this Arnolfo we have written the Life, with the greatest brevity that has been possible, for the reason that, although his works do not approach by a great measure the perfection of the things of to-day, he deserves, none the less, to be celebrated with loving memory, having shown amid so great darkness, to those who lived after him, the way to walk to perfection. The portrait of Arnolfo, by the hand of Giotto, is to be seen in S. Croce, beside the principal chapel, at the beginning of the story, where the friars are weeping for the death of S. Francis, in one of two men that are talking together. And the picture of the Church of S. Maria del Fiore—namely, of the outer side with the cupola—by the hand of Simone Sanese, is to be seen in the Chapter-house of S. Maria Novella, copied from the original in wood that Arnolfo made; wherein it is noticeable that he had thought to raise the dome immediately over the walls, at the edge of the first cornice, whereas Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, in order to relieve them of weight and to make it more graceful, added thereto, before he began to raise it, all that height wherein to-day are the round windows; which circumstance would be even clearer than it is, if the little care and diligence of those who have directed the Works of S. Maria del Fiore in the years past had not left the very model that Arnolfo made to go to ruin, and afterwards those of Brunellesco and of the others.
NICCOLA AND GIOVANNI OF PISA
LIFE OF NICCOLA AND GIOVANNI OF PISA,
[NICCOLA PISANO AND GIOVANNI PISANO],
SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS
Having discoursed of design and of painting in the Life of Cimabue and of architecture in that of Arnolfo di Lapo, in this one concerning Niccola and Giovanni of Pisa we will treat of sculpture, and also of the most important buildings that they made, for the reason that their works in sculpture and in architecture truly deserve to be celebrated, not only as being large and magnificent but also well enough conceived, since both in working marble and in building they swept away in great part that old Greek manner, rude and void of proportion, showing better invention in their stories and giving better attitudes to their figures.
Niccola Pisano, then, chancing to be under certain Greek sculptors who were working the figures and other carved ornaments of the Duomo of Pisa and of the Church of S. Giovanni, and there being, among many marble spoils brought by the fleet of the Pisans, certain ancient sarcophagi that are to-day in the Campo Santo of that city, there was one of them, most beautiful among them all, whereon there was carved the Chase of Meleager after the Calydonian Boar, in very beautiful manner, seeing that both the nude figures and the draped were wrought with much mastery and with most perfect design. This sarcophagus was placed by the Pisans, by reason of its beauty, in the side of the Duomo opposite S. Rocco, beside the principal side-door, and it served for the body of the mother of Countess Matilda, if indeed these words are true that are to be read carved in the marble:
A.D. MCXVI. IX KAL. AUG. OBIIT D. MATILDA FELICIS MEMORIÆ COMITISSA, QUÆ PRO ANIMA GENETRICIS SUÆ DOMINÆ BEATRICIS COMITISSÆ VENERABILIS, IN HAC TUMBA HONORABILI QUIESCENTIS, IN MULTIS PARTIBUS MIRIFICE HANC DOTAVIT ECCLESIAM; QUARUM ANIMÆ REQUIESCANT IN PACE
And then:
A.D. MCCCIII. SUB DIGNISSIMO OPERARIO D. BURGUNDIO TADI, OCCASIONE GRADUUM FIENDORUM PER IPSUM CIRCA ECCLESIAM, SUPRADICTA TUMBA SUPERIUS NOTATA BIS TRANSLATA FUIT, TUNC DE SEDIBUS PRIMIS IN ECCLESIAM, NUNC DE ECCLESIA IN HUNC LOCUM, UT CERNITIS, EXCELLENTEM.
Alinari
THE PULPIT OF THE BAPTISTERY OF PISA
(After Niccola Pisano. Pisa) View larger image
Niccola, pondering over the beauty of this work and being greatly pleased therewith, put so much study and diligence into imitating this manner and some other good sculptures that were in these other ancient sarcophagi, that he was judged, after no long time, the best sculptor of his day; there being in Tuscany in those times, after Arnolfo, no other sculptor of repute save Fuccio, an architect and sculptor of Florence, who made S. Maria sopra Arno in Florence, in the year 1229, placing his name there, over a door, and in the Church of S. Francesco in Assisi he made the marble tomb of the Queen of Cyprus, with many figures, and in particular a portrait of her sitting on a lion, in order to show the strength of her soul; which Queen, after her death, left a great sum of money to the end that this fabric might be finished. Niccola, then, having made himself known as a much better master than was Fuccio, was summoned to Bologna in the year 1225, after the death of S. Domenico Calagora, first founder of the Order of Preaching Friars, in order to make a marble tomb for the said Saint; wherefore, after agreement with those who had the charge of it, he made it full of figures in that manner wherein it is to be seen to-day, and delivered it finished in the year 1231 with much credit to himself, for it was held something remarkable, and the best of all the works that had been wrought in sculpture up to that time. He made, likewise, the model of that church and of a great part of the convent. Afterwards Niccola, returning to Tuscany, found that Fuccio had departed from Florence and had gone to Rome in those days when the Emperor Frederick was crowned by Honorius, and from Rome with Frederick to Naples, where he finished the Castel di Capoana, to-day called the Vicaria, wherein are all the tribunals of that kingdom, and likewise the Castel dell' Uovo; and where he likewise founded the towers he also made the gates over the River Volturno for the city of Capua, and a park girt with walls, for fowling, near Gravina, and another for sport in winter at Melfi; besides many other things that are not related, for the sake of brevity. Niccola, meanwhile, busying himself in Florence, was going on exercising himself not only in sculpture but in architecture as well, by means of the buildings that were going on being made with some little goodness of design throughout all Italy, and in particular in Tuscany; wherefore he occupied himself not a little with the building of the Abbey of Settimo, which had not been finished by the executors of Count Ugo of Brandenburg, like the other six, as was said above. And although it is read in a marble epitaph on the campanile of the said abbey, GUGLIELM. ME FECIT, it is known, nevertheless, by the manner, that it was directed with the counsel of Niccola. About the same time he made the Palazzo Vecchio of the Anziani in Pisa, pulled down in our day by Duke Cosimo, in order to make the magnificent Palace and Convent of the Knights of S. Stephen on the same spot, using some part of the old, from the design and model of Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect of Arezzo, who has accommodated himself to those old walls as well as he has been able in fitting them into the new. Niccola made, likewise in Pisa, many other palaces and churches, and he was the first, since the loss of the good method of building, who made it the custom to found edifices in Pisa on piers, and on these to raise arches, piles having first been sunk under the said piers; because, with any other method, the solid base of the foundation cracked and the walls always collapsed, whereas the sinking of piles renders the edifice absolutely safe, even as experience shows. With his design, also, was made the Church of S. Michele in Borgo for the Monks of Camaldoli. But the most beautiful, the most ingenious, and the most whimsical work of architecture that Niccola ever made was the Campanile of S. Niccola in Pisa, where is the seat of the Friars of S. Augustine, for the reason that it is octagonal on the outer side and round within, with stairs that wind in a spiral and lead to the summit, leaving the hollow space in the middle free, in the shape of a well, and on every fourth step are columns that have the arches above them on a slant and wind round and round; wherefore, the spring of the vaulting resting on the said arches, one goes climbing to the summit in a manner that he who is on the ground always sees all those who are climbing, those who are climbing see those who are on the ground, and those who are halfway up see both the first and the second—that is, those who are above and those who are below. This fanciful invention, with better method and more just proportions, and with more adornment, was afterwards put into execution by the architect Bramante in the Belvedere in Rome, for Pope Julius II, and by Antonio da San Gallo in the well that is at Orvieto,