Giottino (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1324 – 1369), also known as Tommaso Fiorentino, was an early

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

painter from

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

. His real name was Maso di Stefano or Tommaso di Stefano. Giottino's father, Maestro Stefano Fiorentino, "Stefano the Florentine", was a celebrated painter in the school of

Giotto Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto, was an List of Italian painters, Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the International Gothic, Gothic and Italian Ren ...

whose naturalism earned him the appellation "Scimmia della Natura", the "Ape of Nature", for his perceived realism. Stefano instructed his son while Maso was studying the works of the great Giotto. Since Maso formed his style on Giotto's works, he became known as Giottino, the "little Giotto". The frescoes in the chapel of San Silvestro in the Florentine Basilica of Santa Croce are attributed to Giottino. These frescoes represent the miracles of Pope Sylvester as narrated in the ''

Golden Legend The ''Golden Legend'' ( or ''Legenda sanctorum'') is a collection of 153 hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that was widely read in Europe during the Late Middle Ages. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived.Hilary Maddo ...

''. Many other works have been attributed to Giottino including ''Apparition of the Virgin to St. Bernard'' and a marble statue erected on the Florentine campanile. Works by Giottino are in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance painter, architect, art historian, and biographer who is best known for his work ''Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'', considered the ideol ...

, the chronicler of the Italian Renaissance, includes a biography of Giottino in the second part of his famous ''

Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects ''The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'' () is a series of artist biographies written by 16th-century Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari, which is considered "perhaps the most famous, and even today the ...

'' (''Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori da Cimabue insino a' tempi nostri'').

References

Further reading