Nicola Pisano

“ Statuary and Painting.―Under the Hohenstaufens statuary, which had been disallowed by the ancient church, rose into favour. Its first great master in Italy was Nicola Pisano, who died in A.D. 1274. Earlier indeed a statuary school had been formed in Saxony, of which no names but great works have come down to us. The goldsmith’s craft and metallurgy were brought into the service of the church by the German artists, and show not only wonderful technical skill, but also high attainment in ideal art. In Painting the Byzantines taught the Italians, and these again the Germans. ”

“ There will God reward them with the Crown of Peace to all eternity.
[166] Baptistery of Pisa, circular, of marble, with dome two hundred feet high, embellished with numerous columns, is a notable work of the twelfth century. The pulpit is a masterpiece of Nicola Pisano. Casa d'Oro at Venice is noted for its elegance. It was built in the fourteenth century. The Cathedral of Lisieux dates chiefly from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and contains many works of art. The Palais de Justice is of the fifteenth century. ”

“ There is, however, not much merit in the sculpture as a work of art, though as an enrichment of the buildings it is most effective. The statue in the centre is said to be by Nicola Pisano. The south front of the cathedral has a long range of arcading carried on engaged columns, each arch inclosing a small arcade of three divisions. Above this, below the eaves, is a very fine arcade of later date all carried on groups of shafts, and treated in the Venetian manner with ogee-arched labels above round arches. This stage is built of red marble; the lower part of the wall, of brick and stone. ”

“ Ah, I see Toscana well; plainly I see fair Florence, and [155] the halls where the statues of the great Tuscans stand, Giotto, Orcagna, Nicola Pisano, Dante, Petrarca, Boccacio, Macchiavelli, Galilei, and the godlike Michael Angelo; three thousand Croats—I can see them—are parading there among the statues; the air is so clear, you can see and hear everything: listen, Francesco, to the verses the marble Michael Angelo is now addressing to Dante:—
"Dear is to me my sleep, and that I am of stone ”

“ There is no church in Venice— (in what I am now saying I mean always to except S. Mark’s) —comparable either to Sta. Anastasia or to the cathedral at Verona in the interior; and the exteriors, though fine as examples of the bold use of brick, are nevertheless not first-rate, nor at all superior to what one sees elsewhere.
Sta. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari ought first to be described, as being certainly the finest of its class. The first stone is said to have been laid on April 3rd, 1250, Nicola Pisano being the architect. ”

“ This imitation never degenerated into servile copying; nor, on the 145 other hand, did Nicola attain the perfect grace of an Athenian artist. He remained a truly mediæval carver, animated with a Christian instead of a Pagan spirit, but caring for the loveliness of form which art in the dark ages failed to realise. [85]
[85] I am not inclined to reject the old legend mentioned above about Pisano's study of the antique. For a full discussion of the question see my 'Fine Arts,' Renaissance in Italy, Part III. chap. iii. ”

“ Above the Virtues rise pillars clustered in threes, framing the five bas-reliefs and supporting the parapet of the pulpit; and it is here, by these the most beautiful and extraordinary works of that age in Italy, that Niccolò Pisano will be for ever remembered.
Poor in composition though they be, they are full of marvellous energy, a Roman dignity and weight. It is antiquity flowering again in a Christian soil, with a certain new radiance and sweetness about it, a naïveté almost ascetic, that was certainly impossible from any Roman hand. ”

“ See M. Sauerlandt, Über die Bildwerke des Giovanni Pisano, &c (1904) ; A. Brach, Nicola und Giovanni Pisano und die Plastik des XIV. Jahrhunderts in Siena (1904) .
↑ See Schultz, Denkmaler der Kunst in Unter-Italien. vii. 5. ”

“ Niccolò’s son, Giovanni, became a citizen of Siena, and was chief architect of the Duomo during the two closing decades of the century. Stimulated by their presence and example, there rose an independent school of Sienese sculptors, which flourished from the end of the thirteenth to the middle of the fourteenth century—a school which chronologically succeeds to that founded by Niccolò Pisano, and anticipates the rise of the Florentine school under Andrea Pisano’s influence. ”

