HOC OPUS EXIMIUM TAM MERUM TAM PRETIOSUM:RAINALDUS PRUDENS OPERATOR, ET IPSE MAGISTER:COSTITVIT MIRE, SOLLERTER, ET INGENIOSE.
HOC OPUS EXIMIUM TAM MERUM TAM PRETIOSUM:RAINALDUS PRUDENS OPERATOR, ET IPSE MAGISTER:COSTITVIT MIRE, SOLLERTER, ET INGENIOSE.
HOC OPUS EXIMIUM TAM MERUM TAM PRETIOSUM:
RAINALDUS PRUDENS OPERATOR, ET IPSE MAGISTER:
COSTITVIT MIRE, SOLLERTER, ET INGENIOSE.
It is much to be deplored that this inscription bears no date, so that we cannot tell whether Rainaldo were chief architect after Buschetto, or whether he were only sculptor and executed the front; Buschetto being architect, and designing the whole. Here we have several things to suggest both these artists as Italians, (1) Their names. (2) The Comacine form of their institutions, with theOperaat the head. (3) The concourse of ItalianMagistriwhich followed them; but as usual, absolute proof is wanting.
Let us see if their work can throw more light on the question. Is the Pisan church Byzantine? Decidedly not. There are no domes except the central one, which is seen in most Lombard churches; no Oriental arches resting on bulging capitals; but round arches supported on the identical Romano-Lombard composite capitals one sees in every Italian church of the time. The façade too is a very wilderness of Lombard galleries in every direction. Instead of following the line of roof, they cover the whole front, one below another. If Buschetto had brought back from Byzantium an idea of more richness of ornamentation, he certainly worked it out in Italian forms, by merely multiplying his little pillared galleries till a network was formed over the whole building. This was not confined to him; it became a mark of Comacine work for the next two or three centuries, as we may see at Lucca, Ancona, Arezzo, and other places. The style is called Romanesque, and it stands between the heavier Lombard style of the earlier Comacines, and the more finished Italian Gothic of thelater ones, as shown in Florence and Milan. They are all, however, only different developments of the same guild.
Interior of Pisa Cathedral, 11th century.See page 212.
Interior of Pisa Cathedral, 11th century.
See page 212.
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 ofrosso 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 andBaptistery 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 theOperai(members of the administrative council orOpera) named Cinetto Cinetti, and Arrigo Cancellieri, were appointedsoprastanti(overseers). Here again we have a distinct connection between theOpera del Duomoand thelaborerium.
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 thefaçade 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 andintrecci. On one of thepillars 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 wordTedescoin 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.
Before these were built we have at Cologne, S. Gereon's Kirche, with circular arches, date 1227, and S. Pantaleon, 980, but there is not a sign of Gothic in either. Bonn cathedral, built in 1151-1270, is also round-arched. Coblenz is Carlovingian. Mayence, round-arched of the tenth and eleventh centuries (the Gothic side-chapels date from 1260 to 1500). Treves, with round arches, early Romanesque of the eleventh century; choir, later Romanesque of the twelfth century; some parts which are pointed were ofthe thirteenth century. Hildesheim, a Romanesque Basilica, built in the eleventh century. Dom Insel at Breslau, 1170, is tripartite, on the Comacine plan, and very quaint. Worms, 996-1016, Lombard style, with round arches; the parts with pointed architecture are much more modern. This list proves that the earliest churches were built by Italian Masters, or at least in the Italian style.
Indeed Hope classes most of them as Lombard. The Germans themselves expanded the Lombard style into the pointed, which also came up through Italy, its first signs being seen at Assisi, next at Pisa, and then Florence.
Milan was a later reflex of the perfected German Gothic, though chiefly executed, as we shall see later, by the hands of Comacine Masters.
As I have before remarked, climatic influences greatly determine the style of a national architecture. To the sunny south belong the flat roof; the shady colonnade; the horizontal line and frieze; the fountained court; the smaller windows; and the solid tower. To the north the pointed roof, that snow and rain shall not decay it; the solid buttress to resist the greater outward pressure of the high and aspiring sloped roof; the perpendicular tendency in design; the larger windows for a less sunny atmosphere; and the pointed spire to carry up the general lines.
