Ognissanti Madonna

Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna fills a golden, pointed panel with a throne and a tightly gathered heavenly court. The seated Virgin commands the centre through the breadth of her body and the great dark sweep of her mantle. At her feet, two angels kneel with flowers; farther back, saints become visible in fragments between the architecture and overlapping halos. The picture rewards attention to those different degrees of visibility: a monumental mother and child, a clear foreground, and a crowded company that continues beyond what we can fully see.

Ognissanti Madonna is a huge painting by Giotto that can now be found at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The artist completed this fresco in around 1310.

The work is a panel painting, rather than a fresco: the Uffizi catalogues it as tempera on wood with a gold ground, measuring 325 × 204 centimetres, inventory 1890 no. 8344. Its present museum date is approximately 1300–1305. The familiar date around 1310 belongs to a different chronology; neither estimate should be mistaken for a surviving dated contract. ^[1]

The painting was originally designed to be placed in the high altar of the Ognissanti Franciscan church in Florence. It is dated at around 1310, with most evidence of its attribution to Giotto coming in an early biography of Lorenzo Ghiberti which arrived around a century later. Some of Giotto's installed paintings have been moved elsewhere from their original locations in order to ensure that as many people as possible can enjoy them as well as being confident that their condition is sufficiently protected.

At the time of Giotto's commission, Ognissanti belonged to the Humiliati. The Franciscans took over much later, in the sixteenth century. The high-altar destination is unproved. Michael Viktor Schwarz's examination of the early descriptions stresses that they do not establish where this immense Madonna originally stood. A side altar or an installation associated with the church's choir screen remains possible. ^[2]

Lorenzo Ghiberti was the sculptor and writer who recorded Giotto's works in his fifteenth-century Commentarii. This is testimony about Giotto, rather than a biography of Ghiberti. In the transmitted Italian text, Ghiberti lists several works among the Humiliati in Florence and distinguishes a very large enthroned Madonna surrounded by angels from a Death of the Virgin. His account is valuable early attribution evidence, although it neither supplies the Madonna's execution date nor identifies its original altar. ^[3]

Considering the fact that so many of Giotto's work has been damaged or completely lost, it is pleasing that this particular artwork remains well cared for in one of the most prestigious art musems in the world. It is the finer details of this painting that sets the artist out during this period. His use of multi-dimensional figures had not been seen before, where as his use of gold colouring was very much in line with previous works from others in the Italo-Byzantine movement. He would combine new and old, particularly during this time in his career when Giotto was continuing to develop as an artist.

Giotto's achievement becomes clearer when bodily volume is understood as a sustained pictorial decision rather than an unprecedented discovery. Earlier painters and sculptors had already explored depth, weight and the turning human body. Here the imposing breadth of Mary's knees, the shaded turn of her neck and the way Christ's feet rest against her clothing make those concerns unusually insistent. The painting retains a gold field and differences of scale between sacred ranks. These conventions work together with its physical presence.

Look first at the great dark mantle. Its broad lower expanse is interrupted by a handful of long folds; one sweep of gold edging curves across the lap and descends towards the right. There is little patterned distraction on this large area, so each change of tone helps describe a supporting leg or the fall of cloth. Mary's pale bodice makes a second, quieter field above it. The contrast concentrates attention on a person sitting within the throne, with weight distributed across its seat.

Giotto makes a clear balance of importance in this composition, enlarging his central figures far beyond the supporting figures who line the edge of the canvas. The viewer is left in no doubt as to where their focus should lie. In fact, the baby himself is almost the same size as the adults who look on in admiration. The throne being sat upon by the Madonna is in a strictly gothic style as confirmed by the Cosmatesque features that decorate its frontage. This approach had been seen since the Middle Ages in several of the Papal States. Another interesting aspect of the way in which Giotto put this painting together is in the distinct lack of space that sits on the outer edges of the scene. This again focuses one on the key elements.

The painted support is wood. The throne's Gothic character emerges particularly clearly in its pointed canopy, pinnacles and delicate openings. Together they give it the appearance of a miniature architectural shelter. Against these slender uprights, Mary's body seems especially broad. The shelter almost fits her too closely: her halo approaches the arch, while her mantle fills much of the seat below.

