This deed was drawn up in the Canonica of Modena, and duly signed by witnesses.
Tracing the predecessors of Arrigo of Campione, father and grandfather, back from 1244, we come very near the time of the first Lanfranco; and following his descendants from Arrigo, head architect in 1244, to his grandson, who finished the tower of the Dome,[145] and made the marble pulpit in the cathedral in 1322, we get a family line of builders lasting unbroken for nearly two hundred years. There still exists an inscription in bad Latin on the cornice of the pulpit, which says that Tomasino di Giovanni, treasurer of the Fabbriceria, S. Gemignano, had the pulpit carved, and the tower built by Arrigo or Enrico, the Campionese sculptor (actibus Henrici sculptoris campionensis). It would be difficult now to assign his due share to each of this long line of master-builders; but the Italian critic, Marchese Ricci, gives Lanfranco the credit of the interior, which is in pure Romano-Lombard style, with two aisles and a nave. The nave is much higher than the aisles, and is supported on columns with high Corinthian capitals from some ancient Roman temple. Lanfranco has given a clumsier Lombard air to them by a very large abacus. The crypt is supported on sixty columns, the capitals of which are all Lombard, and of endless variety of form and sculpture. In the centre is the ark (tomb) of S. Gemignano. The wall of the façade, with its little pillared gallery, is also of Lanfranco's time.
The porch, with its knotted pillars supported on lions, is adjudged by Ricci to be the work of Anselmo of Campione in 1209. The sculpture on the façade by Nicolaus and Guglielmo is said to date from early in the twelfth century, and probably belonged to Lanfranco's design before Anselmo put this doorway. They are to our eyes most naïve Bible stories told in rude sculpture—the one side representing the Creation, the other the first men as far as Noah. To contemporary eyes, however, they were great works, for an old grandiloquent low Latin inscription on the façade says—"Inter scultores quanto sis dignus honore Claret scultura nunc Viligelme tua." "Worthy of honour art thou among sculptors. So shines, O William, this thy sculpture." Marchese Ricci, from the peculiar spelling of Guglielmo, thinks that he might have been a German, but as in the Ferrara inscription he is spelt in the Italian way, I think the Viligelme may be only one of those queer reversals of consonants so common in illiterate Italians. If a poor Florentine has a son named Arturo, he will surely call him Alturo, or if Alfredo, he will always be Arfledo. In any way we can descry in this artist, as in many others of his age, the forerunner of Niccolò Pisano, and see in the art of Niccolò only a link in development, not a new art entirely. To Nicolaus and Guglielmo are also attributed the sculptures in the choir, representing the Passion. We shall find them again at Ferrara.
We see, then, that the family of Anselmo, hereditary sculptors and architects of Modena, were certainly the founders of the great school of the Campionese, which lasted some centuries, and to whose hands may be attributed nearly all the great churches in North Italy. The schools, laborerium, and fabbricerie of Modena furnish another prototype of the threefold organization, which becomes so distinct in the Opera of Florence and the Lodges of Venice, Siena, and Orvieto. Tiraboschi publishes a notarial Act, dated January 7, 1261, which speaks of the laborerium near the Duomo, where the stones for the fabric were carved; and that there was a covered way between the church and this building which must not be removed or changed.
Gerolamo Calvi, in his Matteo de Campione, architetto e scultore, says that nearly all the architecture and sculpture executed in and around Milan in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be attributed to the Campionesi. He instances the Sala della Ragione at Padua, with its enormous span of roof, its characteristic arcades and galleries, and the Loggia degli Assi, or Loggia del Consiglio, once the Podestà's palace; the church of S. Agostino at Bergamo, built by Ugo da Campione and his son Giovanni, the castle of the Visconti at Pavia, and many others. Campione, though a place of importance in Roman times, and cited in Carlovingian documents, is now only a village on the side of a mountain, near Val d'Intelvi, containing 500 inhabitants. Calvi writes of it that from the earliest times before the renaissance of art,[146] the men of Campione dedicated themselves to building and sculpture, and diffused themselves throughout the north of Italy, working rudely at first, but gaining in style and experience till they produced great works worthy of eternal fame.
It seems probable that in this school we have a link with Florence. The Jacopo de Campione, who was mentioned in 1244 as uncle of the petitioner Arrigo, is named in other documents as a Campionese, is thought by Merzario and other authors to be that famous architect, Jacopo il Tedesco—or the Lombard, who was for centuries taken with certainty to be the father of Arnolfo. We shall speak of his pedigree in another chapter.
The builders of the Duomo of Ferrara were decidedly connected with the laborerium at Modena, both lodges originating from the Campione school. The façade has the usual three perpendicular divisions formed by means of chiselled shafts, but each division is divided horizontally into three levels, each one enriched with Lombard galleries. Besides these is a wealth of ornamentation, figures, reliefs, trafori (open work), and foliage of the most fantastic kind. This and the framework of the church are all that remain of the Comacine work, excepting the vestibule, which has all their signs on it. Four columns resting on four red marble lions support it; one of them guards a lamb, and another has a serpent beneath its paw. Here we have still the Comacine mysticism: the lion of Judah guarding the Paschal Lamb, and one of the House of Judah crushing the serpent. Over the porch are more sculptures, and an arched vestibule; over that a kind of Gothic gable, and above the gable a rose window. The whole speaks eloquently of its kinship with the churches of Verona, Parma, and Bergamo. Tradition says the interior and façade were built not much later than 1103. The inscription over the door runs—
"Il mille cento trempta nato. Fo questo templo a Zorzi (Giorgio) consacrato. Fo Nicolao scultore, e Ghelmo fo lo auctore." These are evidently the same Guglielmo and Nicolao who sculptured Lanfranco's front at Modena. Guglielmo was the leading man, and made the design (auctore); Nicolaus chiefly executed it.
But these two were not the only Comacines employed at Ferrara; a MS. copy of an ancient inscription on some old reliefs in the front of the church of St. George, records the names of Meo and Antonio of Como. "Da Meo di Checco, e da Antonio di Frix. da Como."[147]