Giusto de' Menabuoi: The Florentine Painter of Paradise Giusto de’ Menabuoi (c. 1320–1391) was an Italian painter born in Florence, marking the dawn of the Quattrocento – a pivotal era in Renaissance art history. While definitive biographical details remain elusive, scholarly consensus points to him as a student of Giotto di Bondone, arguably the most influential artist of his time, establishing a foundational connection between Florentine artistic tradition and Byzantine iconography. His formative years were spent absorbing the stylistic nuances of Giotto’s frescoes at Assisi and Padua, sha…