uffizi Gallery. That
shows his early thinking about grouping figures,
creating a sense of space. Okay. Now for it.
Assisi. the basilica of saint francis the fresco
cycle of saint francis's life in the upper church
possibly the biggest attribution headache in
art history it really is the crux of the matter
for early giotto if he painted that cycle say
in the 1290s then he was a full -blown revolutionary
right out of the gate if he didn't and the whole
timeline shifts who influenced whom Exactly.
For centuries, it was just assumed. These amazing
narrative, emotionally resonant frescoes, they
had to be by the young Giotto. It fit the story
perfectly. He does a Sisi, pioneers the style,
then goes to Padua and perfects it. But the physical
evidence, or lack thereof, is a huge problem.
Something about Napoleon's troops. Yeah, a real
tragedy for art history. When Napoleon's army
occupied Assisi, they apparently used the upper
church as a stable and the Franciscan monastery's
archives, which would have held the contracts,
the payment records for the frescoes. They were
destroyed, used for betting, or burned. Pretty
much. So the paper trail just goes cold. No hard
proof either way. So without documents, people
just defaulted to the most famous name. Basically,
yes. If a fresco in the upper church looked really
good and wasn't clearly by Simabu, who also worked
there, it got chalked up to Giotto. It was convenient.
Until science intervened in the 20th century,
what did the technical analysis show? This was
a game changer in the 1960s. They analyzed the
paint chemistry. They found white lead pigment
used in parts of the St. Francis cycle. And white
lead was found in Simabu's nearby work. But crucially,
it was not found in the works we know for sure
are by Giotto, like the Scriveni Chapel frescoes
in Padua. His technique, his medium was different.
So the workshop practices just didn't line up.
The chemical signature was wrong. Exactly. It
strongly suggests different artists or at least
a different workshop tradition. Which leads to
a radical rethinking. If Giotto didn't paint
Assisi, then who did? And what does that mean
for his revolution? It means the revolution might
have been brewing elsewhere, too, possibly among
highly skilled Roman artists working in Assisi.
Sometimes they're called the Isaac master or
just referred to as Roman masters. They were
already exploring naturalism, emotion, architectural
space. But Giotto wasn't necessarily the inventor
of that style. He might have been more the great
synthesizer. the one who saw what was happening,
perhaps influenced by the Assisi painters, and
then took those ideas to an entirely new level
of coherence, power, and emotion in Padua. That
really does change the story. It's less a lone
genius, more a broader wave with Giotto riding
the crest. Precisely. It makes the Proto -Renaissance
a more complex, interconnected phenomenon. But
regardless of the Assisi debate, Giotto's fame
certainly spread like wildfire. By the early
1300s, he was working all over. We know he was
in Rimini. Yes, there's a surviving crucifix
there dated before 1309. And writers from the
time mentioned him working in Assisi, Rimini,
Padua. His reputation was massive. He had large
estates, ran a big workshop, which leads us to
Padua and the commission that leaves no room
for doubt. Right. If Assisi is the question mark,
the Scriveni Chapel in Padua, also called the
Arena Chapel, is the giant exclamation point
done around 1305, UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It's considered the masterpiece of the early
Renaissance. It absolutely is. There's no debate
here. This is Giotto's vision fully realized.
It's a complete painted environment commissioned
by a banker named Enrico degli Scriveni. And
Scriveni had a bit of an image problem, didn't
he? Something about his father and Dante. A big
one. His father, Reginaldo, was a notorious moneylender,
a usurer. So notorious, in fact, that Dante stuck
him in the seventh circle of hell in the Inferno.
Ouch. So the chapel was maybe an act of atonement?
Trying to buy some goodwill, spiritually speaking.
Very likely. It was meant as a private family
chapel, a burial place, but also as a public
display of piety. And it was used for an annual
religious play, which fits the very narrative,
almost theatrical style of the frescoes. The
theme is salvation. The big focus on the Virgin
Mary. Where did Gietto get the stories? Not all
straight from the Bible, right? No, he drew heavily
on popular contemporary texts. The Golden Legend
by Jacobus de Voragine was huge then, full of
saints' lives, and also things like the Meditations
on the Life of Christ, which was much more emotional
and descriptive than the Gospels. The layout
itself is brilliant. It's not just random scenes.
