Giotto di Bondone (ca. 1266–1337)

Giotto di Bondone, usually known only as Giotto, is generally considered the first in a line of great painters who contributed to the Italian Renaissance. His work marks a break with the previously dominant Byzantine style and a return to more natural, life-like depictions of the human form. The frescoes in Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, also known as the Arena Chapel, completed around 1305, are generally considered his masterpiece.

Giotto di Bondone (ca. 1266–1337), colour photograph of a marble statue on the facade of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, 2004, sculptor: Giovanni Dupré (1817–1882), photographer: Frieda; source: Wikimedia Commons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uffizi_Giotto.jpg, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.