Giotto di Bondone

 Giotto (1267?-1337), the most important Italian painter of the 14th century, whose conception of the human figure in broad, rounded terms—rather than in the flat, two-dimensional terms of Gothic and Byzantine styles (see Gothic Art and Architecture and Byzantine Art and Architecture)—indicated a concern for naturalism that was a milestone in the development of Western art. He was born Giotto di Bondone in Colle di Vespignano, near Florence. Details of his early life …

…ongoing discussion among art historians. Giotto was ahead of his time. Most of his followers painted in a less significant, more overtly decorative style. It remained for Masaccio, a century later, to expand upon Giotto's monumental style. Giotto's example was crucial to the development of later Florentine painting, and his preoccupation with the realities of the human figure and the visible world became the dominant concerns of the Florentine Renaissance. He died in Florence, in 1337.