It flows. Incredibly logical. 37 scenes in three
horizontal bands wrapping around the walls. You
start high up with Mary's parents, Joachim and
Anne. Then you follow Mary's life down. Then
Christ's childhood and miracles. And the lowest
tier is the passion. It reads like a book, top
to bottom, left to right. And I heard Giotto
even uses Christ's posture to keep you moving
through the story. yeah it's subtle but effective
christ is often shown in profile and his gaze
or the direction he's facing consistently points
you towards the next scene towards the right
until until the kiss of judas exactly that scene
breaks the flow it's the dramatic turning point
signaling the start of the passion sequence very
clever visual storytelling and below all this
narrative drama there's another layer the virtues
and vices Done differently. Yes. Down on the
lowest level, sort of like a foundation, he painted
allegorical figures. Justice, injustice, charity,
envy, and so on. Seven pairs. But he painted
them in grise. Monochrome gray, like stone. Exactly
like stone statues. It creates this amazing contrast,
the colorful human drama of salvation unfolding
above, grounded by this stern, classical -looking
moral framework below. It's like he's deliberately
invoking ancient Roman sculpture, linking Christian
virtue to classical gravitas. Let's talk about
the paint itself, that blue. It's famous for
being faded. Especially compared to the other
colors. Why? Ah, the blue. It tells a story about
cost and technique. The pigment was ultramarine,
made from ground lapis lazuli. Insanely expensive.
Literally worth more than gold back then. Wow.
So Scrivenia... really splashed out. He did,
but here's the catch. True fresco technique involves
painting on wet plaster. The pigment chemically
bonds with the plaster as it dries. But ultramarine
didn't react well with the wet plaster. It degrades,
loses its brilliance when mixed with the lime
in the wet plaster. So to keep that stunning
deep blue, Giotto had to paint it a secco, meaning
on top of the plaster after it had dried. Like
painting on a drywall. Right. Which means it
didn't bond chemically. It was basically just
sitting on the surface, much more vulnerable
to flaking and fading over time. So the faded
blue we see is the ghost of incredible expense
and a conscious technical compromise. A compromise
for brilliance. OK, let's get to the heart of
it. The Giotto breakthrough. We talk about three
dimensional figures. How did he do that? What
was different from the Byzantine style? Byzantine
figures are often elegant, ethereal, but flat.
They float in a golden, symbolic space. Giotto
brings them down to Earth. He uses light and
shadow chiaroscuro to model the forms, giving
them a sense of roundness, volume, weight. So
they look solid. They look solid, like they actually
displace space. And he puts them in... believable
spaces. He uses architecture, landscape elements,
painted with a kind of intuitive perspective,
not mathematically perfect yet, but it creates
an illusion of depth. Like little stage sets.
Exactly like stage sets. And crucially, he placed
figures with their backs to the viewer. That
was radical. It implies the space continues beyond
the picture plane, includes you, the viewer.
It pulls you in. But beyond the technical stuff,
it's the emotion, isn't it? The faces. That's
the real revolution, I think. The humanity. Byzantine
figures often have stylized expressions representing
piety or sorrow. Giotto's figures feel real emotions.
Look at the massacre of the innocents. The mother's
faces are pure agony. And that one soldier. Yeah,
the soldier dragging the baby away. He's not
just a villain. He looks almost burdened. Ashamed,
maybe. It's complex. Or the lamentation over
the dead Christ. The grief is palpable. Even
the angels in the sky aren't serene. They're
contorted, wailing. It makes these sacred stories
feel incredibly immediate, relatable, which ties
into what that critic, John Ruskin, said. Ruskin
nailed it in the 19th century. He said Giotto
painted the Madonna and St. Joseph in the Christ.
Yes, by all means. But essentially, Mama, Papa,
and Baby, he made the Holy Family feel like a
real family. Amazing. Before we leave Padua,
that star in the Adoration of the Magi, it doesn't
look like a typical star. No, it looks like a
comet. A fiery ball with a tail streaking across
the sky. And the timing fits perfectly. Halley's
Comet made a very visible appearance in 1301.