The scale differences are deliberate. No attempt is made to measure Christ and the angels by one consistent anatomical yardstick. Yet the figures can still occupy convincing positions within the imagined structure. The front angels kneel beside its steps, the standing attendants overlap its flanks, and more distant heads emerge around the uprights. Sacred importance governs size; obstruction and overlap help us understand position. The same painting asks to be read in both ways.

Table of Contents

• Where can Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna be found Today?

• What Techniques were used to Produce this Painting?

• What other Madonna's did Giotto Create?

• What Elements are Included within this Composition?

• Which Artists Influenced Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna?

• What is a Maestà?

• Why is this Painting called the Ognissanti Madonna?

• What other Paintings did Giotto Produce at Around the Same Time?

• Which related Artworks can also be Found at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence?

• Large Image of Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna

Where can Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna be found Today?

The Ognissanti Madonna can be found at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy. This highly significant artwork is normally on display alongside Cimabue's Santa Trinita Madonna and Duccio's Rucellai Madonna. They are within a hall titled "Giotto & the 13th Century" which lies on the second floor of this building and remains one of the biggest highlights to be found within the whole collection. These large fresco pieces have been given plenty of room within the museum and their locations within a major art gallery should help to ensure their preservation for the long term, as opposed to if they had remained within historical buildings in which the conditions are far more varied and unpredictable. Those lucky enough to visit the Uffizi will then find item sfrom the Sienese School and Florentine School from the 14th century in the adjoining rooms, giving the route something of a chronological order.

Duccio’s Rucellai Madonna, commissioned in 1285 for Santa Maria Novella, now in the Uffizi. This is a separate work by Duccio, shown for comparison. Image source. Public domain. Proportionally reduced reproduction; original composition, colour and photographic lighting retained.

Cimabue’s Santa Trinita Maestà, now in the Uffizi. Compare the enthroned Virgin, ranked angels and gold ground with Giotto’s panel paintings; this work is by Cimabue. Image source. Public domain. Proportionally reduced reproduction; original composition, colour and photographic lighting retained.

For a present-day visit, the Uffizi's official records list all three paintings in A4, Giotto–Cimabue. Room names and installations can change, so the museum's current artwork records are a more dependable guide than an old room title or a promised sequence through adjoining galleries. All three are paintings on wood with gold grounds. ^{[1] [22] [23]}

Seen at this scale, the Ognissanti Madonna offers two quite different encounters. From a distance, a pointed silhouette and the great dark shape of Mary's clothing establish an immediate centre. Closer inspection reveals faces wedged between halos, the delicate rims of the flower vessels, and small patterns on the architectural surfaces. The contrast helps explain why a reproduction of the whole picture and a detail of the central group answer different questions. The full view explains the ordering of the sacred assembly; the detail allows us to follow the making of a face or hand.

What Techniques were used to Produce this Painting?

Ognissanti Madonna (Madonna in Maestà) is believed to have taken several years to complete. It is a large piece, at over three metres in height. The gold leaf paint will likely take one's attention first, with Giotto favouring this look in many of his artworks. The background is entirely golden, and he would then use the same effect for small details within the main content, such as the halos. He would use some bright tones at the time of completing this piece, but some of the colours will inevitably have faded over time, even with the continual efforts to preserve the piece that have been made by its present owners at the Uffizi. Red was used on various items of clothing and this colour seems to have lasted best of all. The tempera work was added to a wooden panel, making the finished piece easier to relocate than if it had been directly applied to a wall's plaster surface which was another method used during the 13th and 14th century.

The object's size does not establish how many years its execution took, and the survival of strong reds in a reproduction cannot establish that red is its best-preserved pigment. Its present colours also need to be distinguished from the appearance of a particular photograph. The secure technical description is tempera on a wooden support with a gold ground; fresco, by contrast, is a method of painting on prepared wall plaster. ^[1]

The distinction matters to looking. Gold here does not behave simply as yellow paint. Its surface can catch illumination while the painted bodies remain shaded. Around a face, the bright disk of a halo sets off the darker modelling of a cheek; beside the throne, broad gold spaces interrupt the crowded ranks. The surface can therefore declare material splendour at the same time that the figures suggest a world beyond it. A photograph under even lighting tends to flatten this difference between reflecting metal and painted flesh.

