MILAN – On the occasion of the anniversary of the death of ” Giotto” we offer you some anecdotes on the figure of one of the most famous painters in the world. Here are 7 things not everyone knows about Giotto. IT WAS UGLY
Giorgio Vasari, on the basis of a description of Boccaccio, who was a friend of Giotto, says of him that “there was no uglier man in the city of Florence”. Giotto was a very virile male, five feet tall, barely limping from a fall as a young man, with a large head and roughly squared off for the receding forehead, with the left eye smaller than the right and a bull-like neck. But Giotto’s cranial capacity was above the average of about 200 cubic centimeters. Moreover, contemporaries also spoke of the physical ugliness of this genius.THE DECEPTION OF THE FLY
It is said that the young Giotto, when he was still at Cimabue’s shop, painted a fly on the nose of a figure created by the master and that Cimabue noticed the joke, only after having made the gesture with his hand several times to send her away. OF HUMBLE ORIGINS
Giorgio Vasari tells that Giotto had humble origins. He was a shepherd boy, loved by all those who knew him and with a great talent that Cimabue discovered by chance, observing the drawings made by Giotto on a rock. The sheep drawn were so realistic that Cimabue asked his father to take the boy as an apprentice. GIOTTO AND THE PEOPLE
It is said that King Roberto d’Angio asked Giotto to paint his realm for him and he portrayed him as a donkey which, even though it already had a saddle on its back, smelled another one, desiring it; then the king asked him what that painting meant and Giotto replied: “The donkey and the people, carry your government on his back and want another one, not understanding that it would be the same as yours.” THE LEGEND OF GIOTTO’S “O”
It is said that Pope Boniface VIII, in the act of announcing the Jubilee of 1300, was looking for an artist to commission his portrait, and that the name of Giotto di Bondone was suggested to him, who had already distinguished himself for the fresco Stories of the old and new testament, made in the basilica of S. Francesco of Assisi, and for the Crucifix of S. Maria Novella in Florence. During the meeting with the pope’s trustee, Giotto, to prove his skills, I draw a circle on a canvas. The simple, but perfect, work is enough for Boniface VIII to understand the qualities of the artist. STICKED TO MONEY
Some documents reveal that the painter ‘s activity was not Giotto’ s only source of income. We learn that he supplemented his income by hiring looms to poor weavers who were unable to purchase the work tool. And it is even suspected that he exercised the usury loan. On one occasion he vouched for a loan, and when the debtor does not pay, Giotto came into possession of a part of his assets, corresponding to the amount of the debt. MAN WITH READY HIT
A passage from Boccaccio’s Decameron highlights a further aspect of Giotto’s character. In the fifth story of the sixth day, the jurist Forese da Rabatta says more or less like this: “Listen Giotto, if now a stranger who had never seen you came to meet us, seeing you so ugly he would think that you are the best painter in the world
” Giotto he replies sharply: “Yes, if looking at you, he would think you know abici.”
Beyond the salacious jokes, Boccaccio’s piece actually offers us valuable information. He tells us that Giotto was considered “the best painter in the world” and confirms that he was a lively spirit and ready for jokes (thus far from the nineteenth-century cliche of a solitary, introverted and misunderstood artist).
READ ALSO Giotto, the “legendary” painter

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