So Giotto probably saw it. And painted it. It
seems almost certain. He painted what he saw.
And that connection is so strong that the European
Space Agency actually named their 1986 probe
to Halley's Comet. Johto. That's brilliant. Isn't
it? Art history meets astrophysics. One last
Padua anecdote, the one with Dante. Apparently
Dante visited while Giotto was working. Yeah,
another story that highlights Giotto's personality.
Dante supposedly seeing Giotto's own children
who were apparently quite plain looking. Unlike
the figures in the chapel. Right, so Dante asks
him, how can a man who makes such beautiful things
have such ordinary kids? And Giotto's reply.
Quick as a flash, I make my pictures by day and
my babies by night. Ha, perfect. It's witty self
-deprecating. But it also subtly elevates his
art, right? The daytime work is inspired, godlike
creation. The nighttime stuff is just human biology.
It reinforces this idea of the artist as an intellectual
set apart, a very Renaissance concept starting
to form. So after Padua, Giotto is basically
the biggest name in Italian art. He returns to
Florence around 1311, a superstar. But this is
where the workshop issue gets really tricky,
right? Yeah. How much is actually him? It's a
constant question with major artists running
large workshops. But we do have one panel painting
from this period that pretty much everyone agrees
is pure Giotto, the Ognissanti Madonna, painted
around 1310. That's the one in the Uffizi now,
often shown near Cimabuse, Duccio's, Madonna's.
Exactly. And the comparison is incredible. Cimabuse
and Duccio's are beautiful, but still quite Byzantine,
elegant lines, lots of gold, relatively flat.
Giotto's Madonna is just... Monumental. Solid.
She looks like she has real weight sitting on
that throne. She absolutely does. The throne
itself has depth. The way her robes fall feels
natural. She's less an icon, more a tangible,
queenly presence. It's a powerful statement of
his mature style. But then you get something
like the Stefaneschi triptych, commissioned by
a cardinal for St. Peter's around 1320. We know
Giotto got the commission. We have the documents
for that one, which is rare. Cardinal Giacomo
Stefaneschi paid him. But when you look closely
at the execution, the brushwork, the details...
It doesn't feel quite like the Agnissanti Madonna.
To many scholars, no. The quality varies. It
suggests that Giotto likely provided the overall
design, the master plan, but a lot of the actual
painting was done by assistants in his workshop,
probably Roman artists brought in for the job.
So he's becoming more like a director, an artistic
CEO. Inevitable, really, given the demand. He
couldn't be everywhere, paint every single panel
or fresco himself. Delegation was key. Back in
Florence, though, he undertook some major projects
for wealthy families in the Santa Croce church.
The Peruzzi and Bardi chapels. Yeah. Hugely influential.
Massively influential, especially for later Florentine
artists. But again, controversy. This time it's
about the dating. Which one came first? Because
they look so different now. Radically different.
The Peruzzi chapel with scenes from the lives
of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist
is in terrible condition. Why so bad? Because
it was painted largely a secco on dry plaster.
Like the blue in Padua, the paint just didn't
bond well and has flaked off dry. over the centuries.
It's a shadow of its former self. Where's the
Barty Chapel next door? Depicting the life of
St. Francis, that one was mostly done in true
fresco on wet plaster. And the compositions are
maybe a bit simpler structurally, so it survived
much better. So the debate is, did he paint the
ruined Peruzzi Chapel earlier? using the less
durable technique perhaps because he was rushed
or painting over something else? Or did he paint
it later, representing a more complex, ambitious
phase of his style, despite the technical choice?
