whose bas-reliefs were greatly admired for general correctness of drawing, and good arrangement of draperies, though they were confessedly wanting in that sentiment and variety of expression conspicuous in the Pisan school. Feeling this, and participating in the reverence entertained by the citizens of Pistoja for the memory of Niccola Pisano, a Spanish priest urged that the commission for a marble pulpit then about to be erected in the church of San Andrea, should be given to Giovanni Pisano, whose reputation warranted the belief, which he fully verified, that he would produce a work in every way superior to that by Il Tedesco. The commission was accordingly given to Giovanni, with full A.D. 1300. liberty as to the subjects to be selected for its bas-reliefs and ornamental details, although he was obliged to conform himself in its general design to that of the pulpits at Siena and Pisa, which, it was felt, could not be improved. pulpit at S. Andrea. Taking the Pisan pulpit for his architectural model, as better Giovanni's suited in size to the dimensions of San Andrea, Giovanni filled its five panels with reliefs representing the Birth of Christ, the Adoration, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Crucifixion, and the Last Judgment. One of these, the Massacre, we consider Giovanni's masterpiece; nay, more, we feel inclined to set it down as one of the most dramatic and forcible representations of this painful and revolting subject, to be found in Italian art. Rare powers of conception and a dramatic feeling, which Niccola wanted, are shown in the sullen satisfaction with which Herod looks down upon the rush of maddened soldiers, despairing mothers, and shrieking infants, as well as in the figure of the woman who sits upon the ground, bowed in silent grief over the dead body of her child, and of her who yet struggles, in the agony of despair, to save her darling from a like fate. These same qualities shine out in the relief of the Crucifixion, which contains an admirable group of women at the foot of the cross. Elsewhere, as for example in the Inferno, the compositions are overcrowded, and consequently confused; a fault into which Other works at Pistoja. Florence. both father and son often fell, from a want of judgment as to the capacities afforded for representation by pulpit and shrine panels.1 (See a statuette from this pulpit-tailpiece.) While residing at Pistoja, Giovanni also made a holy-water vase, supported by the now mutilated figures of Temperance, Prudence, and Justice, for the church of San Giovanni; designed the campanile of San Jacopo, and the door of San Paolo; and restored several churches and convents both at Pistoja and Prato. These He goes to labours ended, he turned his steps to Florence, desirous of seeing his old friend and fellow-scholar, Arnolfo del Cambio, then in the zenith of his reputation, and the young Giotto, whose praises were in every mouth. The city of Florence, which, forty years before, (when the courageous opposition of Farinata degli Uberti saved her from destruction by the Ghibellines,) 2 trembled on the brink of ruin, was now increasing in strength and wealth; she had raised a large army, and for the third time girdled herself with walls, then nearly completed, within which Arnolfo and Giotto had built and decorated many beautiful churches and palaces. Filled with admiration for these two great native artists, the Florentines seem to have been disinclined to commit any works of importance to a foreigner; and thus Giovanni Pisano, instead of finding among them the patronage which his reputation warranted him to expect, received but one order during the two years which he spent among them, namely, that for the Madonna and Adoring Angels which fill a lunette over one of the side-doors of the Duomo, then in process of erection by Arnolfo. The 1 The words of the inscription, Johannis Nicholi natus sentia [sic] meliore beatus,' appear to indicate that, in the opinion of the Pistojans, Giovanni had surpassed his father (Ciampi, op. cit.). 2 After the battle of Montaperti, che fece l'Arbia colorata in rosso,' in which Farinata, chief of the Florentine Ghibellines, defeated the Guelphs, the victors proposed at Empoli to destroy Florence, which project they would have carried into execution if Farinata had not opposed it with indomitable firmness. 3 Macchiavelli, Hist. of Florence, book ii. ch. iii. Madonna is Pisan in type, and somewhat stiff in attitude; the angels are well conceived and pleasing. Benedict These first years of the fourteenth century, which our artist spent at Pistoja and Florence, were marked by the humiliation and death of Pope Boniface VIII., who had renewed the ancient struggle between the papacy and the Empire. Instead of Frederic II., the aggressor was now Philip le Bel of France, who, unlike his prototype, came off victor in the contest, and ultimately succeeded in removing the seat of the papal government from Rome to A.D. 1305. Avignon. His intrigues were baffled for a short time by the rapid action of the cardinals, who immediately after the death of Boniface, replaced him by the Cardinal Niccola di Treviso, under the name of Benedict XI.; he, yielding at first to the king, Pope revoked the decrees of his predecessor against Philip, his coun- XI. cillors, and the Gallican Church, but when the king demanded that Boniface (or Maleface, as he contemptuously called him) should be declared a heretic, he changed his ground, and excommunicated all those who had been concerned against the late pope at Anagni. From that moment his fate was sealed; and one month later he died at Perugia, after eating a basket of poisoned figs, His death. administered to him, it is said, by one of the cardinals at the instigation of Philip le Bel. The nine months' session of the Sacred College, which followed, gave the unscrupulous King of France time to prepare his plans for getting the papacy into his power, in carrying out which, one of his chief agents was the Cardinal Aquasparta, of Prato, who five years before had been sent to Florence as legate by Boniface, to endeavour to appease the quarrels between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, then lately revived by the Bianchi and Neri.' Through the timely advice of this cardinal, Philip was enabled to secure the election of Bertrand de Got,2 a French cardinal, and one of his creatures, who was crowned at Lyons as Pope Clement V. 1 F. Villani, op. cit. lib. viii. ch. xxxix. p. 371. 2 Matteo di Orsini, leader of the Italian faction, on hearing of this election, 1 8 1 Nov. 14, deputed the pope's Its design. It was during the session of the Sacred College at Perugia, that Giovanni Pisano was invited by the before-mentioned Cardinal Aquasparta to make the monument of the late pope, which still stands in the church of S. Domenico. Upon a base of considerable Giovanni height, and protected by a lofty Gothic canopy, sustained by twisted columns, richly inlaid with mosaic, into whose spirals diminutive monument. figures are fantastically introduced, stands the sarcophagus upon which lies the effigy of the pontiff (see Plate IV.), at whose head and feet stand angels holding back curtains, and looking down upon it with a mingled expression of surprise and sorrow. This striking and novel monumental feature, which we shall henceforth meet with in many Pisan tombs, if an error, which we hardly think it to have been, was 'an error so full of feeling, as to be sometimes all but redeemed and altogether forgiven,' and none the less lovely because the scholars of the Pisani caricatured it, and turned the quiet curtained canopy into a huge marble tent with a pole in the centre of it.'1 The honour of having first conceived it belongs to Arnolfo del Cambio, if (as is supposed) he made the tomb of Cardinal de Braye at Ovieto, within twenty years after that prelate's death; while Giovanni deserves praise only for quick appreciation and adoption of the idea, which he again used in the very impressive monument of St. Margaret, in the sacristy of her church at Cortona, whose general arrangement resembles that of Pope Benedict. Upon the sarcophagus lies the effigy of the saint with Margaret her hands clasped beneath her robe; at her feet crouches the faithful dog who guided her to the bleeding body of her murdered lover, the sight of which (though tempted by a demon to resume her former evil courses) so changed her, that she determined to Tomb at Cortona. said prophetically to Cardinal del Prato, head of the French party: Vous voilà donc venu à vos fins; vous nous menez au delà les monts. L'Italie ne reverra de longtemps le Saint Siège' (H. Martin, op. cit. vol. iv. p. 460). 1 Stones of Venice, vol. i. p. 209. |