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Vasari bears witness to the fact that the two friends were in contact even while the poet was in exile. Giotto, in fact, went to Verona to visit \u201cCane\u201d, alias Canagrande Della Scala, Dante\u2019s famous host to whom the poet dedicated his third canticle, Paradise. On Giotto\u2019s return to Tuscany, he stopped in Ferrara at the home of the Este family, and \u201c[\u2026] when news reached the ears of Dante, the Florentine poet, that Giotto was in Ferrara, he did all he could to have him taken to Ravenna, where he was exiled; and he had him fresco scenes in the church of San Francesco for the Lords of Polenta.\u201d As is well known, in fact, the Polenta family were the last to host Dante before he died of malaria upon his return\u00a0 from Venice in September 1321.
\nVasari continues by stating that \u201c[\u2026] in 1332, being that the year before his great friend Dante had died causing him much sadness, he went to Lucca, and at the request of Castruccio, Lord of that city and his homeland, he painted a panel in San Martino.\u201d
\nIn Giotto\u2019s biography we find curious anecdotes of the perfect circle drawn for Pope Benedict IX and the prank he played on Cimabue when he painted a fly on the nose of one of Cimabue\u2019s characters: the fly was so lifelike that the master tried to shoo it away many times with his hand. In addition, Vasari writes that Giotto was \u201cingenious and very pleasant and terribly witty.\u201d<\/p>\n
The name Giotto was perhaps short for the name\u00a0 Angiolotto, Ambrogiotto, Parigiotto, or even Biagiotto (the nickname \u201cGiotto\u201d for Biaxio was still in use in Florence in the 15th<\/sup> century). [vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1610459561085{padding-top: 10px !important;padding-bottom: 10px !important;background-color: #d03e3b !important;}”][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”middle”][vc_column width=”1\/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1610457778531{padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background: #ffffff url(https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/targyngy\/2021\/01\/Giotto.jpg?id=1466) !important;}” offset=”vc_col-lg-4 vc_col-md-4 vc_hidden-sm vc_hidden-xs”][vc_empty_space height=”20em” alter_height=”none” hide_on_mobile=””][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″ scheme=”dark” css=”.vc_custom_1487757701308{padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #343340 !important;}” offset=”vc_col-lg-4 vc_col-md-4″][vc_single_image image=”2098″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1610470745282{padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;}”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1610470843460{margin-right: 30px !important;margin-left: 30px !important;padding-top: 15px…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[74],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2597"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2638,"href":"https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597\/revisions\/2638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dante.mugellotoscana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBiographical information about the artist\u2019s first years are fragmentary. It was in the 1280s, and therefore when he was roughly ten years old, that he met Cimabue and followed him to\u00a0 Florence where he worked as an apprentice in the artist\u2019s workshop.
\nLegend has it that the episode that changed the boy\u2019s life, as recounted by Lorenzo Ghiberti in his \u201cCommentarii<\/em>\u201d (1452), and also later by Vasari, took place on the Ponte Alla Ragnaia\u2015since called Ponte di Cimabue (Cimabue\u2019s bridge)\u2015while the boy was intent on depicting one of the sheep in his flock on a slate using a pointed stone. The Master was so taken aback that he asked the boy to follow him to his work shop in Florence.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"