The richness of ornamentation suited the temper of the Pisans at that time. They were proud of many victories, and had brought back from Majorca, Palermo, and other places, various spoils, such as porphyry colonnettes, rare marble, etc. etc.[166] They desired a particularly grand and gorgeous church, and that it should be in a style hitherto unknown. The many antique capitals and columns among the spoils placed at his disposal suggested, of course, arches, so by way of being very original, Buschetto or Rainaldo, whichever of the two designed it, made his façade with four arcades, instead of one, or two, as his brethren in the north were accustomed to do. The colonnettes in these four galleries are fifty-eight in number, some of rosso antico, others of the black and gold-streaked Luna marble. The two large columns at the central door are also of antique Greek work; they are beautifully carved in foliage intertwined; the other four columns are fluted and wreathed with foliage. The capitals also are chiefly ancient classic work; there are Corinthian and composite ones. The remaining capitals are Comacine work, and have their usual mixture of animals and hieroglyphic figures. Here, too, are the lions of Judah in juxtaposition with the pillars, but as yet they appear above the pillar and not beneath it, as was the invariable custom a century later.
The rude figures of saints at the extremities of the roof, both of the aisles and nave, mark the beginning of that revival of the human figure in sculpture, which was the forerunner of the work of Niccolò Pisano. The tower and Baptistery are the natural results of the Duomo, the style being identical; the same round arches in the foundation, and the same circles of Lombard galleries covering the super-structures.
The Baptistery was built by Magister Diotisalvi, somewhere about 1152. We have no proofs of his origin, but his work and title prove him to have graduated in the same guild as Buschetto and Rainaldo,[167] and we find his son and grandsons in Siena and other lodges.
In the Baptistery, the old mystic octagonal form was abandoned, and the circle takes its place. Diotisalvi has here made a perfect bell in tone as well as in form. It is the most acoustic building possible, as any one may prove by singing in rotation the notes of a chord. The whole chord echoes on for several moments with exquisite effect. The Baptistery was begun in August 1152, the first stone being laid in the presence of the Consul Cocco di Tacco Grifi; and two of the Operai (members of the administrative council or Opera) named Cinetto Cinetti, and Arrigo Cancellieri, were appointed soprastanti (overseers). Here again we have a distinct connection between the Opera del Duomo and the laborerium.
Some of the classic spoils of war were given to Diotisalvi for this building. Several of the capitals on the twenty columns supporting the foundation circle of round arches, are Corinthian; and the two pillars at the chief portal are beautiful specimens of ancient work, similar to those in the façade of the Duomo. Between the classic remains incorporated into the building, and the statues and sculptures which belong to a later century, it is difficult to distinguish which were the absolute work of Diotisalvi himself. The sculptures on the door-jambs—rather mediæval scenes relating to Christ and David—and the hieroglyphics of the months were probably his own work. The Baptism of Christ on the architrave, which has the mediæval expression of baptism by immersion, may be his; and if so, it seems to explain how the Greek element got into Niccolò di Pisa's work, for here is his antecedent of a century, showing in his work signs of the same leaning to classicism in the midst of a rude and early style. How could he help it when he was living among classic remains of sculpture?
The other three doors have also antique spiral columns of Greek marble. A fine piece of work, in Comacine style, is the frieze of interlaced foliage over the west entrance. The second order is a colonnade of fifty-eight arches with sculptured capitals. The third consists of eighteen pilasters and twenty windows. Here are seen the lion between the pillar and the arch, various animals and human heads at the spring of the arches, while above each order is a complicated cornice of pyramids, spires, and arabesques, which suggest a Southern or Eastern influence. The interior is less ornate, but of fine solid architecture. Twelve Corinthian columns and four large pilasters support the arches, forming a peristyle round the building; a similar gallery with slight columns runs above it. The columns are not all of antique marble. Three of them are of granite brought from the Isle of Elba, on May 4, 1155, and two from Sardinia, by Cinetti, one of the overseers we have mentioned.[168] The first pillar was placed on October 1, 1156. The capitals are ornate; some antique, Corinthian, others in Comacine style with animals and intrecci. On one of the pillars is engraved—"Deo-ti-salvi, magister hujus operis." Morrona thinks the Baptistery shows a Moorish influence. This is possible, as the whole of the three buildings show the Comacines' first great change of style, after their works in the south at Palermo, and the kingdom of Naples.
Old writers call the style Arabo-Tedesco; and this brings us to the meaning of the word Tedesco in Italian architecture at this epoch.
The fallacy that the Italian Gothic came from Germany, must have got into art histories from a misconception of Vasari's term of opprobrium, "quei Tedeschi." He uses it when he speaks of any architecture which is not purely classic, even blaming buildings such as Arnolfo's Florentine dome, the churches of Assisi, Orvieto, Lucca, Pisa, etc.
But the writers who interpret this term as meaning the German nation, are reasoning on a fallacy. In the first place, was there any pointed Gothic in Germany before the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries? We will just run over the principal Gothic cathedrals. Bruges was begun in 1358; Cologne is modern of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; Lubeck was built in 1341; Attenburg in 1265-1379; Freiburg Dom Kirche in 1484. At Freiburg in Breisgau, the older parts are of the same style as Comacine, while the Gothic parts date from 1513; Strasburg, the Gothic parts between 1318-1439; Magdeburg, 1363.