Giotto's Campanile rises beside Florence Cathedral
1334
The aging master began his tower of white, green, and pink marble beside the unfinished Duomo, designing a structure of sublime geometric proportion. He designed all six stories but lived to see only the first completed. The campanile - geometric, luminous, sheathed in sculpted hexagons depicting human arts and labors - became Florence's vertical signature and a monument to the city's civic pride.
In context
Also in 1334 (4 other events on record)
- Yuan dynasty floods trigger mass famine on the Yellow River · East Asia · Disaster
- Ibn Battuta visits Kilwa Kisiwani · Africa · Exploration
- Benedict XII begins Avignon's monumental building · Europe · Religion
- Gerson's proto-nominalism at Oxford · Europe · Science
Before and after in Europe
Before and after in Culture
Era
Late Middle Ages (1301–1500), one of 874 events from that era on Saeculum.
Sources