Pulpit in the Church of S. Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoja. By Magister Guglielmo d'Agnello, 13th century.
The next great names are Niccolò and Giovanni Pisani, the glory not only of their own lodge, but of the universal Guild. Until the time when his famous pulpit was sculptured, Niccolò seems to have worked little in Pisa, though he endowed it with one of his most original designs—the bell-tower of S. Niccolò. From the evidence of southern influence in his style, it is probable that his father Pietro was one of the artists whom Frederic called to South Italy, and that Niccolò passed his novitiate with him there. In any case, by the time he wrote Magister before his name he had already attained a high rank as sculptor and architect, and was chosen for most important works out of Pisa, such as the Arca di S. Domenico at Bologna, and the building of the church and convent near it. Niccolò Pisano's work in Florence was almost exclusively architectural; he also designed the cathedral churches of Arezzo and Cortona. His pupil, Fra Guglielmo, a relative of the Doge dell' Agnello of Pisa who was Niccolò's assistant in the Arca di S. Domenico at Bologna in 1272, worked in 1293 at the reliefs in the façade of Orvieto, and in 1304 put the Romanesque front to S. Michele in Borgo, in Pisa. The Virgin and Child over the door of the latter is a copy of Niccolò's famous statue. Some authors give him the credit of being the Tedesco who Vasari says sculptured the fine pulpit in S. Gio. Fuorcivitas at Pistoja, and who assisted Bonanno in the tower of Pisa.
A sculptor named Bonaiuto must, I think, have belonged to Niccolò's school. Two interesting sculptured doorways by him still exist in what was once the Palazzo Sclafani at Palermo (now the barracks of S. Trinità). The doorway is carved in tufo, and above it is a kind of gable supported by two small pilasters, enclosing the arms of the family, a pair of cranes; surmounting the gable is a carved eagle, with a hare in its claws, standing on a kind of capital, which is unmistakably Comacine; beneath this is a bracket inscribed, "Bonaiuto me fe-cit de Pisa." Sig. Centofanti, in a private letter to Professor Clemente Lupi, who wrote to ask for information about Bonaiuto, says that a register of expenses of the Opera del Duomo of Pisa contains several mentions of the name. In one dated 1315 Bonaiutus magister lapidum is noted as working at the Duomo, and receiving two soldi a day, his companions receiving four or five, and the capo maestro eight. Here it would seem he is still in the lower ranks of the brotherhood. In 1318 he is noted as Boniautus Michaelis, and receives four soldi a day. In 1344 he has become full capo maestro of the Duomo, and is paid nine soldi a day.[174]
From his school also sprang Arnolfo, the first of a long line of sculptor-builders of the Florentine Lodge. From it, too, through his son Giovanni, came the best builders of the Siena cathedral, and their followers who worked at Orvieto.
Thus Niccolò and Giovanni are proved to be links in the old chain that came from classic Rome through the Lombard Comacines to the Renaissance. All the famous names that ever were, may be traced in this universal Guild from father to son, from master to pupil. After Giovanni Pisano went to Siena, Andrea di Pisa, his scholar, carried on his school in Pisa. In 1299 we first hear of Andrea, the son of a notary at Pontedera, as famulus magistri Johannes.[175] His first authentic works were the bronze doors of the Florentine Baptistery, proving that he had been trained in the many-branched fraternity at Pisa, where metal-working ranked so high. As instances of his sculptures in marble, we may take many of the statues which were on the Duomo at Florence, and the second line of reliefs on Giotto's campanile. But like all the Magistri, he was, above all, an architect, and in that branch we find him as Grand Master at Orvieto in 1347. His son Nino succeeded him in the onerous office. His other son Tommaso was also in the guild, but did not rise to eminence in it. He designed a palace, and painted two caskets for the Doge dell' Agnello of Pisa.
Nino's sculptures show a greater fidelity to nature than those of his artistic ancestors. A Madonna and two angels over the door of the canonry of the Duomo at Florence are very charming, as are his statues in the church of the "Spina" at Pisa. We next find Nino's son Andrea receiving payment for a sepulchre for the Doge dell' Agnello, which Nino did not live long enough to finish.
One among Andrea's pupils who were not his relatives rose to special and wide-spread eminence in the guild, i.e. Magister Giovanni Balducci di Pisa, whose artistic career was mostly in Milan, where the Visconti patronized him. He sculptured several tombs, among them the beautiful Arca of St. Peter Martyr in S. Eustorgio in 1336. The figures of the Christian Virtues are very sweet and naturalistic. On a sculptured pulpit at S. Casciano near Florence, of the same shape and style as that by Guido di Como at Pistoja, but infinitely more advanced in art, he has signed, "Hoc opus fecit Johs Balducci Magister de Pisis." The only architectural work that is mentioned as signed by him is the door of S. Maria in Brera at Milan.
II.—Lucca and Pistoja
THE BUONI FAMILY AT PISTOJA