These new techniques must have dazzled viewers accustomed to Giotto’s Byzantine predecessors, but they were equally stunning to my 21st-century eyes after closer examination.

“We thought that Giotto was the first to use this kind of pseudo-script, and use this rare technique, and now a new piece of the puzzle has arrived,” Bohl says. With his textiles, he adds ...

When I first saw Giotto’s fresco cycle “The Legend of St. Francis” in the upper church of the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi—a small Italian town two hours from Rome by train—I ...