Cimabue paints at Assisi

1278

The Florentine master Cimabue frescoed the upper church of San Francesco at Assisi with scenes of the apocalypse and the lives of the apostles. Time and chemical decay would later turn his colors into ghostly negatives, but his grave figures remain monumental and grieving. His pupil Giotto, who would soon paint the lower church, would push painting beyond the Byzantine conventions that Cimabue had begun to challenge.