To the side of the main altar of Santa Croce, you can see frescoes painted by Giotto in the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels. The Bardi Chapel, immediately to the right of the altar, shows the story of St Francis of Assisi

Before doing these, Giotto had painted the scene of the stigmata which you will see on the head of the chapel itself. Inside, the other stories of St Francis are beautifully narrated through the paintings. Notice the intensity and the expressiveness, as well as the use of color, especially in the scenes showing the Apparition to the Cathedral Chapter of Arles and the Death of the Saint. These frescoes date back to around 1320.
The next chapel on the right is the Peruzzi Chapel, and Giotto painted these frescoes in 1326 - the stories of St John the Baptist on the left hand side, and the stories of St John the Evangelist on the right. Giotto's harmonious use of perspective and of spatial relations, already visible in the Bardi Chapel, is here developed further. Notice how the figures relate to the space around them, how forceful the compositions are and how flexible the point of view.
In the back of the Baroncelli Chapel, further to the right, just before the sacristy, you will see the very beautiful polyptych, also by Giotto, showing the Crowning of the Virgin Mary against a gold background.