Italian Painting of the Later Middle Ages

Until the late eleventh century, southern Italy occupied the western border of the vast Byzantine empire. Even after this area fell under Norman rule in about 1071, Italy maintained a strong link with Byzantium through trade, and this link was expressed in the art of the period. Large illustrated Bibles ("giant Bibles") and Exultet Rolls—liturgical scrolls containing texts for the celebration of Easter, produced in the Benevento region of southern Italy—enjoyed great popularity from about 1050 onward. Miniature illustrations in the Bibles, which relate to contemporary monumental wall paintings produced in Rome, were strongly influenced by early Christian painting cycles from Roman churches. The brightly colored gold-ground panels produced during the thirteenth century likewise were markedly inspired by Byzantine models. The influences of Byzantine painting intensified after the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by Christian armies of the Fourth Crusade, at which time precious objects from the East made their way to Italian soil.

At the start of the fourteenth century, elements of Gothic style began to appear in Italian painting. By mid-century, a surge of artistic output concentrated in central Italy integrated new ideals into earlier modes of depiction. Over time, figures became increasingly naturalistic, the linear and angular quality of garment drapery softening somewhat as well.

At the end of the thirteenth century and beginning of the fourteenth, two great masters appeared who changed the course of painting: the Florentine Giotto di Bondone (1266/76–1337) and the Roman Pietro Cavallini (ca. 1240–after ca. 1330). Giotto's figures are volumetric rather than linear, and the emotions they express are varied and convincingly human rather than stylized. He created a new kind of pictorial space with an almost measurable depth. With Giotto, the flat world of thirteenth-century Italian painting was transformed into an analogue for the real world, for which reason he is considered the father of modern European painting. Among the most exceptional artists who painted during his day were Taddeo Gaddi, Maso di Banco, Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini. Simone Martini added an elegance and refinement to the spare form of Giotto's art.