A thematic tour of the Cathedral to discover Nicola and Giovanni Pisano
The themed tour dedicated to the art of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano in Siena is the unexpected discovery of the historical story, little known today by the general public but one of the most discussed topics among scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, of two key figures of sculpture Italian and European between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which have left, between Siena, Pistoia and Pisa, the most impressive testimonies of an artistic output that ranks among the pinnacles of the entire history of art. Knowing the works of art of these two artists in Siena, father and son respectively, also means looking at the first-rate cultural role played by Siena in the second half of the 13th century, a period which coincided with the ‘golden age’ in the history of the city.
Admiring the façade of Siena Cathedral
This journey through the art of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano in Siena starts from the outside of the Cathedral, where we will be able to admire the superb façade of the church, designed and physically executed by Giovanni Pisano in the last twenty years of the thirteenth century.
You will have the opportunity to discover how, in the sequence of all-round statues created by the artist, a dynamic of textual and symbolic relationships is underlying which composes a unitary message, which even includes the curious figures of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle placed at the edges of the facade.
The symbolism of the number Eight in Nicola Pisano’s Pulpit
Our second stop on the tour dedicated to the art of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano in Siena will be inside the Cathedral, where we will focus our attention on Nicola’s marble pulpit, an absolute masterpiece of medieval Italian sculpture, a work from 1268. The complex iconography of the pulpit – where there is a series of hierarchical relations between the characters and the scenes represented – makes it one of the absolute masterpieces of all Italian medieval sculpture, as well as an admirable synthesis of what were the theological foundations of the time in which the artist was called to create the precious artefact, signing the execution contract in the presence of a character apparently detached from the artistic events of the Siena Cathedral: a Cistercian monk.
Among the hundreds of figures that crowd Nicola’s composition, you will be able to admire the fascinating kaleidoscope of existing meanings and hierarchical connections, a reflection of the idea of “universal order” in force at the time. Among these, you will see that eight female figures at the base of the pulpit stand out in a particular way, whose symbolism is, as we will see, extremely fascinating.
The magnificent original statues and the crucifix of Giovanni Pisano
We will end our tour by visiting the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, where the wonderful gallery that you will find in the entrance area will open your view to the original sculptures of the facade, those created directly by Giovanni Pisano. The close distance from which you look at the statues will give you the opportunity to appreciate these sculptures down to the smallest details, which until the 19th century were placed on the facade and which were gradually replaced by copies on the outside.
The last stages of the tour will be the vision of the original columns of the central portal of the Cathedral, works from Giovanni’s workshop – where, among precious acanthus leaves, we will meet the biblical figures of the Prophet David and the nymph Bathsheba, discovering the forgotten symbolism that lies behind these characters – and of the wooden crucifix, also by Giovanni, a precious artefact in which, despite its small size, the sculptor was able to render, with great pathetic drama, all the physical suffering of the Redeemer.
The thematic visit will be an opportunity to compare the art of Nicola, linked to the models of the classical tradition and drawn largely from the Roman sarcophagi of the Camposanto of Pisa, with that of his son Giovanni, whose style was instead characterised by a energetic dynamism and broken lines that drew inspiration from the sculptural models of French Gothic, reinterpreted by the artist with much more dramatic tones.
Father and son therefore, generations compared, both protagonists of the happy historical conjecture of Siena which, precisely in the generational transition between Nicola and Giovanni, reached one of the most important artistic peaks.