Pulpit in the Pisa Baptistery

The pulpit in the Pisa Baptistery was completed by Nicola Pisano and his assistants in 1260, and has long been regarded as a landmark in Italian art, especially for its large relief panels around the platform.

[7] The outer face of the low parapet around this space has five panels in marble relief, showing scenes from the Life of Christ; the sixth side allows access.

The most famous panel is a Nativity scene, which is combined with an Annunciation at left, an Adoration of the Shepherds at right, and a Washing of the Christ Child at the bottom.

May so greatly gifted a hand be praised as it deserves).Below this there is a zone where six relatively small relief figures, "almost in the round",[20] fill the spaces between the capitals of the columns and "an archivolt formed of trilobe arches with pierced cusps" under the panels.

[21] Their subjects are often taken to be the "Christian Virtues" (Charity, Fortitude, Temperance, Prudence, St John the Baptist, and Faith),[22] but there has been a good deal of discussion over this,[23] and even by 2000 "it has not been possible to obtain general consent even about the names of most of these figures".

[24] The most famous is the nude male said to represent Daniel as "Fortitude", who is (all are agreed) clearly based on classical images of Hercules, in a contrapposto pose.

[27] The city of Pisa regarded itself as a stronghold of enduring Romanitas, and an unusual number of Roman sculptures, mostly sarcophagi, were already on display, mostly around the Piazza dei Miracoli or cathedral precinct in which the baptistery sits.

[28] In particular, one sarcophagus, at that point actually placed on the cathedral facade, has a seated figure of Phaedra which Nicola followed closely for the Virgin in his Adoration of the Magi, as was already noticed by Vasari.

[30] Elements which have been noted as retaining older medieval styles, Romanesque and Italo-Byzantine, include drapery which "breaks into sharp angles providing an all-over network" rather than classical fluidity,[31] and the disproportionately large head of the Daniel/Hercules.

The capitals of the columns have "a classical firmness and precision" but the "projecting acanthus leaves resemble the much freer naturalistic foliate ornament in French Gothic cathedrals".

[37] His assistants probably included his young son Giovanni Pisano, who said he was born in Pisa, and Arnolfo di Cambio, but unlike his next large job, the Siena Cathedral Pulpit, there are no known documents recording the workers and payments.