MoreOverviewChinaMoreYuan dynasty Buddha of Medicine Bhaishajyaguru (Yaoshi fo) David Vases

Florence in the Late Gothic period (1300s) Sharethis article

Unknown Artist,Madonna della Misericordia (detail, view of Florence), 1342 (Museo del Bigallo, Florence)

Boom Times in FlorenceThe city-state of Florence in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries was a city on the rise. Urbanizationwas experienced by all Italian cities at this time and Florence’s population doubled in size. But more thanalmost any ther town, Florence saw an explosion in international trade and innovations in finance. A newclass of bankers and merchants replaced the old noble families as the center of power, developing a complex,barely democratic social structure that hung in a careful balance.

View of Palazzo della Signoria, 1299-1310, designed by Arnolfo di Cambio

Art and architecture helped define the relationships between individuals and the bewildering array of civic,professional, and religious institutions that made up the fabric of Florentine society. Thanks to the city’snewfound wealth, impressive communal building projects were undertaken, like the building of a new seat ofgovernment, the Palazzo della Signoria. Church and State During this building boom, church and state were anything but separate. Public funds were used to erectmany of the religious centers, including the cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore. Subsidies were even given overto the large new churches needed to accommodate growing audiences for the sermons of the mendicantorders (monks that had forsaken worldly possessions and that lived and preached in the cities). The largest ofthese mendicant behemoths were the Franciscan church of Santa Croce and the Dominican church of SantaMaria Novella.

View of the nave of the church of Santa Croce in Florence Guilds and private patrons too Happily, the decoration of buildings throughout the city fell to a widening range of patrons. Professionalguilds (somewhat like our trade unions) were often in charge of decorating public spaces with painting and,increasingly, architectural sculpture. Groups of priests, nuns, and confraternities (organizations of laypeoplethat gathered to perform acts of charity or sing hymns) hired artists to create devotional images and lavishbooks of hymns. For the first time, wealthy individuals and families could even purchase the rights to use anddecorate chapels within a church. A more personal spiritualityBut art was not all about public displays of wealth or works of communal beautification. Faith and spiritualitybecame more deeply personal even as they became more public. More than in previous centuries, imagesplayed an important role in focusing a person’s devotion to Christ, Mary and the saints—in imagining theirlives or picturing how they might appear in all their heavenly glory. In fact, images didn’t just maintainrelationships within Florentine society, they built imagined relationships between viewers and the sacredfigures they portrayed. This affected more than just the amount of art people needed; it affected what theywanted it to look like. And in the course of the fourteenth century, what they wanted it to look like wouldchange dramatically.

The Italo-Byzantine StyleLike the art of most Italian cities at the time, thirteenth-century art in Florence was heavily influenced byByzantine art (the art of the Byzantine Empire). Images from this period are in fact often described as “Italo-Byzantine,” a label that reflects how artists such as Coppo di Marcovaldo (and many more artists whosenames we don’t know) adapted the foreign style into something altogether Italian. Right: Coppo di Marcovaldo and his son Salerno, Crucifixion, 1274 (Pistoia Cathedral) Photo: dvdbramhall In painting, this meant emulating the way figures were strongly outlined against glittering gold backgroundslike those seen in Byzantine icons and mosaics. These ornate images seem to directly engage the viewer bypressing whatever is being depicted by the artist to the surface of the painting or mosaic. Figures are formedout of abstract but expressive shapes designed to identify various body parts or items of clothing whilecreating beautiful patterns. In narrative images, each story plays out across the field of representation insteadof within it, eliminating the need for a sense of depth.

A new style emerges During the late thirteenth century, artists in a handful of Italian cities began to move away from the Italo-Byzantine style. The Roman artist Pietro Cavallini created frescoes and mosaics featuring solid,monumentalizing figures; the sculptor Nicola Pisano studied ancient Roman sculpture; Sienese artists seem tohave broken new ground in exploring perspective. Right: Cimabue, Santa Trinita Madonna (Madonna and Child Enthroned), 1280-90, tempera on panel(Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) Meanwhile, back in Florence, Cimabue’s paintings showed more interest in depicting space and modelingfigures with gradations of light and shade. These ideas spread as artists travelled throughout Italy andsouthern France in search of work, creating a network of artistic centers that all exerted influence on oneanother.

