Cimabue
The Life and Identity of Cimabue In the bustling streets of Florence, Italy, a man named Giovanni Cimabue began his life around 1240. He was known to many by the names Cenni di Pepo or Cenni di Pepi, names that belonged to a man destined to shape the visual language of his age. He was a painter and a designer of mosaics, a craftsman whose hands worked with both the delicate brush and the enduring stone. His spirit was said to be strong, perhaps even rebellious, earning him a nickname that suggested a bull-headed determination. This stubbornness was not a flaw, but rather the driving force th…
The Subject Atlas
A chart of Cimabue's corpus mapped not by date but by subject. Spokes are what they painted; rings are when; and the threads between stars reveal the patrons and places that secretly connect them.
Spokes — Subject
Each arm of the atlas gathers works by what they depict: portraits, sacred scenes, mythologies, and the scientific studies. Click a spoke to swing that cluster to the top.
Rings — Career Period
Distance from the center marks time. The innermost ring is the earliest period; the outermost, the final years. Style matures as you move outward.
Threads — Shared Context
Coloured lines link works bound by the same patron, commission, or theme. Trace a context to watch related clusters light up across subjects.