Cenni di Pepo (Giovanni) Cimabue (c. 1240 — c. 1302) also known as Bencivieni di Pepo or in modern Italian, Benvenuto di Giuseppe, was an Italian painter and creator of mosaics from Florence. He is also well known for his student Giotto, considered the first great artist of the Italian Renaissance. Cimabue is generally regarded as the last great Italian painter working in the Byzantine tradition. The art of this period comprised scenes and forms that appeared relatively flat and highly stylized. Cimabue was a pioneer in the move towards naturalism, as his figures were depicted with rather more life-like proportions and shading.

This is one of Cimabue's early works, he painted it around 1265, before his journey to Rome in 1272. Cimabue, whose real name was Cenni di Pepo, was Giotto's master and was mainly famous for a later masterpiece: the crucifix in Santa Croce in Florence. But after the flood in 1966 in Florence, which partly destroyed the crucifix, this work has become more important. Here he brilliantly breaks away from the Byzantine style, not only in technique, but also in his more “humane” vision of the tragedy of Calvary: instead of a triumphant Christ, he paints a suffering Christ who carries the weight of the sin of man. He is, in fact, laying the basis for Giotto's great innnovations and announcing the Italian Renaissance style.