Giotto begins Bardi Chapel frescoes

1306

After finishing the Scrovegni cycle in Padua, Giotto returned to Florence to fresco the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels in Santa Croce with scenes from the lives of Saint Francis and John the Baptist. His figures gained monumentality, their gestures distilled to an austere grandeur. Florentine patricians now commissioned chapels as personal portraits in paint and architecture.