On these lines of fitness the Germans and French perfected their style, and imported it into England. The differences are great, between this northern Gothic and the Italian Gothic, which is always more or less Romanesque. Now if in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries[169]the Germans had not begun to build their glorious pointed minsters, what did Vasari mean byquei Tedeschi? I will show from his own description. In his chapter called "dell' Architettura," forming the introduction to hisLives, after discussing the three classical orders, he says (I will translate literally)—"Thereis another kind of work which they callTedesco(German), in which the ornamentation and proportions are very different from the ancient or the modern. (Modern in Vasari's time would be the Renaissance style of Michael Angelo.) This is not used by good architects of these days, but is shunned by them as monstrous and barbarous. Every sign of order is forgotten, it ought rather to be called confusion and disorder. In the buildings, which are so many that they have infected the whole world, you see the portals adorned with thin columns twisted like a vine, and so slight that they could not be supposed to support the weight. And then on their façades and other places they made a cursed mass of little tabernacles (archlets) one on the other, with many pyramids and points, and such foliage (here Vasari evidently has his eye on Pisa Baptistery), that it seems impossible how they clung together; they seem made of paper, rather than of stone or marble. In these works there are many protuberances, broken lines, brackets, andintrecci, quite disproportionate to the building; and frequently, by piling one thing on another, they run up so high that the top of a door touches the roof. (Here Vasari is certainly thinking of the porches of San Zeno at Verona, and the cathedral of Bergamo.) This style was invented by the Goths (does he mean Longobards perhaps?), who having ruined the buildings, and murdered the architects, made the ones who remained build in this way. They arched their roofs with acutequarti(vaulted roofs) and filled all Italy with this cursed style of building.... God save any country from coming to such ideas and orders of architecture, which, being utterly deformed and unlike the beauty of our buildings, do not deserve that we should speak any more of them."
Again, in theProemio delle Vite, when praising the solid buildings of the Goths in Ravenna, especially the tomb of Theodoric, with its huge monolithic roof, he goes on tospeak of the Dark Ages—"After which," he says, "there arose new architects, who from their barbarous nation derived the kind of buildings which we of to-day calltedeschi, the which seem ridiculous to us, although to them they may have appeared to be praiseworthy."
Here are tirades from the old chronicler of art, who swore by the three classic orders, and worshipped Michael Angelo and the Renaissance style! Certainly the flat pilaster, triangular pediments, and straight unadorned lines of that art were as far removed as the poles from the florid but meaningful sculpture-architecture of the Comacines in Romanesque times, or its rich Norman and Gothic developments.
However, we gather plainly from this, that when Vasari calls a masterTedesco, he means merely Lombard. The reason is easy to see. Lombardy and North Italy, down to Lucca, were from about 1170 under the rule of the German Emperors, consequently the Comacines were no longer Lombards, nor French as in the Carlovingian times, but Germans.
This is curiously emphasized by an episode in the building of the cathedral at Pisa. When the Pisans wanted to endow the building fund of the church, they wished to buy some land on the Serchio, near Lucca, to help to form a revenue. They had, however, to send Gualando Orlandi and Aldebrando de' Visconti as ambassadors to Germany to obtain permission from the Emperor Henry IV., that the lands close by Lucca might be ceded to Pisa.[170]
The tower of Pisa is too well known to need any description here. The joint masters were Bonanno of Pisa, and a very confusingTedesco. In some authors he is called Giovanni d'Innspruck, in others Guglielmo from Germany. On inquiry as to how Innspruck comes into the question, we find the following perplexing passage inMorrona. After quoting the inscription on the tower, "A.D. MCLXXIV campanile hoc fuit fundatum mense Agusti," he continues—"We find from ancient documents belonging to theOpera, that the building was begun on the vigil of San Lorenzo, and the two above-mentioned architects (Bonanno and Guglielmo) are precisely indicated, excepting only that instead ofGuglielmo Tedesco, it is writtenGiovanni Onnipotente of Germany—a misinterpretation of the word Œnipons or Œnipontanus, which signifies native of Innspruck."[171]The italics are my own, and emphasize what Sig. Morrona styles a precise indication! The passage is an astounding bit of unreason, but as neither Giovanni nor Guglielmo is a German form of name, I do not think this theory need trouble us. Whether the builder were German or Italian, whether named John or William, he only carried out the general design of the two buildings, and made a veil of Lombard archlets all over his leaning tower.
We shall find both Bonanno and Guglielmo working at Orvieto some time later. The tower was finished much later, when Andrea di Pisa was Grand Master of the Pisan Lodge; the upper circle of arches belongs to his part of the work.
At Pisa then we have an artistic sphere which might well have produced Niccolò di Pisa, even without the influences of the south. We will, as far as the few inscriptions and documents allow, see who were the members of this Masonic lodge, which had painters before even the rise of the Siena school, and whose building was the earliest model for the Romanesque style.
