Roman period of Giotto

Three principal works are attributed to Giotto in Rome. They are the great mosaic of Christ Walking on the Water (the Navicella), over the entrance to St. Peter’s; the altarpiece painted for Cardinal Stefaneschi; and the fresco fragment of Boniface VIII Proclaiming the Jubilee, in San Giovanni in Laterano (St. John Lateran). Giotto is also known to have painted some frescoes in the choir of old St. Peter’s, but these are lost.

These Roman works also pose problems in attribution and criticism. The attribution of the Navicella is certain; it is known that Cardinal Stefaneschi commissioned Giotto to do it. The mosaic, however, was almost entirely remade in the 17th century except for two fragmentary heads of angels, so that old copies must be used for all stylistic deductions. The fresco fragment in San Giovanni in Laterano was cleaned in the 20th century and was tentatively reattributed to Giotto on the basis of its likeness to the Assisi frescoes, but the original attribution can be traced only as far back as the 17th century. The Stefaneschi Altarpiece, with its portrait of the Cardinal himself, must be one of the works commissioned by him. The fact that he commissioned Giotto to do the Navicella might suggest that this work is by Giotto as well, but the altarpiece is so poor in quality that it cannot be by Giotto’s own hand. It may be observed that several works bearing Giotto’s signature, notably the St. Francis of Assisi at the Louvre in Paris and the altarpieces in Bologna and Florence, are generally regarded as school pieces bearing his trademark, whereas the Ognissanti Madonna, unsigned and virtually undocumented, is so superlative in quality that it is accepted as entirely by his hand.

During this period Giotto may also have done the Crucifix in Santa Maria Novella and the Madonna in San Giorgio e Massimiliano dello Spirito Santo (both in Florence). These works may be possibly identifiable with works mentioned in very early sources, and if so they throw light on Giotto’s early style (before 1300). It is also possible that, about 1305, Giotto went to Avignon, in France, but the evidence for this is slender.

Paduan period

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There is thus no very generally agreed picture of Giotto’s early development. It is some relief, therefore, to turn to the fresco cycle in the chapel in Padua known as the Arena, or Scrovegni, Chapel. Its name derives from the fact that it was built on the site of a Roman amphitheatre by Enrico Scrovegni, the son of a notorious usurer mentioned by Dante. The founder is shown offering a model of the church in the huge Last Judgment, which covers the whole west wall. The rest of the small, bare church is covered with frescoes in three tiers representing scenes from the lives of Saints Joachim and Anne, the life of the Virgin, the Annunciation (on the chancel arch), and the life and Passion of Christ, concluding with Pentecost. Below these three narrative bands is a fourth containing monochrome personifications of the Virtues and Vices. The chapel was apparently founded in 1303 and consecrated on March 25, 1305. It is known that the frescoes were completed in or before 1309, and they are generally dated c. 1305–06, but even with several assistants it must have taken at least two years to complete so large a cycle.

The frescoes are in relatively good condition, and all that has been said of Giotto’s power to render the bare essentials of a setting with a few impressive and simple figures telling the story as dramatically and yet as economically as possible is usually based on the narrative power that is the fundamental characteristic of these frescoes. These dominating figures, simple and severe, similar to those in the Assisi cycle but placed in settings of more formal abstraction and rendered with more grandeur, are the quintessence of his style, and anatomy and perspective were used by him as adjuncts to his narrative gifts. In the Padua frescoes the details are always significant, whereas it is a characteristic of the Assisi cycle that there occurs from time to time a delighted dwelling on details that are not absolutely essential to the story.