“ And these are the fruits that are borne by a life passed worthily and in the practice of virtuous labours.
It has been said by some writers that when Pisano, then very young, was acquiring his art in Florence, he painted a picture in the old church of the Temple, which stood where the old citadel now is. The subject of this work was taken from the life of San Jacopo di Galizia, and represents the story of the pilgrim, in whose pocket, while he was going on a pilgrimage to that saint, the son of his host put a silver cup, to the intent that he might be punished as a thief ”

“ But his eye and hand still express the fashion of primitive sculpture; the movements express awkward timidity, the faces are sometimes heavy. He gives an impression of Roman work at the end of the empire. Nicholas of Pisa (Niccolo Pisano) , if he discovered and studied the Greek, did not renounce nature, and, in his best pieces, he has returned to a study of life. It is in this that he shows himself an intelligent disciple of the ancients. Apart from Nicholas of Pisa, the Italian masters each put their own personality in the antique ”

“ In subsequent times, the earliest and least unsuccessful essays in art, were made by the Pisano. Whilst a Greek sarcophagus at Pisa, storied with the incidents of Hippolytus and Phædra, furnished some elements of form to the sculptors Niccolo and Giovanni Pisano, painting made some progress with Giunta Pisano: his composition of Christ on the Cross at the Angeli of Assisi, though defective in design, possesses life and expression. ”

“ THE TUSCAN LINK I.—Pisa
The very mention of Pisa brings to our minds Niccolò Pisano, whose name stands in all art histories as the fountain-head of that Tuscan development of art which led to the Renaissance. But where was Niccolò Pisano trained and qualified for this high post of honour? A great architect and sculptor does not suddenly become famous and obtain important commissions without having some undeniable credentials. ”

“ Niccola Pisano founded a school. His son Giovanni, and the numerous pupils employed upon the monuments just mentioned at Siena, Bologna, and Perugia, carried on the tradition of their master, and spread his style abroad through Italy. Giovanni Pisano, to whom we owe the Spina Chapel and the Campo Santo at Pisa, the façade of the Sienese Duomo, and the altar-shrine of S. Donato at Arezzo—four of the purest works of Gothic art in Italy—showed a very decided leaning to the vehement and mystic style of the Transalpine sculptors. ”

“ Niccolò Pisano was from Apulia. He may well have seen the beautiful fragments of Greek and Roman art scattered over the South before he came to Pisa, yet there may, too, be more truth in Vasari's tale than we are sometimes willing to admit, so that in the northern city beside Arno it may well have been with a sort of delight he came upon the art of the ancients, asleep in the beautiful Campo Santo of Pisa, and awakened it, yes, almost with a kiss. ”

“ The form of a lion rampant, with double tail, may nevertheless be still discerned by whomsoever will examine the shield carefully. Andrea Pisano erected many towers around the circuit of the city walls for the same duke, and not only commenced the magnificent church of San Friano, which he brought to the state in which we now see it, but also raised the walls for the vestibule of all the gates of the city, with the smaller gates which were opened for the convenience of the people. ”

“ Vittore Pisano likewise executed the portraits, also on medals, of Filippo de’ Medici, Archbishop of Pisa, Braccio da Montone, Giovan Galleozzo Visconti, Carlo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, Giovanni Caracciolo, grand Seneschal of Naples, with those of Borso and Ercole D’Este, and of many other nobles and personages, renowned in arms or distinguished for learning. For the reputation he had acquired in this branch of art Pisano has been celebrated by many very great men and excellent writers ”

“ It is either, M. Reymond thinks, by Donatello himself, or by some sculptor who carried out a design by him. ¶ The remains of Pisan domination in Sardinia are the subject of researches by Signor Dionigi Scano, who has had the good fortune to discover at Oristano a signed statue by Nino Pisano, together with a number of bas reliefs in which he traces Pisan influence. The very crude architectural settings of most of these, however, betray a strain of northern influence. Far finer than these are the thirteenth-century lion-head door handles in bronze which he reproduces. ”