Bonanno, who assisted in the building of the tower, was more famous in the guild for his metal working than for architecture and marble sculpture. The fame of the bronze doors of the Duomo which he cast is now only traditionary, as they were destroyed by the fire on October 25, 1596. The antique inscription has been preserved, and proves that in 1180 Bonanno cast the doors, which had taken him a year to model, and that a certain "Benedict" wasoperariusat the time.[172]
Bonanno's successor as a master in bronze was a certain Bartolommeo di Pisa, who was, like Bonanno, sculptor, architect, and metal-worker. He was much patronized by the Emperor Frederic, for whom he built the palace at Foggia, and made a tomb. He seems to have been a famous bell-caster; there are inscriptions quoted by Morrona,[173]which have been found on bells in the leaning tower of Pisa, the bells of the churches of St. Francis at Assisi, S. Francesco at Siena, S. Paolo a Ripa d'Arno, and S. Cosimo at Pisa, S. Michele at Lucca, etc. Sometimes his name stands alone; sometimes one of his sons, Lotteringo or Andreotti, is associated with him. Later we find the sons' names alone in independent works, and then with the distinctive title ofMagister.
Through this group of Pisan Masters a special connection was established with the south, a link which might account for Pietro, the father of Niccolò, being called Pietro da Apulia, for there certainly was an offshoot of the Pisan lodge in that part. Bonanno of Pisa cast the famous bronze doors of Monreale; Bartolommeo was at Foggia; and his son, Magister Lotoringus, passed most of his life at Cefalù, where his name appears on a bell datedA.D.1263. The Emperor Frederic, his father's patron, nationalized him in Cefalù, and after ten years of residence, in 1242 hegave him permission to take a wife from Castro-Vetere in Calabria.
Other metal-workers and bell-casters at Pisa were a Nanni, a Pardo Nardi, and others whose names appear inscribed in the twelfth century. I do not know whether the Angelo Rossi, whose name with the date 1173 is on a sculptured bell once in the church of S. Giovanni in Pisa (now at Villa di Pugnano), was a fellow-pupil or scholar of Bonanno's. His work is less artistic and masterly.
And now for the sculptors of the lodge. A famous master of the twelfth century was Biduinus, who sculptured the façade of the ancient church of S. Cassiano, near Pisa, the building of which was undoubtedly the work of the Pisan Lodge. It is a round-arched church of the usual large smooth square-cut blocks of stone, and is externally adorned by pilasters with capitals of varied form and sculpture. Biduinus' façade has five round arches with a simple double-light window above. The capitals and architraves are all carved with the mystic beasts and hippogriffs belonging to the religion of the day. The architraves show the resurrection of Lazarus, and Christ's entry into Jerusalem. On one of the doors is the inscription in Gothic letters—"Hoc opus quod cernis. Biduinus docte peregit"; the other bears the date 1180. The whole style of the church is similar to the Pistoja buildings of that epoch, and recalls the school of Gruamonte. It is certain that Biduinus as well as Gruamont worked in Lucca, for the relief of the architrave of S. Salvatore at Lucca is signed "BIDUVINO ME FECIT HOC OPUS."
Pulpit in the Church of S. Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoja. By Magister Guglielmo d'Agnello, 13th century.See page 223.
Pulpit in the Church of S. Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoja. By Magister Guglielmo d'Agnello, 13th century.
See page 223.
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-towerof 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 wroteMagisterbefore 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 theTedescowho 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 intufo, 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 1315Bonaiutus magister lapidumis noted as working at the Duomo, and receiving two soldi a day, his companions receiving four or five, and thecapo maestroeight. 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 fullcapo maestroof 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, asfamulus 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 theMagistri, 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 apalace, 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
The family were leading members of the guild up to the fifteenth century, when Bartolommeo Buono and his sons won fame in Venice.
The family were leading members of the guild up to the fifteenth century, when Bartolommeo Buono and his sons won fame in Venice.
We have seen the long connection of the Comacines with Lucca, during Lombard times, when they helped to build S. Frediano and other churches there. Sig. Ridolfi, author ofL' Arte in Lucca, proves that not only the chief churches, but the cathedral itself, were the work of the Lombard "Maestri Casari" who had established their schools there, since they restored S. Frediano for the Lombard Faulone in 686, and built the Basilica of S. Martino for Bishop Frediano in 588.
