GIOVANNI DA MILANO
(active 1350-69, Milano, Firenze)

Birth of the Virgin (north wall, detail)

1365
Fresco
Rinuccini Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence

Agnolo Gaddi, Giovanni da Milano, and Altichiero da Zevio competed in the development of Giotto's figurative space. The plane of the wall as the foremost level of fictive space, combined with perspective in depth, remains. But the paintings of the Rinuccini Chapel in Santa Croce in Florence in 1365 by Giovanni da Milano points up the further possibilities of pictorial architecture in its ornamental framing. The compressed space loses its importance as architectural space and gains in decorative elegance, though even here the figures in the story of the Virgin act within an architectural stageset. The poetry of their movements reflects the refined patterns painted on the frame.