That's the puzzle. The Peruzzi frescoes, even
in their ruined state, show incredibly sophisticated
architectural settings, real attempts at creating
deep, believable spaces. That feels like a later
development. But the secco technique often suggests
speed or difficulty. It's a classic art historical
tussle. But even ruined, the Prudsey Chapel was
like a textbook for later artists. Masaccio,
Michelangelo. Absolutely. Masaccio, who really
kicks off the full Renaissance painting style
in the 1420s, clearly studied Giotto's figures
in the Peruzzi Chapel. He took Giotto's sense
of volume and weight and placed it within mathematically
constructed perspective spaces. So Giotto laid
the groundwork. He did. And even Michelangelo,
a couple of hundred years later, is known to
have sketched Giotto's compositions in Santa
Croce. They were foundational. Now the Bardi
Chapel, the one in better shape, you mentioned
it's... Structure is unusual, not strictly chronological.
Right, that's fascinating. Jada arranges the
seven scenes from St. Francis' life in a way
that deliberately breaks the timeline. For instance,
the most famous event, St. Francis receiving
the stigmata. The wounds of Christ. That scene
is actually painted outside the main chapel space,
above the entrance arch. See if it'll look back
as you leave, or see it as you enter. separate
from the main narrative sequence inside. Exactly.
And inside, scenes that happened years apart
might be placed directly opposite each other
on facing walls. Why do that? What's the point?
It forces you, the viewer, to think beyond just
following a story. You're encouraged to make
connections across the space. Compare Francis
renouncing his wealth on one wall with his death
on the other, for example. It turns viewing into
a more contemplative, symbolic exercise. Really
sophisticated. Giotto's fame just kept growing.
He ends up working outside Florence again in
his later years. Oh, yes. His reputation was
pan -Italian. In 1329, he gets summoned to Naples
by King Robert of Anjou. Who names him first
court painter. That sounds prestigious. Very.
Came with a nice salary, too. But sadly, like
a lot of his work outside Florence and Padua,
most of his Neapolitan paintings are lost. Fragments
exist, workshop pieces maybe, but the major cycles
are gone. But his final major role brings him
back to Florence. And it wasn't painting. It
was architecture. That's right. In 1334, the
city appoints him Capamaestro, chief architect
or master builder for the Florence Cathedral,
Santa Maria del Fiore. And his main job was the
bell tower. The Campanile, exactly, which is
now universally known as Giotto's Campanile.
He designed it. oversaw the beginning of the
construction, laid the foundations, started the
first level with its intricate marble cladding
and sculptural program. Even though he died before
it was finished. He died in 1337, only three
years after starting. It was completed later
by Andrea Pisano and Francesco Talenti, who tweaked
the upper levels a bit from his original design.
But it remains his architectural masterpiece,
a landmark of Florence, and a testament to his
incredible versatility. It's amazing how famous
he was during... his life, not just commissions,
but being mentioned by the literary giants of
the age. That really sets him apart. Being name
-checked by Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy,
that's the ultimate contemporary validation.
Right, that famous bit in Purgatorio where Dante
says, basically, Simabui thought he ruled painting.
But now Giotto's got the top spot, and Simabui's
fame is fading. Simabui believed that he held
the field in painting, and now Giotto has the
cry, so the fame of the former is obscure. It
establishes Giotto as the new standard, right
there in Italy's greatest poem. And Boccaccio,
who actually knew Giotto, gives us that rather
blunt physical description. Yeah, Boccaccio,
writing in the Decameron, calls him no uglier
man in the city of Florence. Which sounds harsh.
But maybe it reinforces the idea that his genius
was internal, not physical. Could be. It certainly
fits the narrative of transcendent talent in
an ordinary or even unattractive vessel. And
there's that other story from Sochetti that shows
his sharp wit and maybe his lack of patience
for pretentious clients. Oh, the coat of arms
story. It's hilarious. Some civilian. probably
a merchant trying to look important, commissions
Giotto to paint his family coat of arms on a
shield. Like he's some great knight. Exactly.
Giotto apparently saw right through the guy's
vanity, so instead of painting the actual coat
of arms, he covers the shield with every kind
of weapon imaginable. Swords, helmets, daggers,
chainmail, just a ridiculous over -the -top display.
Armed to the teeth, literally. The client must
have been furious. Oh. outraged but giotto's
response was priceless he basically told the
guy you want to talk about arms go see the world
fight a battle or two then come back Don't act
like you're the Duke of Bavaria. Did the guy
sue him? He did. But Giotto countersued, arguing
he had painted arms as requested. And incredibly,
Giotto won. That's amazing. He shows the artist
is no longer just a hired hand. He's got status,
confidence he can push back. Utterly. He's an
intellectual sparring partner, not just a craftsman.
