Giotto and its school worked on the Maddalena chapel’s décor in two stages between 1321 and 1337, on the first level of Florence’s Bargello palace. The oldest portrait of Dante was left behind by the pictorial cycle, which told the tales of Maddalena, San Giovanni Battista, Hell, and Paradise.
During his political career in Florence, the poet visited Bargello, which was then home to the Podestà; nonetheless, he was sentenced to exile in the same building. A few years later, on the day of the universal judgment, Giotto and his store depicted Dante by placing him among the blessed who are welcomed in heaven.
Although his city had acknowledged Dante’s magnificence, the Giottesco image was forgotten when Bargello was turned into a jail. Rekindling interest in the portrait and initiating an exciting race to uncover the hidden masterpiece will need the historian Seymour Kirkup’s investigation in the mid-1800s.
Giotto and his school’s discovery and restoration of Dante’s original image was a complicated tale tinged with intense rivalry.