The mantle provides a useful counterweight to the gold. Its deepest areas absorb attention slowly, with folds becoming legible as the eye follows the changing values. Christ's pink garment is more immediately readable. The drawn-up fabric beneath his waist, the fall across his knees and the exposed feet establish the small body on Mary's lap. Her long right hand supports him across the front, while her other hand closes around his side. The spread fingers and curved palm connect the majestic central image with the practical act of holding a child.

Decoration has not disappeared. It has been assigned particular places: the edges of garments, the surfaces of the throne, and the cloth behind the holy pair. Small repeated motifs make those places precious without breaking up every broad passage of drapery. The result depends on alternation. A patterned border becomes more noticeable beside a large dark field, just as an elaborately decorated riser becomes more striking below a plain stretch of pale stone.

What other Madonna's did Giotto Create?

In terms of the artist's madonnas, The Bologna Polyptych features a relatively similar layout to the piece discussed here, whilst The Flight into Egypt features Mary with child on a famous journey. There was also Giotto's Madonna and Child , though the artist tended to depict Christ much more commonly than anyone else within his paintings . Whilst he was highly respected as an artist, and given many projects purely because of his reputation alone, there would still be interference over the topics of the paintings that he would produce, with churches and other institutions normally selecting the themes themselves. Themes from the life of Christ would dominate Italian art for several centuries and be used across a wide range of different mediums, including sculpture and architecture, as well as the frescoes discussed here. It was only really the arrival of the Baroque era that signalled a widening of content within western art, bringing in the a greater use of portraiture and leading on to landscape art soon after.

Portraits and landscapes both have histories long before the Baroque, so that period cannot serve as their point of origin. For understanding this particular Madonna, a closer comparison is more useful: other surviving images show how Giotto adapted the relationship between mother and child to different formats.

The San Giorgio alla Costa Madonna is a separate, earlier panel. Its current custodian dates it approximately 1288–1295 and records that its outline was cut down in 1705. It, too, gives Mary a substantial body, with the blessing Child and a marble-like throne. The Opera del Duomo relates the work to Arnolfo di Cambio's sculpture, a reminder that painted figures were being made in a city also rich in carved bodies and architectural imagery. ^[24] A comparison must allow for the altered edges: today's narrower surviving shape is not a straightforward record of Giotto's original design.

The smaller Washington rose Madonna, a separate panel from Ognissanti. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Samuel H. Kress Collection,1939.1.256. Image source. Public domain. Proportionally reduced reproduction; no colour or content enhancement.

The San Giorgio alla Costa Madonna, with its throne, blessing Child and two angels.

The Madonna and Child in Washington is another object again, recognisable by its rose and more intimate exchange of gestures. It should not be given the San Giorgio name. Moving between these works, the useful question is how each image organises attention: through the encounter of two figures, through a throne and a small angelic company, or through the large heavenly gathering of the Ognissanti panel. The shared subject admits considerable differences of address.

What Elements are Included within this Composition?

At around this time many Italian artists were producing depictions of the madonna within a wide format, with key figures placed in rows. Giotto chooses to use the more traditional format of a vertical, narrow composition where supporting figures are placed all around the centre piece. The madonna and child here are sat within a beautifully ornate construction, which protects them from outside forces. They sit on a raised platform which lifts them up above the saints and angels who surround them. Each figure possesses divinity as signified by their golden halos. Two angels, with wings brightly coloured hanging down from their back, are perched in the foreground, admirably looking up in awe. The saints are stood either side of the main focal point and offer the same expression, with chins lifted and a strong sign of respect on display. The background is left entirely blank, with gold leaf paint covered it entirely, with a slight gradiation in tone which lightens as we move further down the painting. The larger image of the painting below reveals further details, such as potted flowers and stunning gifts being offered to the madonna.

The halos mark holiness; they do not make every saint or angel divine. In Christian belief, the distinction between God and the company of saints remains fundamental. Here the circles also have a practical pictorial role. They overlap faces and architecture, making the assembly feel crowded even where individual bodies cannot be followed. Some people are present chiefly as heads glimpsed through a narrowing interval. The picture gives us a gathering larger than the foreground alone could contain.