That's a big shift. So famous, rich, witty, maybe
ugly. But then he dies in 1337. and even his
burial becomes a puzzle, the mystery of the bones.
Right, the final enigma. Where was he actually
buried? Vasari claimed it was in the Florence
Cathedral itself, Santa Maria del Fiore, with
a marker. But others said the older church underneath.
Santa Reparata, yes. The ruins of which are directly
beneath the current cathedral floor, and this
debate simmered for centuries. Until excavations
in the 1970s actually found some bones down there,
near where Vasari suggested. Exactly. Unmarked
grave, but in the right zone. This led to a major
forensic investigation around the year 2000.
And the science turned up some pretty specific
clues pointing towards a painter. Really specific,
yeah. The bones showed unusually high levels
of lead and arsenic. Which were common in pigments
back then. Very common. Red lead, lead white,
yellow arsenic sulfides like orpiment. A painter
working with these daily would absolutely absorb
them through skin, dust inhalation. It's strongly
suggested a painter's remains. skeleton itself
showed wear and tear consistent with painting.
It did. The neck vertebrae had damage consistent
with spending a lot of time looking up exactly
what you do painting frescoes on ceilings. Like
in the Scriveni Chapel or Santa Croce. Precisely.
And the front teeth were worn in a peculiar way,
maybe from habitually holding brushes in his
mouth while working or mixing colors. Okay, that
sounds like a strong case for Giotto. A painter
working in Florence buried where tradition said,
but then came the bombshell. The bombshell was
the skeleton's height. It belonged to a man who
was very short, little over four feet tall, possibly
someone with a form of congenital dwarfism. Four
feet tall, that seems unexpected for such a dominant
public figure. It immediately revived an old
theory that a small dwarf -like figure depicted
in one of the Santa Croce frescoes might actually
be a Giotto self -portrait. But wait, doesn't
that contradict other supposed self -portraits?
Like the figure in The Last Judgment in Padua,
he looks normal height there. Exactly. The Padua
figure, often identified as Giotto presenting
the chapel model to God, looks perfectly average
in stature. And surely, if Giotto had been that
unusually short, someone like Boccaccio or Dante
would have mentioned it. It's a pretty striking
physical characteristic to ignore, more specific
than just ugly. So the dwarfism throws a major
wrench in the works. It creates a huge contradiction
for many scholars. Is the Santa Croce dwarf figure
symbolic? A depiction of an assistant. Are these
bones just some other unrelated short painter
from the era? So despite the Italian team reburying
the bones with honors, calling them giottos.
International skepticism remains really high.
It led to that famous dismissal by the architectural
historian Franklin Talk Talker, who basically
said they're probably just the bones of some
fat butcher. Ouch. So even in death, giotto remains
elusive. It's the perfect summary of his whole
story, isn't it? This constant tension. His artistic
achievement is monumental, undeniable. He changed
everything, created this new world of naturalistic
emotional art, the absolute key figure leading
into the Renaissance. No question about the impact
of the art. Not at all. But the man himself,
his birth, his training, who painted what exactly,
even where his physical remains lie, it's all
tangled up in legend, controversy, and missing
evidence. It leaves you with this fascinating
contrast, the enduring, vivid physical reality.
of the Scruveni Chapel frescoes, you can go stand
in front of them today, versus the almost complete
uncertainty about the physical reality of the
man who painted them. Maybe his legacy was always
destined to be the art itself, so powerful, so
revolutionary, that it just completely overshadowed
the biographical details of the artist. Maybe
we're meant to focus on the work. It does seem
like the work speaks for itself, perhaps louder
than any historical document could. I think so.
Whether he invented the style or perfected it,
His genius shines through. We strongly encourage
you listening to look up the images we've talked
about, especially those faces in the Scriveni
Chapel, the grief -stricken angels, the conflicted
soldier, the human intimacy of Mary and Joseph.
You really can witness the revolution for yourself.