THE BASILICA OF ST FRANCIS AT ASSISI. The Frescoes by Giotto his precursors and followers

GIOTTO DI BONDONE (1267-1337)

Italian scholar Lunghi provides a chronologically organized overview of the basilica of St. Francis in Assisi from its inception to the completion of its many wall decorations. Offering the most complete mural decoration of the 13th and 14th centuries found in Italy, the church represents at once the culmination of medieval culture and the dawn of the Renaissance art. Scholastic, Byzantine, and humanistic at the same time, the building gathers elements of French Gothic architecture, rare in Italy, and reasserts ancient Roman fresco painting within a great social dynamic. Works by then-revolutionary Florentine artists Cimabuc and Giotto, as well as the Sienese Lorenzetti and Simone Martini, are offered here in 232 high-quality color reproductions, many showing enlarged details in full-page placements.