Since the age of Dante, Cenni di Pepo (ca. 1240–1302), known as Cimabue, has been considered the founding father of Italian painting. My proposed project will be the first contextual study of Cimabue and the Franciscan order, his most frequent patron. Cimabue’s art is primarily studied from the point of view of Florence, his native city, although he is first documented in Rome. A reconsideration of the works of Cimabue and his contemporaries in Rome and Assisi under the patronage of the Franciscan pope Nicholas IV will be at the heart of this study. I will examine Roman mosaics and frescoes by artists such as Jacopo Torriti and Pietro Cavallini as key influences on Cimabue’s creation of a new artistic idiom in the service of Franciscan ideologies. An exploration of Franciscan literary sources will also offer a broader view of the religious and historical circumstances that shaped his art.