Giovanni da Milano

Giovanni da Milano (born in Lombardy, Italy; active in Florence, Italy 1346-1369) is first recorded in 1346 as a foreigner serving his painter’s apprenticeship in Florence. He did not become a citizen of Florence, however, until 1366, when he was painting his most important work, the frescoes of scenes from the lives of the Virgin and the Magdalen in the Rinuccini chapel in the sacristy of Santa Croce. Nothing remains of the frescoes he is known to have executed in 1369 in two chapels in the Vatican, where he worked with Giottino and with Agnolo and Giovanni Gaddi. His style was certainly formed by that of the followers of Giotto who were active in Milan, but it seems likely that he also knew the works of Vitale da Bologna and Tommaso da Modena. Giovanni da Milano harmonized the naturalistic tendencies of Lombard art with a sense of space derived from Giotto.