GiottoAs the new century opened, the painter Giotto di Bondone observed many of these currents and forged theminto something distinctively Florentine and enormously influential. Right: Giotto di Bondone, The Ognissanti Madonna, 1306-10, tempera on panel, 128 x 80 1/4" or 325 x 204cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) Where earlier works of art engage us with the embellished splendor of the heavenly, Giotto’s paintingscapture our attention by representing holy figures and stories as if in a majestic but earthly realm. Boldmodeling of draperies and the bodies beneath them gives his figures greater volume and a sense of sculpturalrelief. Clever kinds of perspective create the illusion that a space is opening up in front of the viewer, as if wemight be peering onto a stage.

Giotto, Meeting at the Golden Gate, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel, Padua, c. 1305

Perhaps just as importantly, Giotto was a master of visual storytelling – a skill evident in his most importantsurviving project, the frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua (c. 1305). Here the monumentality of the figures,the quiet dignity of their movements, and the way architectural and landscape settings seem to echo the actionall conjure up a solemn aura of the sacred. Like many of the narrative paintings attributed to Giotto, thescenes use closely observed human gestures and careful composition to enhance the drama and emotion ofthe moment depicted.

Maso di Banco, PopeSylvester's Miracle, c. 1340 (Bardi Chape, Santa Croce, Florence)

Art After GiottoGiotto had an enormous workshop full of students and assistants, making it hard to tell which works hepainted and which were by his pupils. Even more confusingly, his style was so immediately influential that itis still difficult to say who his formal students were. What we do know is that, in the years immediately afterhis death, the artists who were the most “Giottesque” received the lion’s share of the important commissionsfor new projects. The success of artists like Bernardo Daddi, Maso di Banco, and Taddeo Gaddi demonstratesthat wealthy patrons were on board with Giotto’s new vision for art.

Sometime around mid-century, though, certain artists began to drift from the clear, spare art of Giotto’sschool. Many experimented with visually crowded compositions or with complex subjects representedthrough elaborate symbols and schemes. Some even seem to have purposefully echoed the ornamental,formal art of the Italo-Byzantine period. This has led art historians to wonder whether these changes in stylewere caused by Florence’s collective despair after the outbreak of the bubonic plague—a sickness that wipedout over half the city’s population in one year alone (1348).

Andrea Bonaiuti, Triumph of St Thomas Aquinas, c. 1365-67, Guidalotti Chapel (Spanish Chapel) (SantaMaria Novella, Florence)

Most scholars now think the situation was more mixed than this theory might lead us to believe. In fact, latefourteenth-century art is hard to generalize. This is partly because no single workshop dominated the art ofFlorence as much as Giotto and his school had in previous decades. But it is also because artists of the timewere skilled at adapting their own style to the specific tastes of each patron and to the context and function ofeach image.

Overall, however, Florentine art from 1348 to 1400 did not experience the same kind of major stylistic shiftthat characterized Giotto’s years on the scene. Rather, the fundamental influence of Giotto continued into theearly 1400s. In the end, the long fourteenth-century was Giotto’s century. Text by Dr. Joanna Mac Farland

Your Comments (0)

Add Comments

We think Smarthistory works best when it prompts discussion. Please post (on-topic) comments,(constructive) criticism, and praise (we love praise).*

Maybe you only have hazy memories of a dark auditorium, a soporific voice, and hundreds of slides of Maryand baby Jesus; perhaps you have a love of museums, but have no experience with art history.

Or, maybe you're a designer, an illustrator, a museum educator, a conservator or curator, or even (gasp!) anart historian. Whatever your background, we welcome your thoughts and ideas.

*All comments are moderated