By the tenth century the church of S. Martino was very dilapidated, which much grieved the mind of Bishop Anselmo, who sought to gather together funds for its restoration. Two wealthy Lucchesi, Lambertus and Blancarius, both dignitaries of the cathedral, gave large donations towards it. Not long after this, Bishop Anselmo was elevated to the Papal See as Pope Alexander II., and immediately began the long-desired work of rebuilding his ex-cathedral.
Church of S. Michele, Lucca.See page 228.
Church of S. Michele, Lucca.
See page 228.
He being a Milanese, and the Comacines his countrymen, besides their having a long connection with Lucca,it is natural to suppose he chose them as his architects. Every sign of the work confirms this, although no names have come down to us. As was frequently the case, the church was left without a façade for over a century, and at the end of the twelfth century the Lucchesi wished to put this finishing touch.
There was in Lucca at the time a certain Magister Guido da Como, who had in 1187 built the church of S. Maria Corteorlandini. It was built for the feudal Lords Rolandinga, whose palace was called Corte Rolandinga, on the occasion of one of their family joining in the crusades.[176]There is mention of a Comacine sculptor named Guido before this date, at Corneto-Tarquinia, where in the church of S. Maria di Castello is a fine Ciborium, signed "Johannes et Guitto hoc opus fecerunt, MCLXVIII." This, being only nineteen years previous, may have been an earlier work of this same Guido. ThisMagisterevidently had a son who followed his father's art, and was named after himself Guido, though called Guidetto, or young Guido, to distinguish him from his father. To these two men were confided the commission for the front of the Duomo. Probably the elder did not live to complete it, for although the commission was given to Maestro Guido Marmolario (sic), the inscription on thefaçade runs—"Mille C.C.|IIII.|condi|dit|ele|cti tam pul| chras. dextra|Guidecti."[177]Among the sculptures is one figure with a very young face, supposed to be a portrait of Guidetto. This façade is a perfect specimen of pure Comacine-Romanesque, and shows that the Saracen influence under which the Masters had been placed in the south, when employed by the Lombard Dukes of Beneventum, had not led them to change entirely their old style, but only to develop it into a species of Oriental richness which (so far we may agree with old Vasari) sometimes errs against truth and good taste. It shows also the close connection between the Pisan and Lucchese Lodges.
The row of archlets which used to form a cornice under the roof now, as at Pisa, run wild over the whole façade. The outlines which used to follow honestly the shape of nave and aisles, now, for the sake of heaping on more ornament, stretch up far beyond the roof-line, forming a mask.
A still more glaring instance of the same fault is seen in Guidetto's other church, S. Michele, at Lucca, where the two upper galleries are the frontage of a mere useless wall in the air.
As an architect, young Guido left something to be desired; as a sculptor he was marvellous. Variety seems to have been his aim. In both S. Martino and S. Michele, among all the hundreds of colonnettes, you can scarcely find a duplicate. They are plain, fluted, foliaged, clustered, inlaid; black, white, red, green, yellow or parti-coloured, in endless variety. As for capitals, you get every imaginable shape and style, symbol and ornamentation. He outdoes his prototype Rainaldus of Pisa, and no clearer proof of a guild, rather than a single mind, can be furnished, than by this infinite variety of detail, which plainly speaks of the imaginings of many minds.
Cathedral of Lucca (San Martino), erected 11th century; Façade 1204. By Guidectus.See page 228.
Cathedral of Lucca (San Martino), erected 11th century; Façade 1204. By Guidectus.
See page 228.
The Comacines here are still in the transition stage, though near its end, for the sign of the lion of Judah holds its place above the pillar, under the spring of the arch. In the Italian Gothic, their next development, it is always beneath the column.
One of the lion-capped columns is entirely covered with sculptures representing the genealogical tree of the Virgin. The statue above the door, of St. Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar, is sufficiently well modelled as to suggest its belonging to a later century.
Signor Ridolfi, who has studied much in the archives of Lucca for his learned workL' Arte in Lucca, thinks that, in 1204, Guidetto the younger was only just beginning his career. His father must have died about this time, for the son loses his diminutive, and becomes in his turn GuidoMagistro. In 1211 he was called to Prato to work at the Duomo there (then known as S. Stefano). The contract, which still exists, does not specify what part of the church he was to build. It is drawn up by the Notary Hildebrand, and binds "Guido, Maestro marmoraio" of S. Martino of Lucca, to go to Prato on fair terms, and there to remain working, andcommanding others to work, at the church of S. Stefano. After this he was recalled to Lucca, to put the above-mentioned façade to S. Michele, which Teutprand had built in the eighth century, and which had been rebuilt, when in 1027 Beraldo de' Rolandinghi had left a large legacy for the purpose. This façade, which, as I have said, is precisely similar in style to that of the Duomo, was finished in 1246.[178]Guido was then called to Pisa, to sculpture the altar and font in the Baptistery there. Not much remains of the altar—which appears to have been the usual edifice on four columns—except some very ancient sculpture, and two small columns with extremely rude statues on them. The inscription, however, ispreserved, and runs—"A.D. MCCXLVI, sub Jacobi Rectore loci—Guido Bigarelli da Como fecit hoc opus."[179]This valuable discovery was made by the German Schmarzow. Here we have the family name of this busy sculptor, and of his father Guido of Como. It is one of the first instances, for surnames only became fixed about this time.
