Giotto was probably born around 1265 in Florence or the surrounding Mugello region. The exact circumstances of his birth and early training remain uncertain.
Later accounts identify Cimabue as Giotto's teacher. Although the details transmitted by these accounts cannot all be verified, Giotto's early work developed from the artistic traditions represented by Cimabue and other Italian painters of the late thirteenth century.
Giotto became active during a period when Italian painting remained strongly influenced by Byzantine artistic conventions. His work retained important elements of that tradition while increasingly emphasizing physical bodies, understandable spaces, and human interaction.
His early career is closely associated with Assisi. Frescoes in the Basilica of Saint Francis have long played an important role in discussions of Giotto's development, although the attribution of portions of the extensive decoration continues to be debated.
Giotto also worked in Rome and created the celebrated Navicella mosaic for Old Saint Peter's Basilica. The original mosaic was later extensively altered and reconstructed.
His most important surviving achievement is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Giotto worked there during the first decade of the fourteenth century, probably between about 1303 and 1306.
The chapel had been commissioned by Enrico Scrovegni. Giotto covered its interior with an extensive program of frescoes devoted to sacred history.
The narrative begins with events associated with the parents and early life of Mary. It then moves through the Annunciation and into episodes from the birth, ministry, Passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus.
A monumental Last Judgment occupies the entrance wall. Images of virtues and vices appear along the lower portions of the side walls, creating a moral framework around the biblical narratives above them.
Giotto later worked again in Florence. His fresco cycles in the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels of Santa Croce demonstrate his continuing importance as a painter of large narrative programs.
He also worked for patrons in Naples and elsewhere in Italy. His reputation extended considerably beyond Florence during his lifetime.
In 1334 Giotto was appointed to work on the cathedral complex in Florence and became associated with the design of its great bell tower. The structure remains known as Giotto's Campanile even though it was completed after his death.
Giotto died in Florence in January 1337. His approach to bodies, space, gesture, and narrative profoundly influenced later Italian painters.