Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 3 minutes):Guillauame Dufay: Ut queant laxis, hymn for the feast of St John the Baptist
The construction of the Peruzzi Chapel, the second chapel of the right-hand transept, was made possible by the influential banker, Donato di Arnoldo Peruzzi, who left additional money for this memorial chapel in his will in 1299. It was probably his grandson Giovanni di Rinieri Peruzzi who donated the murals honouring John the Evangelist and John the Baptist, which were the first works created by Giotto in Santa Croce.
The juxtaposition of the two John cycles is unusual, and researchers believe it contains a mixture of religious and secular iconography: John the Evangelist was the donor's name-saint; John the Baptist was patron saint both of the city of Florence and of St. Francis, to whom Santa Croce is dedicated. In his family's memorial chapel the banker Peruzzi, therefore, has realized a program which connects his own memory and that of his family with the religious background of the Franciscans and the fate of the city, in which the Peruzzis were one of the most influential families.
The ruinous state of the murals in the Peruzzi Chapel has several causes. They were, unusually, executed entirely in secco technique, and they were damaged early on, and more than once, by flooding from the Arno. Moreover, they were whitewashed during the second half of the eighteenth century, were very freely restored in 1841, and underwent a radical removal of overpainting in 1958-61. All of this ruined, almost beyond recognition, the surface of the paint, as well as the modeling, contours, and infill drawing of the figures in the surviving sections.
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Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 3 minutes): Guillauame Dufay: Ut queant laxis, hymn for the feast of St John the Baptist |
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| Summary of paintings by Giotto |
| Frescoes in San Francesco, Assisi |
| Upper Church: Legend of St Francis | New Testament scenes | Lower Church |
| Frescoes in Arena Chapel, Padua |
| Life of Joachim | Life of Virgin | Life of Christ | Angels | Heads Last Judgment | Heads Vault frescoes | Virtues and Vices | Decorative elements |
| Frescoes in Santa Croce, Florence |
| Frescoes in Peruzzi Chapel | Frescoes in Bardi Chapel |
| Panel paintings |
| Crucifix | Maestŕ and others | Polyptych panels | Stefaneschi Altarpiece | Baroncelli Polyptych |
| Miscellaneous works |
| Navicella mosaic | Campanile of the Florence Cathedral |