Guido or Guidetto's last work appears to have been the pulpit in San Bartolommeo in Pantano, at Pistoja, executed in 1250. This is particularly interesting, as being the immediate precursor of Niccolò Pisano's pulpit at Pisa in 1260. It has been thought that Guido, either from death or other cause, left the work imperfect, and his pupil Turrisianus finished it. The inscription as quoted by Cav. Tolomei is—"Sculptor laudator qui doctus in arte probatur|Guido de Como quem cunctis carmine promo| Anno domini 1250|Est operi sanus superestans Turrisianus |Namque fide prova vigil K Deus indi corona."[180]
Tolomei is puzzled by the cypher K, and Ciampi, the collector of inscriptions, has, in reporting this one, left out the last line altogether. He interprets it as implying that Guido having left the work unfinished, Turrisianus finished it. Whilst I was studying lately some old documents in the archives of S. Jacopo at Pistoja, Signor Guido Macciò of that city, who kindly assisted me to read the crabbed old characters, threw a new light on that inscription. He says Tolomei has misread it; that the cypher is not a K but H C, which was plainly legible in a rubbing he took of it, and thatsuperstansmerely means overseer; in fact, the Latin form ofoperaio. The same termsuperstanswas used for the head of thelaboreriumin Rome up to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, and survived in thelater lodges assoprastante. Signor Macciò interprets the inscription thus—"The famous sculptor Guido of Como has proved himself learned in art, and his name should be sung in verse,A.D.1250. Turrisianus (Torrigiani) acted as overseer to this fine work, and may God crown him for superintending the work so well." I leave more learned classics to say which interpretation is the true one. But as in most of the inscriptions, documents, etc. of the guild, the name of the head of the lodge, and often those of the councillors are put in, I incline to think Signor Macciò may be right, and the inscription is another proof of a Masonic lodge in which Torrigiani was, at the time, the head of the administration.
Pulpit in Church of S. Bartolommeo, Pistoja. By Guido da Como.See page 230.
Pulpit in Church of S. Bartolommeo, Pistoja. By Guido da Como.
See page 230.
Guido's pulpit is of white marble, and in the ancient square form, with eight panels in bas-relief. It rests on three columns; the first stands on a lion with a dragon at its feet, the second on a lioness suckling a cub, the third on a human figure. In this pulpit, and the older one at Groppoli, we have a perceptible link, connecting Niccolò Pisano with the Comacine Guild, which we shall trace more closely when speaking of Romanesque sculpture.
There were at that epoch three lodges in the immediate neighbourhood. One in connection with the Opera del Duomo at Pisa, one at Pistoja in the Opera di S. Jacopo, and a third one at Lucca, where Guido and Guidetto were chief sculptors. Besides this there was another in Apulia, where it is thought Niccolò's father Pietro worked. Niccolò's work, and that of Guido the younger, are so very much alike as to warrant the suspicion that they were both pupils of one master, but that Niccolò had in him these greater qualities which go to form an epoch-making artist.
Little has hitherto come to light respecting the Masonic lodges of Lucca and Pisa. Thelaboreriumat Pistoja is rather more clearly defined, and furnishes some definite names. It existed from the twelfth century, but I do notthink the archives were kept quite so early as that. There is the nameRodolfin'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, orcapo-maestroof thelaboreriumof 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 LombardMagistri. The name is first met with in the poem of which we have spoken,[182]on the Ten Years' War between Milan and thepeople 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 musthave 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 theOperaas 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 TignosiA.D.MCIXVI."[186]This work was done by Gruamons, Master Buono, and Adeodatus his brother; Villanus and Pathus, son of Tignosi, being thenoperai(i.e.on the administrative council).
In that wordbonuslies 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 nicknamesfrom 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]gruebeing 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 hisornamentoand 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 signatureMagister 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.