The Florentine painter, architect, and sculptor Giotto (ca. 1267-1337) evolved a revolutionary new style and was the greatest and most influential Italian painter before the Renaissance.

An outline of the life of Giotto may be deduced from documents and literary sources. At the time of his death in 1337 he was said to be 70 years old. Traditionally his birthplace is given as Colle di Vespignano in Mugello, though some scholars now believe that he was a native of Florence. According to a legend recorded by Lorenzo Ghiberti in his Commentaries (ca. 1450), the painter Cimabue discovered Giotto. The account states that while traveling in the countryside Cimabue came upon a shepherd drawing with chalk on a flat stone. Cimabue was so impressed that he offered to take the shepherd, Giotto, to Florence and train him in the artist's craft.

Giotto married in 1290; his wife bore him four sons and four...