Giotto, Last Judgment, circa 1305

Next I saw a large white throne and the one who was sitting on it. The earth and the sky fled from his presence and there was no place for them. I saw the dead, the great and the lowly, standing before the throne, and the scrolls were opened. Then another scroll was opened, the book of life. The dead were judged according to their deeds, by what was written in the scrolls. The sea gave up its dead; then Death and Hades gave up their dead. All the dead were judged according to their deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the pool of fire. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the pool of fire. -Revelation 20:11-15

At the sound of the seven Angels' trumpets, fire falls from the sky, seas turn to blood, the stars darken and a passage into the abyss of Hell cracks open. Out of Hell, creeps the seven headed dragon known to the world as evil incarnate, the devil Lucifer. He flies into the sky where a woman clothed in the remaining stars gives birth. War follows. Seven plagues and four horsemen slay the sinful. And finally, when the Lamb of God has won and the dragon defeated in this final crusade, God comes down upon his white throne to judge the living and the dead. This is the Biblical Book of Revelation, or the Christian apocalypse, which Giotto portrays in his Last Judgment.

In the early 14th Century, scenes from the Book of Revelations were not commonly drawn upon for the subjects of art. But then something came along to shift some of the focus away from the four gospels or the Old Testament. This something was Dante's Inferno, which happened to be written in the vernacular Italian language, not Latin. This made the epic poem accessible to all and, consequently, Dante's Inferno became widely popular. In response, readers became more interested in the particulars of Heaven and Hell. This could have led Giotto to dedicate a whole wall of the Arena Chapel to a scene from Revelations.

However, one problem exists, Dante's Inferno may have been published after Giotto painted the Arena Chapel. The date for Last Judgment is said to be 1305, while Dante started Inferno in 1308. But the Satan figure in the lower right hand corner of Last Judgment hints that Giotto was influenced by Dante. Giotto has painted the Devil eating a sinner while two dragons off to Satan's sides devour other sinners. Dante describes the Devil having three faces and chewing on three sinners. These sinners are Judas Iscariot, Brutas, and Cassius. The imagery is not exactly the same between Giotto and Dante, but the similarities exist. One influenced the other.

If Inferno had been written by the time Giotto painted Last Judgment or not, Giotto found this painting important and made it a centerpiece in the church. Anyone exiting would be forced to see Last Judgment because of the fresco's location. This brings down the weight of the sermon upon churchgoers as it reminds them of the final trial in which they are cast into Hell or flown into Heaven, but Jesus remains the center of the action. Diagonal lines descending from the top two angels unfolding the sky and carried through by the choir of angels hit the edges of the gothic style window and collide right at Jesus' waist line.

Then an upward motion from the cross, which divides the sinners from those about to be judged, directs even more attention to Jesus. Though this is a shame, since Giotto gives excellent detail to his Hell scene with all the tiny figures being damned. Maybe more detail existed in the left side where the paint has chipped off, but that is not the focus. Jesus is the focus. His facial expression coincides with Giotto's other work in that he was one of the first artists to show emotion in his subjects. In Last Judgment, Jesus looks upon those about to be judged with a stern parental stare. Jesus wishes for his children to prosper in Heaven, but he first must play the part of the judge.