Giotto was certainly seen at work in Rimini around the year 1300, when he painted in the Church of San Francesco the extraordinary Crucifix that is still preserved there and that dates back to the late 13th century (and perhaps a cycle of frescoes that was destroyed when that church was renovated to become the Malatesta Temple). During his stay Giotto helped the flourishing of a vast array of artists, illuminators, painters and fresco painters, who also worked outside the Malatesta dominion, giving rise to the fourteenth-century Rimini School.

The Crucifix is a panel painting that today is hanging in the apse of the basilica, an image of great concreteness and humanity, with the body of Christ turned by a subtle chiaroscuro.