Trecento Frescoes - The age and legacy of Giotto

Fly at c. 2.15pm (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Venice Marco Polo and drive (c. 1 hour) to Padua, where the first two nights are spent.

Among the most illustrious of Italian cities, and a leading centre of painting in the 14th century. The great fresco cycle by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel is a major landmark in the history of art. Colourful and lively works by Altichieri and Giusto de’ Menabuoi are in the vast multi-domed Basilica di S. Antonio and the Oratorio di S. Giorgio.

Start the day with a second visit to the Arena Chapel before boarding a fast train for Florence. The abundant frescoes in the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella include those by Filippino Lippi and Domenico Ghirlandaio. They were financed by the most important Florentine families to ensure themselves funerary chapels. The next three nights are spent in Florence.

Pisa’s Campo Santo contains an expanse of frescoes exceeding that of the Sistine Chapel. Nearly destroyed during World War II, vast restoration efforts – concluding in 2018 with the reinstallation of Buffalmacco’s Triumph of Death – have returned it to almost its original glory. The museum of under-drawings, the Museo delle Sinopie, is an essential destination in any fresco tour. Back in Florence, visit San Miniato al Monte to see frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi on the vault and by Spinello Aretino in the sacristy.

Morning drive to San Gimignano, the enchanting little city of towers. In the Collegiata there are Old and New Testament fresco cycles, respectively by Barna da Siena and Lippo Memmi. Memmi painted a Maestà in the town hall. Santa Croce in Florence is a vast Franciscan church and favoured burial place for leading citizens. Giotto’s great works in the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapels find echoes in the several other frescoes by other 14th-century masters.

Leave Florence and drive to Siena. The Palazzo Pubblico is home to a large collection of secular frescoes, commissioned, unusually, not by the church but by the governing body of the city. The most notable cycle, The Allegory of Good and Bad Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, adorns the walls of the Sala della Pace. Simone Martini also created two works of exquisite beauty. Continue to Assisi for the final two nights.

Spend most of the day at S. Francesco, mother church of the Franciscan Order. Here is one of the greatest assemblages of medieval fresco painting, including the cycle of the Life of St Francis which may or may not be by Giotto. There is an upper and a lower church – much more than a crypt – and many of Giotto’s contemporaries worked here, including Cimabue, Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti.

Drive from Assisi to Rome and fly from Fiumicino Airport, arriving at London Heathrow c. 5.15pm.