Nicola Pisano
[citation needed] Nicola Pisano was probably trained in the local workshops of the emperor Frederick II, and he attended his coronation.
"The head of a young girl" (now displayed in the Museo del Palazzo Venezia in Rome), cut in the hardstone of Elba, is also ascribed to Nicola Pisano in the same period.
In this pulpit, considered one of his masterworks, he succeeded in making a synthesis of the French Gothic style with the Classical style of ancient Rome, as he had probably learned in South Italy and must have seen on the sarcophagi of the Camposanto in Pisa, such as the Phaedra sarcophagus[4] or Meleager hunting the Calydonian Boar on a sarcophagus brought as booty to Pisa by its navy.
The Corinthian capitals support trefoil Gothic arches, decorated in the spandrels with paired Prophets and, under the reliefs of the Crucifixion and the Last Judgement, with Evangelists.
The arches are separated by sculptures of St. John the Baptist, St. Michael and four Virtues, Charity, Fortitude, Temperance and Prudence.
[6] The hexagonal pulpit itself consists of five reliefs in white Carrara marble from the Life of Christ: the first relief combines three scenes, the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Annunciation to the Shepherds, while the following show single scenes: the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, the Crucifixion and the Last Judgment.
In the Presentation panel the Madonna reminds us of the regal bearing of goddesses in late Roman sculpture, while the expressive face of St. Anne shows the ravages of age.
The scene The Last Judgement was probably based on a Byzantine ivory and The Crucifixion was sculpted with the same elegance as contemporary French Gothic art.
The sculptures are represented in the same manner as those of the Arch of Constantine in Rome, with the figures standing atop columns.
The front side was done in his workshop, partially by Nicola Pisano himself but mostly by his assistant Lapo di Ricevuto.
It would almost take 500 years to finish this shrine through the work of famous sculptors: Arnolfo di Cambio, fra Guglielmo Agnelli, Niccolò dell'Arca, the young Michelangelo, Girolamo Coltellini and Giovanni Batista Boudard.
By its richness in details and by its iconography, this last work shows a rapprochement to French Gothic art.
On the other hand, as the pulpit of the Siena Cathedral shows, Nicola Pisano was still attached to contemporary Gothic art.
International Gothic and its variations became briefly more popular in the Early 15th century than the Classicism of the High Renaissance.