The foreground angels offer an especially clear route into the image. Their knees anchor them at the bottom corners, their wings rise behind pale garments, and their faces turn inward and upward. Between them lies the stair of the throne. Their mirrored placement creates balance, while differences in the angles of faces, wings and folds prevent the pair from feeling mechanically duplicated. Following their glances takes the eye from the lower edge towards Mary and Christ.

Each holds a flower vessel. Roses and lilies are associated here with charity and purity; the crown and covered vessel, or pyx, held by the attendants beside the throne introduce another range of meaning, probably connected with Christ's Passion. ^[1] These are devotional interpretations, not a reason to treat every petal or piece of metalwork as a word in an inflexible code. What the objects visibly establish is the act of offering. The court has brought gifts and assembled before the seated pair.

Christ raises his right hand in blessing and carries a rolled scroll in his left. ^[1] His gesture extends into the open space before Mary's pale upper garment, where it remains particularly easy to see. The action is small, but its position gives it authority. His mother's supporting hand lies lower and moves across the composition; his own hand lifts into the clearer space above. The two gestures describe care and blessing through the ordinary visibility of hands.

Which Artists Influenced Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna?

This artwork captures some of the stylistic touches that Giotto di Bondone would become particularly famous for. For example, notice how the madonna and child are heavily oversized in relation to the surrounding angels and saints. That is a method derived from Byzantine art, but other aspects of his work took in alternative influences. The gold leaf touches found within this painting were likely a direct result of his (likely) teachings under Cimabue, who would use similar methods himself. Some of the compositional choices are also very reminiscent of the Cimabue, with a clear symmetry found across the work. It can also be said that his figures are not delivered in a quite the same flat manner as normally found within medieval art and potentially this could show influence from sculptors of around the same time. He introduced more depth to the portraits in this piece, though there was still some way to go to reach the styles of the later phases of the Renaissance.

The relationship with Cimabue deserves a more careful comparison than a simple opposition between flat medieval painting and solid Renaissance painting. Cimabue's Santa Trinita Maestà, dated approximately 1290–1300 by the Uffizi, already builds an elaborate architectural throne and places prophets in openings beneath it. Its support is wood, and its technique is tempera with a gold ground. ^[22] The extended lines of gilding across Mary's clothing produce an intricate rhythm over the body. In Giotto's painting, fewer such lines compete with the broad forms of lap and torso.

Duccio's Rucellai Madonna was commissioned in 1285 by the Laudesi confraternity associated with Santa Maria Novella. Its later name comes from the Rucellai chapel, where it was installed centuries after the commission. At 450 × 290 centimetres, it is larger than Giotto's panel; the Uffizi likewise identifies its technique as tempera on wood with a gold ground. ^[23] Looking at Duccio's six attendants, one notices the repeated act of touching and supporting the throne. The curved border of Mary's mantle supplies a flowing line through the centre, and the throne's successive supports give the eye a pattern to trace.

Giotto alters the relationship between the assembly and the central seat. The foremost attendants have room to kneel on either side of a visible approach, while the saints farther back seem compressed by the architecture. The result has a more pronounced distinction between the space immediately before the throne and the space occupied by its surrounding court. The angels are still arranged in a balanced design, yet their positions describe different distances from the viewer.

Schwarz puts the contrast in terms of a viewer's imagined movement. In his reading, Duccio's angels bring the sacred image towards the worshipper, whereas Giotto's attendants flank an approach towards the Madonna. This is an interpretation of how the compositions address a beholder, rather than a claim that one picture possesses space and the other lacks it. It helps explain why the broad frontal stair in Giotto can feel like the beginning of a route, even though the viewer remains outside the painted world. ^[2]

The often repeated apprenticeship story should also be kept separate from these visible comparisons. Ghiberti transmits the tale of Cimabue discovering the boy Giotto drawing a sheep. Its interest as a story about natural talent does not make it a surviving training document. ^[3] Comparing the two paintings requires no invented record of a lesson or a particular instruction passed from master to pupil.

What is a Maestà?

