that his chief works were executed, and the formation of his mature style was due rather to Giotto than to his earlier master. Of the three world-famed bronze doors of the Florentine baptistery, the earliest one—that on the south side—was the work of Andrea; he spent many years on it; and it was finally set up in 1336.[1] It consists of a number of small quatrefoil panels—the lower eight containing single figures of the Virtues, and the rest scenes from the life of the Baptist. Andrea Pisano, while living in Florence, also produced many important works of marble sculpture, all of which show strongly Giotto's influence. In some cases probably they were actually designed by that artist, as, for instance, the double band of beautiful panel-reliefs which Andrea executed for the great campanile. The subjects of these are the Four Gieat Prophets, the Seven Virtues, the Seven Sacraments, the Seven Works of Mercy and the Seven Planets. The duomo contains the chief of Andrea's other Florentine works in marble. In 1347 he was appointed architect to the duomo of Orvieto which had already been designed and begun by Lorenzo Maitani. The exact date of his death is not known, but it must have been shortly before the year 1349.
Andrea Pisano had two sons, Nino and Tommaso—both, especially the former, sculptors of considerable ability Nino was very successful in his statues of the Madonna and Child, which are full of human feeling and soft loveliness-a perfect embodiment of the Catholic ideal of the Divine Mother. Andrea's chief pupil was Andrea di Cione, better known as Orcagna (q.v.). Balduccio di Pisa another, and in one branch (that of sculpture) equally ifted pupil, executed the wonderful shrine of S. Eustorgio at Mdana most magnificent mass of sculptured figures and reliefs.
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 Niccola, the younger Pisano was summoned between 1270 and 1274 to Naples, where he worked for Charles of Anjou on the Castel Nuovo.
Part of the Tomb of Benedict XI., by Giovanni Pisano.
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 and inside the cloister. The richest in design of all his works (finished about 1286) is in the cathedral of Arezzo—a magnificent marble high altar and reredos, adorned both in front and at the back with countless figures and reliefs—mostly illustrative of the lives of St Gregory and St Donato, whose bones are enshrined there. Ihe actual execution of this was probably wholly the 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 of the gorgeous façade 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 church of S. Domenico in 1304, but little of the 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 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 at Pistoia, executed about 1300. Another pulpit, designed on the same lines, was made by him for the 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, Über die Bildwerke des Giovanni Pisano, &c (1904); A. Brach, Nicola und Giovanni Pisano und die Plastik des XIV. Jahrhunderts in Siena (1904).
PISANO, NICCOLA (c. 1206–1278), Italian sculptor and architect. Though he called himself Pisanus, from Pisa, where most of his life was spent, he was not a Pisan by birth. There are two distinct accounts of his parentage, both derived mainly from existing documents. According to one of these he is said to have been the son of "Petrus, a notary of Siena," but this statement is very doubtful, especially as the word "Siena" or "de Senis" appears to be a conjectural addition. Another document among the archives of the Sienese Cathedral calls him son of "Petrus de Apulia." Most modern writers accept the latter statement, and believe that he not only was a native of the province of Apulia in southern Italy, but also that he gained there his early instruction in the arts of sculpture and architecture. Those, on the other hand, who, with most of the older writers, prefer to accept the theory of Niccola's origin being Tuscan, suppose that he was a native of a small town called Apulia near Lucca.
Except through his works, but little is known of the history of Niccola's life. As early as 1221 he is said to have been summoned to Naples by Frederick II., to do work in the new Castel del l'Uovo. This fact supports the theory of his southern origin, though not perhaps very strongly, as, some years before, the Pisan Bonannus had been chosen by the Norman king as the sculptor to cast one of the bronze doors for Monreale Cathedral, where it still exists. The earliest existing piece of sculpture which can be attributed to Niccola is a beautiful relief of the Deposition from the Cross in the tympanum of the arch of a side door at San Martino at Lucca, it is remarkable for its graceful composition and delicate finish of execution. The date is about 1237. In 1260, as an incised inscription records, he finished the marble pulpit for the Pisan baptistery, this is on the whole the finest of his works.
It is a high octagon, on semicircular arches, with trefoil cusps, supported by nine marble columns, three of which rest on white marble lions. In design it presents that curious combination of Gothic forms with classical details which is one of the characteristics of the medieval architecture of northern Italy; though much enriched with sculpture both in relief and in the round, the general lines of the design are not sacrificed to this, but the sculpture is kept subordinate to the whole. In this respect it is superior to the more magnificent pulpit at Siena, one of Niccola's later works, which suffers greatly from want of repose and purity of outline, owing to its being overloaded with reliefs and statuettes. Five of the sides of the main octagon have panels with subjects—the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, the Crucifixion and the Doom. These are all, especially the first three, works of the highest beauty, and a wonderful advance on anything of the sort that had been produced by Niccola's predecessors The drapery is gracefully arranged in broad simple folds; the heads are full of the most noble dignity; and the sweet yet stately beauty of the Madonna could hardly be surpassed. The panel with the Adoration of the Magi is perhaps the one in which Niccola's study of the antique is most apparent (see figure). The veiled and diademed figure of the Virgin Mother, seated on a throne, recalls the Roman Juno; the head of Joseph behind her might be that of Vulcan; while the youthful beauty of an Apollo and the mature dignity of a Jupiter are suggested by the standing
