PISANO, GIOVANNI (c. 1250-1330)

This article appears in Volume V21, Page 648 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: PIG-POL

PISANO, GIOVANNI (c. 1250-1330) , Italian architect and sculptor, was the son of Niccola Pisano. Together with Arnolfo del Cambio and other pupils, he developed and extended into other parts of Italy the renaissance of sculpture which in the main was due to his father's talent. After he had spent the first part of his life at

home

as a pupil and fellow worker of
?art of the Tomb of Benedict XI., by Giovanni Pisano.
Niccola, the younger Pisano was summoned between 127o and 1274 to Naples, where he worked for Charles of Anjou on the

Castel

CASTEL, LOUIS BERTRAND (1688-1757)

Nuovo. One of his earliest independent performances was the Campo Santo at Pisa, finished about 1283; along with this he executed various pieces of sculpture over the main

door

DOOR (corresponding to the Gr. Bbpa,. Lat. fores or valvae; the English word, with other forms common in allied languages, comes from the same Indo-European
stem
- STEM (O. Eng. staefn, stemn, cf. Du. stain, Ger. Stamm, &c., probably related to " staff ")
as the Gr. Obpa and Lat. fares)

and inside the cloister. The richest in

design

DESIGN (Fr. desiin, drawing; Lat. designare, to mark out)

of all his works (finished about 1286) is in the cathedral of Arezzoa magnificent marble high altar and reredos, adorned both in front and at the back with countless figures and reliefsmostly illustrative of the lives of St Gregory and St Donato, whose bones are enshrined there. The actual execution of this was probably wholly the

work

WORK

of his pupils. In 1290 Giovanni was appointed architect or " capo maestro " of the new cathedral at Siena, in which office he succeeded Lorenzo Maitani, who went to Orvieto to build the less ambitious but equally magnificent duomo which had just been founded there. The

design

DESIGN (Fr. desiin, drawing; Lat. designare, to mark out)

of the gorgeous facade of that duomo has been attributed to him, but it is more probable that he only carried out Maitani's design. At Perugia, Giovanni built the
1 The date on the

door

DOOR (corresponding to the Gr. Bbpa,. Lat. fores or valvae; the English word, with other forms common in allied languages, comes from the same Indo-European
stem
- STEM (O. Eng. staefn, stemn, cf. Du. stain, Ger. Stamm, &c., probably related to " staff ")
as the Gr. Obpa and Lat. fares)

, 1330, refers to the

original

ORIGINAL

wax model.PISANO, N.
church of S. Domenico in 1304, but little of the

original

ORIGINAL

structure remains. The north transept, however, still contains his beautiful tomb of Benedict XI., with a sleeping figure of the

pope

, guarded by angels who draw aside the curtain. One of Giovanni's most beautiful architectural works was the little chapel of S. Maria della Spina (now rebuilt, " restored "), on the banks of the Arno in Pisa; the actual execution of this chapel, and the sculpture with which it is adorned, was mostly the

work

WORK

of his pupils .2 The influence of his father Niccola is seen strongly in all Giovanni's works, but especially in the pulpit of S.

Andrea

ANDREA, GIOVANNI (1275-1348)

at Pistoia, executed about 1300. Another pulpit, designed on the same lines, was made by him for the

nave

NAVE

of Pisa Cathedral between 1310 and 1311. The last part of Giovanni's life was spent at Prato, near Florence, where with many pupils he worked at the cathedral till his death about 1330.
See M. Sauerlandt, Uber die Bildwerke des Giovanni Pisano, &c. (1904) ; A. Brach, Nicola and Giovanni Pisano and die Plastik des XIV. Jahrhunderts in Siena (1904).

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