The Maestà is a theme regularly used within tempera frescoes, with Giotto di Bondone continuing this trend in one of the more famous examples of it. The term translates as "majesty" and features the madonna and child sat down within a setting which promoted their significance. Typically, they would be placed centrally within the composition, and would often have angels and saints in large numbers across the rest of the work, though only the madonna and child were necessary for it to be termed as a Maestà. There have been different uses of the image across different cultures and periods, with western interpretations such as Giotto's most likely to have been influenced by earlier Byzantine mosaics. Many elements of that era would pass on into the Renaissance, due to the work of artists such as Giotto, Cimabue and Duccio . The elements of madonna and child are powerful themes which artists have wanted to tap into for their work, particularly as they were normally requested to cover only religious themes in any case for each commissioned piece.

A Maestà names a subject or type of image, rather than a painting technique. An enthroned Virgin and Child can be made in tempera, mosaic or another medium; the phrase does not describe a hybrid process called tempera fresco. In the Ognissanti painting, majesty is expressed through elevation, size, setting and the attention of the surrounding company. Mary sits above the kneeling angels, occupies far more of the picture than any attendant, and receives the architectural honour of the canopy.

Her gaze also changes the relationship between court and viewer. Most of the nearby attendants look towards the central pair, so their attention remains within the picture. Mary's turned face opens that enclosure. Her eyes meet the space in front of the panel, and the slightly parted lips keep the expression from settling into a closed mask. In a close view, the narrow interval of the mouth is one of the smallest marks with the strongest effect.

Schwarz reads that mouth as suggesting speech and encouragement, and considers the face's irregularities important to its presence. He also discusses earlier alterations that closed the mouth and regularised its outline, subsequently removed. The point is a history of changing responses to a face, rather than proof of a particular sentence Mary was imagined to speak. A feature that could seem too individual to a later restorer is central to the encounter the painting now offers. ^[2]

The same author draws attention to the ordinary wooden board beneath Mary's feet, set within the costly architecture. His reading allows both an allusion to the material of the Cross and a reminder of everyday physical comfort. The first is symbolic interpretation; the second describes how a familiar material can make an extraordinary throne intelligible. The panel's grandeur remains, but it includes small things that a worshipper could recognise from bodily experience. ^[2]

Why is this Painting called the Ognissanti Madonna?

This tempera panel piece from around 1310 was originally planned to be installed at the Ognissanti Church in Florence, and so was named as the Ognissanti Madonna in order to differentiate it from the many other madonna paintings found within the career of Giotto and other artists from the 13th and 14th century. Art historians have regularly identified pieces in this way, either using the name of its original location or perhaps the identity of whoever commissioned the piece. The Rolin Madonna by Jan van Eyck would be one good example of this. Giotto's madonna would be moved several times and would eventually become located in Florence's prestigious Uffizi gallery, where it remains today. The term Ognissanti, from the Florentine church, translates into English as "All Saints" and is just one example of many depictions of the madonna by artist Giotto.

Ognissanti supplies a historical connection, rather than a complete reconstruction of the commission. The crowded saints make a fitting visual company for a church dedicated to All Saints. Schwarz considers whether the Humiliati themselves or an associated Marian confraternity could have commissioned the panel, but finds no secure basis for identifying an individual patron. He also questions attempts to read the pale garments as a straightforward reference to the order's cloth and clothing. The rich fabric worn by Mary and the variety of colours among the angels complicate such a simple equation. ^[2]

For a devotional image, the important setting included activity as well as architecture. Schwarz connects the Madonna with the world of Marian praise and song, comparing the balance of heavenly dignity and maternal accessibility with a hymn sung before a different great Madonna in Siena. He does not produce evidence that this particular hymn was performed before Giotto's panel. The comparison offers a way to imagine looking accompanied by prayer, rather than silently viewing an isolated work in a modern gallery. ^[2]

The screen theory, too, needs this distinction between possibility and proof. Schwarz discusses a document recording a Giotto panel beside the entrance to the choir, and later descriptions of a comparatively small picture there. He argues that these notices are more likely to concern the Death of the Virgin than the immense Maestà. Even the throne's slight asymmetry does not fix the Madonna to a particular side of the church: he observes comparable adjustments in an image that occupied an axial position in Padua. A painted structure can guide perception without supplying a plan of its original room. ^[2]

What other Paintings did Giotto Produce at Around the Same Time?