“ Niccola Pisano is the Master of Naturalism in Italy,—therefore elsewhere; of Naturalism, and all that follows. Generally of truth, common-sense, simplicity, vitality,—and of all these, with consummate power. A man to be enquired about, is not he? and will it not make a difference to you whether you look, when you travel in Italy, in his rough early marbles for this fountain of life, or only glance at them because your Murray's Guide tells you,—and think them "odd old things"? ”

“ Realism, I said in speaking of the character of this fifteenth century work, and indeed it is just there that we come upon the very thought of the time. Sculpture is no longer content with mere beauty, it has divined that something is wanting, yes, even in the almost miraculous work of Niccolò Pisano himself ”

“ You hear the fame of him as of a sculptor only. It is right that you should; for every great architect must be a sculptor, and be renowned, as such, more than by his building. But Niccola Pisano had even more influence on Italy as a builder than as a carver.
For Italy, at this moment, wanted builders more than carvers; and a change was passing through her life, of which external edifice was a necessary sign. I complained of you just now that you never looked at the Byzantine font in the temple of St. John. The sacristan generally will not let you. ”

“ Just as Italy had inherited, in a special sense, the traditions of classical literature, so it was natural that it should be more directly affected than the rest of Europe by the remains of Greek and Roman art. It is in harmony of proportion and beauty of detail that the great charm of the best Renaissance buildings consists.
Niccola of Pisa, 1206–1280.
It is, perhaps, in sculpture that the influence of the antique models was earliest and most obviously shown. The sculptor, Niccola of Pisa (Niccola Pisano) , stands out as the first distinguished leader in the forward movement. ”

“ The face of the central figure is most noble, and all the work good, but not delicate; it is like original work of the master whose design No. 8 might be a restoration.
14 Dædalus.
Andrea Pisano again; the head superb, founded on Greek models, feathers of wings wrought with extreme care; but with no precision of arrangement or feeling. How far intentional in awkwardness, I cannot say; but note the good mechanism of the whole plan, with strong standing board for the feet. ”

“ The sculptors of Italy still worked under the inspiration of the Catholic Church. But, fired by the achievements of Greece, their work displayed a natural grace far in advance of the realistic fables in stone which the Northern artist fashioned or the symbolic pictures which the Byzantium craftsman produced. Niccola Pisano (1205-1278 a.d.) was the greatest Italian architect of his day and the wealth of his native town early furnished him with opportunities for exercising his skill both as an architect and as a sculptor. ”

“ In 1351 it was obliged to surrender to Florence, and thenceforth shared its fate.
The city is still surrounded by walls, dating from shortly after the siege of 1302–06; while two inner lines of streets represent two earlier and inner lines of wall. In the early development of architecture and sculpture Pistoia played a very important part, these arts, as they existed in Tuscany before the time of Niccola Pisano, can perhaps be better studied in Pistoia than anywhere else; nor is the city less rich in the later works produced by the school of sculptors founded by Niccola. ”

“ Through Andrea Pisano the style of Niccola was extended to Venice. There is reason to believe that he instructed Filippo Calendario, to whom we should ascribe the sculptured corners of the Ducal Palace. Venice, however, invariably exercised her own controlling influence over the arts of aliens; so we find a larger, freer, richer, and more mundane treatment in these splendid carvings than in aught produced by Pisan workmen for their native towns of Tuscany. ”

“ Thus Agostino and Agnolo added many improvements to the style of Giovanni and Niccola Pisani, and enriched art with better designs and inventions, as their works clearly show. It is said that when Giovanni Pisano returned to Pisa from Naples in the year 1284, he stopped at Siena to design and found the façade of the Duomo, where the three principal doors are, so that it should be entirely adorned with marble. ”