The glory of Italian Renaissance art has overshadowed the work of earlier Italian masters. In the past century, a great number of panel paintings and frescoes of extraordinary importance have come to light, and these masterpieces reveal a hitherto unknown art of outstanding richness. In Early Italian Painting, art historian Robert Oertel, director of the picture gallery of the State Museum in Berlin-Dahlem, gives a complete account of Italian painting from the Dark Ages to the threshold of the Renaissance. Beginning with the earliest examples in the fifth to seventh centuries, he advances to the monumental works of the eleventh century— such as Sant'Angelo in Formis—and the development of panel painting in the following two centuries. The major part of the book concentrates on Cimabue, Duccio, Simone Martini, the Lorenzettis, and, above all, Giotto.

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