The Cambridge Companion to Giotto serves as an introduction to one of the most important masters of early Italian art. Providing an overview of his life and career, this 2003 volume offers essays by leading authorities on the critical reception of the artist, an analysis of workshop practices of the period, the complexities of religious and secular patronage, Giotto's innovations in painting and architecture, and close readings of his most celebrated work, the frescoes of the Arena Chapel in Padua. Designed to serve as an essential resource for students of late medieval and early Renaissance Italy, The Cambridge Companion to Giotto also provides a chronology of the artist's life and a select but comprehensive bibliography.

This study examines the narrative paintings of the Passion of Christ created in Italy during the thirteenth century. Demonstrating the radical changes that occurred in the depiction of the Passion cycle during the Duecento, a period that has traditionally been dismissed as artistically stagnant, Anne Derbes analyzes the relationship between these new images and similar renderings found in Byzantine sources. She argues that the Franciscan order, which was active in the Levant by the 1230s, was largely responsible for introducing these images into Italy.