The father and son team of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano are among the most important sculptors of the thirteenth-century Italian Gothic, and their work—especially the ornately carved pulpits in Italy’s Pisa and Siena Cathedrals—continues to inspire wonder and awe. Never before—nor since—have a father and son met on an artistic level in quite this way, and this two-volume set goes beyond a typical biography to explore this fascinating collaboration.
Drawing on extensive new archival research, Max Seidel offers a broad examination of both artists’ styles, paying particular attention to the emergence of Giovanni Pisano’s practice under his father’s guidance and the social and iconographic aspects of both artists’ work. The Pisanos’ sculptures in France and Rome are of paramount importance to the development of their styles and Seidel therefore treats them in considerable depth. The second volume comprises five hundred newly-published illustrations, making this a truly comprehensive overview of these two masters of European sculpture.
Reviews
Table of Contents
Volume 1
Introduction
Critical fortune
The gigantic contrast between father and son
More a genius than his father
The new Daedalus
The learned scholar in art
Precursor of the art of the Renaissance
Historical curiosities
“If Nicola’s Mary really resembled a Juno and his Christ a Hercules, what would have been new in that?”
“From the pulpit of Siena the word of the new art is proclaimed”
The pulpit of Siena—A work by Giovanni?
Research perspectives
The dialogue with the masters of antiquity
Aspects of social history
Iconography
The study of social history
Documents concerning the pulpit of Siena
The payments
Rhythms of work
The total earnings of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano
Giovanni as “caput magistrorum” of the Opera del Duomo of Pisa
Giovanni attempts to equal his father’s work rhythm
Giovanni renounces a more comfortable dwelling
Documents concerning Giovanni Pisano’s activity as "caput magistrorum" of the Opera del Duomo of Pisa
Documentary appendix
The artist as iconographer
Foreword
Micro-iconography
Artes liberales
Testimonia ex prophetis et gentibus
Bestiarium
Vide lignum viride
Hercules
“Uno polpito alto e mangnio”
The dialogue
Foreword
Nicola and Giovanni Pisano
Arnolfo di Cambio
“Gothic counterrevolution?
The reception of the antique in thirteenth-century aesthetics
Art criticism ‘with brush and chisel’: how painters, sculptors and goldsmiths in the thirteenth and
fourteenth century received the art of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano
Bibliography
Volume 2: The Plates
The dialogue between Nicola and Giovanni Pisano
Measurements
Arnolfo di Cambio
Gothic counterrevolution?
The reception of the antique
Introduction
Critical fortune
The gigantic contrast between father and son
More a genius than his father
The new Daedalus
The learned scholar in art
Precursor of the art of the Renaissance
Historical curiosities
“If Nicola’s Mary really resembled a Juno and his Christ a Hercules, what would have been new in that?”
“From the pulpit of Siena the word of the new art is proclaimed”
The pulpit of Siena—A work by Giovanni?
Research perspectives
The dialogue with the masters of antiquity
Aspects of social history
Iconography
The study of social history
Documents concerning the pulpit of Siena
The payments
Rhythms of work
The total earnings of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano
Giovanni as “caput magistrorum” of the Opera del Duomo of Pisa
Giovanni attempts to equal his father’s work rhythm
Giovanni renounces a more comfortable dwelling
Documents concerning Giovanni Pisano’s activity as "caput magistrorum" of the Opera del Duomo of Pisa
Documentary appendix
The artist as iconographer
Foreword
Micro-iconography
Artes liberales
Testimonia ex prophetis et gentibus
Bestiarium
Vide lignum viride
Hercules
“Uno polpito alto e mangnio”
The dialogue
Foreword
Nicola and Giovanni Pisano
Arnolfo di Cambio
“Gothic counterrevolution?
The reception of the antique in thirteenth-century aesthetics
Art criticism ‘with brush and chisel’: how painters, sculptors and goldsmiths in the thirteenth and
fourteenth century received the art of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano
Bibliography
Volume 2: The Plates
The dialogue between Nicola and Giovanni Pisano
Measurements
Arnolfo di Cambio
Gothic counterrevolution?
The reception of the antique