As no artist in especial is named as having received this sum, I should myself imagine that as usual several Masters of the guild worked at it, but that one was capo maestro, and drew the design. Comparing it with the monument of Can della Scala at Verona, which is a certified work of Bonino da Campione, Sacchi argues that he was the designer and sculptor of this Arca. The style in both is semi-Gothic, the arches following the same curve and resting on columns; the friezes and ornaments are so much alike as to be in some parts identical in design; the crown of pyramids and cupolini which finishes the monument on the top, the form of the pinnacles, and their floriations are more than similar.
The Arca di S. Agostino is, however, the more elaborate. It has ninety-five statues in its niches, not counting statuettes. One may count nearly three hundred distinct works of sculpture in the composition. (Would not this redundancy prove it the work of a school rather than one hand?) Sacchi justly observes that if Can Scaliger confided to Bonino the commission for his monument, it must have been because he had seen proofs of his skill; and where could this have been more probable than in the Arca at Milan?
A suggestive proof of the Arca di S. Agostino being the joint work of the Comacine Guild, is suggested by Merzario.[154] Over the colonnade of the Arca are twelve statues, but in front of these stand the Quattro Santi Coronati, the four artist martyrs. One of these is represented stooping to examine the base of a pillar; another trying the diminution of a column with the T square, and a third measures a reversed capital, and holds a scroll on which is written in Gothic letters, Quatuor Coronatorum; the fourth is working with hammer and chisel.
Now these four saints, being the special patrons of the Comacine Guild, would have little significance to any other artists.
The sepulchre of Can Signorio de Scaliger in Verona was begun in his lifetime, and on his own commission, and cost 10,000 gold florins. He died in 1375, so it must date slightly prior to that. Bonino de Campiglione Mediolanensis has signed his name in marble on the frieze. It is a fine specimen of Gothic ornamentation, at the culmination of the Campionese school.
There were also earlier works of Bonino's at Cremona; one a sepulchre to Folchino de Schicci, a jurisconsult, in the chapel of St. Catherine in the Duomo, beautifully worked with friezes, etc., in bas-reliefs. It is signed in Gothic characters—
"Hoc sepulcrum est nobilis et
Egregii militis et juris periti
D Folchini de Schiciis qui
obiit anno D,MCCCLVII