Giotto di Bondone known mononymously as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the "Gothic or Proto-Renaissance" period.

Giotto's contemporary, the banker and chronicler Giovanni Villani, wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature" and of his publicly recognized "talent and excellence".

Giotto di Bondone was known for being the earliest artist to paint more realistic figures rather than the stylized artwork of the medieval and Byzantine eras Giotto is considered by some scholars to be the most important Italian painter of the 14th century. His focus on emotion and natural representations of human figures would be emulated and expanded upon by successive artists, leading Giotto to be called the "Father of the Renaissance."

Though many stories and legends have circulated about Giotto and his life, very little can be confirmed as fact. He was born in Colle di Vespignano, near Florence, in 1266 or 1267 -- or, if Vasari is to be believed, 1276. His family was probably farmers. Legend has it that while he was tending goats he drew a picture on a rock and that the artist Cimabue, who happened to be passing by, saw him at work and was so impressed with the boy's talent that he took him into his studio as an apprentice. Whatever the actual events, Giotto appears to have been trained by an artist of great skill, and his work is clearly influenced by Cimabue.

He was personally acquainted with Boccaccio, who recorded his impressions of the artist and several stories of his wit and humor; these were included by Giorgio Vasari in the chapter on Giotto in his Lives of the Artists.

Giotto was married and at the time of his death, he was survived by at least six children.