The Madonna and Child in Majesty Surrounded by Angels

The frame is decorated with twenty-six painted medallions depicting Christ and four angels, as well prophets and saints. This is one of Cimabue's early works, painted in about 1280, well before the Maestà di Santa Trinità (Florency, Uffizi). A lack of consensus in attributing this painting to the Florentine master is due in large part to the later date of execution traditionally assigned to it, difficult to reconcile with the hieratic and dramatic style.

A new sensitivity

Cimabue's palette is delicate, with shaded tones, notably in the angels' wings. The figures take on real solidity and an unprecedented visual presence. The artist prepared the ground for 14th-century Florentine art. His works raise the issues that would preoccupy his successors, notably Giotto: the representation of space, the representation of the body, and light.