Little has hitherto come to light respecting the Masonic lodges of Lucca and Pisa. The laborerium at Pistoja is rather more clearly defined, and furnishes some definite names. It existed from the twelfth century, but I do not think the archives were kept quite so early as that. There is the name Rodolfin's op, anni 1167, carved on the architrave of the principal entrance of the Lombard church of S. Bartolommeo in Pantano; but as critics cannot tell whether it means "Rodolfinus opus" or "Rodolfinus operaius" or head of the Opera, it is not a very decisive bit of history. The reading "Rodolfinus Operaius for the year 1167" would, like "Turrisianus, overseer in 1250," be quite intelligible in its connection with the guild.
The façade of S. Bartolommeo is a masterpiece of Lombard work. It has the usual three round-arched doors, whose pilasters and architraves are rich with interlaced scrolls and foliage, and whose richly-carved arches rest on lions more or less fiercely dominating other animals, as emblems that divine strength is able to overcome sin. Whether all the animal sculptures on this church are due to the twelfth-century builder, or whether some are remains of Gundoaldo's[181] first edifice in 767, I cannot say. The architraves are certainly of the later date.
The head, or capo-maestro of the laborerium of Pistoja in the twelfth century, was evidently one of the Buono family, whose race and school became as famous as the Antelami and Campionesi, all three being branches of the original Lombard Guild. Like the Antelami and the Campionesi, the school founded by the Buoni furnished several shining lights among the Lombard Magistri. The name is first met with in the poem of which we have spoken,[182] on the Ten Years' War between Milan and the people of Como. Among the brave citizens who threw down their tools to take arms, and distinguished themselves in wielding them, was a certain Giovanni Buono from Vesonzo (now Bissone) in Vall' Intelvi, who took part in the siege of the fortress of S. Martino on Lake Lugano. The war took place in the tenth century; the poem was written a little later than 1100. Sig. Merzario[183] opines that the Maestro Buono of whom Vasari speaks as the "first architect who showed a more elevated spirit, and aimed after better things, but of whose country and family he knows nothing,"[184] was one of this line of sculptor-architects originally from Vesonzo (Bissone) in Inteluum (Val d'Intelvi). The name Giovanni occurs constantly in the lists.
Certainly the head of the line, as far as regards art, was the Magister Giovanni Buoni here mentioned by Vasari, who goes on to say that this Buono in 1152 had been employed on buildings in Ravenna, after which he was called to Naples, where he built the Castel dell' Uovo and Castel Capuano; and that in the time of Doge Domenico Morosini, i.e. 1154, he founded the Campanile of S. Marco at Venice, which Vasari asserts was so well built that up to his time it had never moved a hair (non ha mai mosso un pelo).
Vasari says that Giovanni Buono was in 1166 at Pistoja, where he built the church of S. Andrea. Both Milanesi, Vasari's annotator, and Merzario[185] complain that Vasari was very confused in these statements. The tower of S. Marco was, Cicognara says, by a later Bartolommeo Buono from Bergamo, who also built the Procuratie Vecchie in the sixteenth century. It is curious how Vasari, living in the same century, could have made such a statement; he must have known whether the tower were being built then, or had been standing for several centuries. The fact was that one Buono built the older tower in Venice to which Vasari refers, and the sixteenth-century Bartolommeo Buono was its restorer. The style is certainly antique.
Vasari's annotators agree that this Buono worked at Arezzo, where he built the bell-tower, and the ancient palace of the Signoria of Arezzo (cio è un palazzo della maniera de' Goti), i.e. with large hewn stones; after which he came to Pistoja, where he built S. Andrea and other churches.
But even here some confusion exists. It is difficult to decide whether the builder of S. Andrea at Pistoja, and the cathedral of Lucca was indeed named Buono or Gruamonte. There is an inscription on the sculpture of the architrave of the façade which has been a great bone of contention. It proves, however, beyond a doubt that the usual organization, with the Opera as the administrative branch, existed in Pistoja in 1196. It runs—"Fecit hoc opus Gruamons magister bon(us) et Adot ... (Adeodatus) frater ejus. Tunc erāt operarii Villanus et Pathus filius Tignosi A.D. MCIXVI."[186] This work was done by Gruamons, Master Buono, and Adeodatus his brother; Villanus and Pathus, son of Tignosi, being then operai (i.e. on the administrative council).
In that word bonus lies the difficulty. Some say it is merely placed in encomium: Gruamons the good master; but it does not seem to me probable that a man would habitually sign his name with a boastful adjective; and habitual it was, because on the white stripes of the architrave of the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista Fuorcivitas he has again signed himself "Gruamons magister bonus fêc hoc opus." Knowing the Italian love of nicknames from the earliest ages, I take it that the architect was really, as Vasari says, Master Bonus or Buono, and that either from a long neck and a stoop, or from his clever use of a crane, he was nicknamed Gruamons, "the crane man,"[187] grue being Italian for both bird and machine. That the Gruamons who carved the Magi on the architrave of S. Andrea was one of the very early Masters, is evident from the mediæval grossness of his work in carving the human figure; that he may very likely be Comacine is suggested by the style and mastery of his ornamento and the life in the figures of his animals. The capitals supporting this architrave are evidently by one of his subordinates; they are very rough, but full of meaning, explaining the mystery of the Annunciation and Conception; below them the signature Magister enricus mi fecit. These early sculptures are especially interesting, for they are the first efforts of the Comacines to show Bible events and truths by actual representation instead of by symbols, and so form the link with the development under Niccolò Pisano. Hence the greater want of practice in the human figures, compared to the animals and scrolls, with which the guild had been familiar for ages.
