GIUNTA

PISANO  , the earliest Italian painter whose name is found inscribed on an extant work . He is said to have exercised his art from 1202 to 1236 . He may perhaps have been born towards 118o in Pisa, and died in or soon after 1236; but other accounts give 1202 as the date of his birth, and 1258 or thereabouts for his death . There is some ground for thinking that his family name was Capiteno . The inscribed work above referred to, one of his earliest, is a " Crucifix," long in the kitchen of the convent of St Anne in Pisa . Other Pisan works of like date are very barbarous, and some of them may be also from the hand of Giunta . It is said that he painted in the upper church of Assisi,—in especial a "Crucifixion " dated 1236,with a figure of Father Elias, the general of the Franciscans, embracing the foot of the cross . In the sacristy is a portrait of St Francis, also ascribed to Giunta; but it more probably belongs to the close of the 13th century . He was in the practice of painting upon cloth stretched on wood, and prepared with plaster .