The artist is known to have worked upon the interior of the Palazzo della Ragione between the years of 1309-1312 which overlaps his time in Florence. He also produced the Death of the Virgin at around the same time as the Ognissanti Madonna, which itself is loosely dated at around 1310. Soon after, by around 1312 he would move onto Rome and work on various projects within the Navicella in St. Peter's, underlining how much the artist would move around Italy during this period in order to compelete various projects and commissioned pieces. He was very much in demand at the time, and did not find it necessary to spend much time promoting his reputation, such was the level of prominence that he had already achieved. He would then return to Florence between the years of 1313-1315 as new requests continued to be offered to him. Each Italian state was competing with each other during this era, and into the later parts of the Renaissance, and this would offer great opportunities to the more famous names in the artistic world.

These movements should not be converted into a settled year-by-year itinerary for the Madonna. The precise Palazzo della Ragione and Navicella dates given above cannot serve as fixed limits for this panel's execution. Early testimony names the Paduan palace among Giotto's achievements, while a Florentine document points to an earlier Roman household; these are different kinds of evidence from contracts dating individual paintings. They do not establish how much he promoted his services. ^[3]

Schwarz records the prevalence of the date around 1310 in the scholarship available to him, then argues for a position after Padua, probably after 1307. Part of his case is that a dated 1307 Saint Peter panel follows Giotto's earlier San Giorgio Madonna without showing the Ognissanti work's influence. That is an inference from artistic relationships, not a document stating that the Maestà had yet to be painted. The current Uffizi estimate of approximately 1300–1305 therefore remains a real alternative to his reconstruction. ^{[1] [2]}

The other Ognissanti works enlarge the historical context without establishing one simultaneous commission. Ghiberti's list includes a large painted cross and a Death of the Virgin as well as the Madonna. Schwarz considers whether the surviving works might once have formed part of the decoration of a choir screen, while acknowledging how little is known of the building's medieval arrangement. Their association is a useful question about how images could work together through worship, sightlines and movement. It is not a recovered installation that can be drawn with certainty. ^{[2] [3]}

The Ognissanti painted cross and the Death of the Virgin now in Berlin offer a fuller view of this group of works. Their different subjects direct attention towards Christ's death and Mary's passage from earthly life. Together with the enthroned Madonna, they suggest the breadth of images that could serve the religious community. Their original relationship within the building remains a question, as does the extent to which they belonged to one campaign. ^{[2] [3]}

Which related Artworks can also be Found at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence?

As mentioned elsewhere, Cimabue's Santa Trinita Madonna and Duccio's Rucellai Madonna can be found within the same room as Giotto's piece, with this route within the second floor of the Uffizi then leading into various Italian schools from across the 14th century. The Uffizi more generally is an excellent symbol of the strength of Florence during these artistic eras, even though much of its collection derives from elsewhere in the country. There is plenty other fine artworks to be found within this institution, with some of the other items to look out for here including the likes of Simone Martini's Annunciation with St. Margaret and St. Ansanus, Andrea del Verrocchio's The Baptism of Christ , Rogier van der Weyden's Lamentation of Christ and also Sandro Botticelli's Primavera , The Birth of Venus . The display continues into Baroque and features North European art, though Italian works form the majority of its focus.

The closest comparison is worth making slowly. Begin with the shape of each throne; then compare the edges of Mary's garment and the way the angels stand, kneel or support the seat. Finally look at the main faces. These particular features reveal differences more precisely than a general ranking of three painters as successive steps towards the Renaissance.

In the Ognissanti Madonna, the outer framework grows progressively more delicate as it rises, while the seated body retains its broad weight. Along the bottom, repeated inlaid panels create a firm horizontal foundation. At the sides, faces and halos accumulate in narrow bands. Towards the top, gold opens around the pointed canopy. The density changes as the eye travels upwards: weight below, a crowded congregation through the middle, then more open surface around the summit.

That movement can be followed without losing sight of the central exchange between mother and child. Mary's body gives Christ a physical place to sit; his raised hand addresses the space before them; the surrounding company makes that encounter a public and sacred one. The painting's power rests on how these relationships remain legible at different distances. Its large design declares majesty, while the hands, folded fabric and attentive profiles give that majesty a human scale.

Large Image of Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna