Il Gotico di Nicola e Giovanni Pisano

Nicola Pisano moved to Pisa from which he derived his nickname He created a marble pulpit in 1260 for the interior of the Romanesque Baptistery in the Piazza dei Miracoli The seed of classical culture which he had absorbed during his education was thus introduced into Tuscany by him Uniquely hexagonal and not square as was the Tuscany tradition The parapet consists of five panels separated by small pillars with different colorings The representations of Christ's life carved into them refer to the classical tradition The architect's mindset led his art to weave an unprecedented and fruitful relationship with sculpture In this way elements of the structure become statues with strong emotional power Nicola made a fundamental contribution to the renewal of the language of sculpture Nicola and Giovanni Pisano father and son two outstanding sculptors Those who have created pulpits that in some way contain elements related to the Gothic Because they have this kind of ascending shape because they are hexagonal pulpits placed on top of columns And this structure is in turn surrounded by balustrades that are a kind of sculptural decoration With scenes related to the life of Our Lord Then comes a very specific period which happens to be the one that falls between the 1200s and 1300s In which the pulpit takes on a very different role as it becomes an additional opportunity to catechize through images Raised in the workshop of Nicola Pisano the son Giovanni learned and continued his father's sculptural tradition The work of Giovanni the pulpit of the Pisa Cathedral with its unusual rounded shape It moves the figures with great freedom making them emerge and live in an entirely original continuum This fully reflects the teaching of French Gothic aimed at a greater sense of drama and a more elegant formal elaboration Maximizing the sense of volume and the natural movement of the figures The figures of Giovanni with their vibrant vitality assert the new supremacy of sculpture no longer a servant of architecture Only by seeing Giovanni Pisano's pulpits does one realize that he is on the same level as Giotto As it manages to translate into sculpture what Giotto was doing in painting namely realism