Short answers, pulled from the story.
Giotto di Bondone was born around 1267 in Florence, though some sources suggest a farmhouse in the Mugello region. Documentary evidence from 1999 indicates he was likely born in Florence to a blacksmith father named Bondone.
In 1334 Giotto was appointed chief architect for Florence Cathedral to design a new bell tower. Construction began on the 18th of July 1334 under his supervision before Andrea Pisano and Francesco Talenti completed the structure after his death in 1359.
Enrico degli Scrovegni commissioned the decoration of the Arena Chapel in Padua around 1305. This fresco cycle depicts the Life of the Virgin and the Life of Christ across thirty-seven scenes within the family worship space and burial ground.
Giotto broke from Byzantine traditions by creating figures with solid three-dimensional forms based on close observation rather than stylized elongation. He employed foreshortening techniques so characters face inward toward observers while drapery hangs naturally with weight and form unlike swirling formalized patterns of earlier eras.
King Robert of Anjou summoned Giotto to Naples around 1311 where he stayed until 1333. He received a yearly pension as first court painter starting in 1332 but few Neapolitan works survive except fragments like the Lamentation of Christ in Santa Chiara church.
Excavations beneath Santa Reparata church discovered bones near where Vasari claimed he was buried and anthropologist Francesco Mallegni examined these remains in 2000 finding chemicals like arsenic and lead absorbed into bone tissue. The skeleton belonged to a very short man little over four feet tall who may have suffered congenital dwarfism yet Franklin Toker argued they were likely bones of some fat butcher instead.