La Madonna col Bambino in maestà circondata da angeli

This towering panel comes from around 1280, the generation just before Giotto changed everything. Cimabue, a Florentine, was the most admired painter in Italy, and by tradition Giotto's teacher. See how he still works within the old Byzantine language of gold grounds and stacked angels, the Virgin's robe ridged with fine gold lines, and yet begins to let a little weight and softness into the faces. It was made for a church, meant to be seen by candlelight high above an altar, glowing. Dante, writing a generation later, put Cimabue into his poem as the painter who believed he led the whole field, until Giotto came along and the crowd's talk turned to the younger man.