ABSTRACT
In the fourteenth century, Giotto was credited with hav-
ing brought painting out of the darkness of the Middle
Ages into the light of a new day. Dante’s famous lines in
the Purgatory state the light/dark metaphor in compar-
ative terms, noting that Giotto’s reputation obscured that
of Cimabue:
O empty glory of human powers! How short the time
its green endures at its peak, if it be not
overtaken by crude ages! Cimabue thought to hold
the fi eld in painting, and now Giotto has the cry,
Not only was Cimabue seen, as he would be by Vasari
over two hundred years later, as the end of an era associ-
ated with darkness, but his fame also dimmed in con-
trast with Giotto’s light. This comparison was one that
would reverberate throughout the Renaissance in works
of literature and history as well as in writing on art and
artists. For the author Giovanni Boccaccio, Giotto had
restored light to the art of painting by resurrecting it
from the grave. By this, Boccaccio meant that Giotto had
restored a degree of naturalism to his works that had not
been seen since the fall of the Roman Empire.
