Giotto

===Peruzzi and Bardi Chapels at Santa Croce===
According to [[Lorenzo Ghiberti]], Giotto painted chapels for four different Florentine families in the [[Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze|church of Santa Croce]], but he does not identify which chapels.<ref>Ghiberti, ''I commentari'', ed. O Morisani, Naples, 1947, 33.</ref> It is only with Vasari that the four chapels are identified: the [[Bardi family|Bardi]] Chapel (''Life of St. Francis''), the [[Peruzzi|Peruzzi Chapel]] (''Life of St. John the Baptist'' and ''St. John the Evangelist'', perhaps including a polyptych of ''Madonna with Saints'' now in the Museum of Art of [[Raleigh, North Carolina|Raleigh]], [[North Carolina]]) and the lost Giugni Chapel (''Stories of the Apostles'') and the Tosinghi Spinelli Chapel (''Stories of the Holy Virgin'').<ref>Giorgio Vasari, ''Le vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani'' ed. G. Milanesi, Florence, 1878, I, 373–374.</ref> As with almost everything in Giotto's career, the dates of the fresco decorations that survive in Santa Croce are disputed. The Bardi Chapel, immediately to the right of the main chapel of the church, was painted in true fresco, and to some scholars, the simplicity of its settings seems relatively close to those of Padua, but the Peruzzi Chapel's more complex settings suggest a later date.<ref>L. Tintori and E. Borsook, ''The Peruzzi Chapel'', Florence, 1965, 10; J. White, ''Art and Architecture in Italy'', Baltimore, 1968, 72f.</ref>
[[File:Giotto. Peruzzi Altarpiece 1310-15.North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh.jpg|thumb|Giotto, Peruzzi Altarpiece, c.1322, North Carolina Museum of Art]]
The Peruzzi Chapel is adjacent to the Bardi Chapel and was largely painted ''[[a secco]]''. The technique, quicker but less durable than a true fresco, has left the work in a seriously-deteriorated condition. Scholars who date the cycle earlier in Giotto's career see the growing interest in architectural expansion that it displays as close to the developments of the giottesque frescoes in the Lower Church at Assisi, but the Bardi frescoes have a new softness of colour that indicates the artist going in a different direction, probably under the influence of Sienese art so it must be later.<ref>C. Brandi, ''Giotto'', Milan, 1983, 185–186; L.Bellosi, ''Giotto'', Florence, 1981, 65, 71.</ref>

The Peruzzi Chapel pairs three frescoes from the life of [[St. John the Baptist]] (''The Annunciation of John's Birth to his father Zacharias; The Birth and Naming of John; The Feast of Herod'') on the left wall with three scenes from the life of [[St. John the Evangelist]] (''The Visions of John on Ephesus''; ''The Raising of Drusiana''; ''The Ascension of John'') on the right wall. The choice of scenes has been related to both the patrons and the [[Franciscans]].<ref>Tintori and Borsook; Laurie Schneider Adams, "The Iconography of the Peruzzi Chapel". ''L’Arte'', 1972, 1–104. (Reprinted in Andrew Ladis ed., ''Giotto and the World of Early Italian Art'' New York and London, 1998, 3, 131–144); Julie F. Codell, "Giotto's Peruzzi Chapel Frescoes: Wealth, Patronage and the Earthly City", ''Renaissance Quarterly'', 41 (1988), 583–613.</ref>  Because of the deteriorated condition of the frescoes, it is difficult to discuss Giotto's style in the chapel, but the frescoes show signs of his typical interest in controlled naturalism and psychological penetration.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Long|first=Jane C.|title=Parallelism in Giotto's Santa Croce Frescoes|date=2011|work=Push Me, Pull You|pages=327–353|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-9004215139|doi=10.1163/9789004215139_032|chapter=11. Parallelism in Giotto's Santa Croce Frescoes}}.</ref> The Peruzzi Chapel was especially renowned during Renaissance times. Giotto's compositions influenced [[Masaccio]]'s frescos at the [[Brancacci Chapel]], and Michelangelo is also known to have studied them.

The Bardi Chapel depicts the life of [[Francis of Assisi|St. Francis]], following a similar iconography to the frescoes in the Upper Church at Assisi, dating from 20 to 30 years earlier. A comparison shows the greater attention given by Giotto to expression in the human figures and the simpler, better-integrated architectural forms.  Giotto represents only seven scenes from the saint's life, and the narrative is arranged somewhat unusually. The story starts on the upper left wall with ''St. Francis Renounces his Father.'' It continues across the chapel to the upper right wall with the ''Approval of the Franciscan Rule'', moves down the right wall to the ''Trial by Fire'', across the chapel again to the left wall for the ''Appearance at Arles'', down the left wall to the ''Death of St. Francis'', and across once more to the posthumous ''Visions of Fra Agostino and the Bishop of Assisi.''  The ''Stigmatization of St. Francis'', which chronologically belongs between the ''Appearance at Arles'' and the ''Death'', is located outside the chapel, above the entrance arch. The arrangement encourages viewers to link scenes together: to pair frescoes across the chapel space or relate triads of frescoes along each wall. The linkings suggest meaningful symbolic relationships between different events in St. Francis's life.<ref>The concept of such linkings was first suggested for Padua by Michel Alpatoff, "The Parallelism of Giotto's Padua Frescoes", ''Art Bulletin'', 39 (1947) 149–154. It has been tied to the Bardi Chapel by Jane C. Long, "The Program of Giotto’s Saint Francis Cycle at Santa Croce in Florence", ''Franciscan Studies'' 52 (1992) 85–133, and William R. Cook, "Giotto and the Figure of St. Francis", in ''The Cambridge Companion to Giotto'', ed. A. Derbes and M. Sandona, Cambridge, 2004, 135–156.</ref>
[[File:Campanile di giotto 11.JPG|thumb|alt=Campanile di Giotto|[[Campanile di Giotto]] (Florence)]]