Andrea Pisano had two sons, Nino and Tommaso,—both, especially the former, sculptors of considerable ability. Nino was very successful in his statues of the Madonna and Child, which are full of human feeling and soft loveliness,—a perfect embodiment of the Catholic ideal of the Divine Mother. Andrea’s chief pupil was Andrea di Cione, better known as Orcagna (j.v.). Balduccio di Pisa, another, and in one branch (that of sculpture) equally gifted pupil, executed the wonderful shrine of S. Eustorgio at Milan—a most magnificent mass of sculptured figures and reliefs.

PISANO, Giovanni (c. 1250-1330), son of Niccola Pisano (see below), born about 1250, was but little inferior to his father either as an architect or a sculptor. Together with Arnolfo del Cambio and other pupils, he developed and extended into other parts of Italy the renaissance of sculpture which in the main was due to the extraordinary talent of that distinguished artist. After he had spent the first part of his life at home as a pupil and fellow-worker of Niccola, the younger Pisano was summoned between 1270 and 1274 to Naples, where he worked for Charles of Anjou on the Castel Nuovo. One of his earliest independent performances was the Campo Santo at Pisa, finished about 1283; along with this he executed various pieces of sculpture over the main door and inside the cloister. The richest in design of all his works (finished about 1286) is in the cathedral of Arezzo,—a magnificent marble high altar and reredos, adorned both in front and at the back with countless figures and reliefs—mostly illustrative of the lives of St Gregory and St Donato, whose bones are enshrined there. The actual execution of this was probably wholly the work of his pupils. In 1290 Giovanni was appointed architect or “capo maestro” of the new cathedral at Siena, in which office he succeeded Lorenzo Maitani, who went to Orvieto to build the less ambitious but equally magnificent duomo which had just been founded there. The design of the gorgeous façade of that duomo has been attributed to him, but it is more probable that he only carried out Maitani’s design. , According to Vasari, Giovanni and other pupils of Niccola also executed the bas-reliefs on the west front of Orvieto, but this assertion is unsupported by any documentary evidence. At Perugia, Gioy⅛nni built the church of S. Domenico in 1304, but little of the original structure remains. The north transept, however, still contains his beautiful tomb of Benedict XI., with a sleeping figure of the pope, guarded by angels who draw aside the curtain (see woodcut).

Above is a sculptured plinth supporting canopied figures of the Madonna and other saints. The whole composition is framed by a high cusped and gabled arch, on twisted columns, enriched with glass mosaic in the style of the Cosmati. The general design is like the earlier tomb of Cardinal de Braye at Orvieto, the work of Giovanni’s fellow-pupil, Arnolfo del Cambio.

One of Giovanni’s most beautiful architectural works is the little chapel of S. Maria della Spina, on the banks of the Arno in Pisa; the actual execution of this gem-like chapel, and the sculpture with which it is adorned, was mostly the work of his pupils. This exquisite little building has recently been pulled down and rebuilt, under the pretext of “restoration.”

The influence of his father Niccola is seen strongly in all

Giovanni’s works, but especially in the pulpit of S. Andrea at Pistoia, executed about 1300. In design it resembles that in the Pisan bàptistery; but the reliefs are less severely classical, and more full of vivid dramatic power and complicated motives. Another pulpit, designed on the same lines, was made by him for the nave of Pisa cathedral between 1310 and 1311. Only fragments of this now exist, but it is in course of restoration. The last part of Giovanni’s life was spent at Prato, near Florence, where with many pupils he worked at the cathedral till his death about 1330.

PISANO, Niccola. (c. 1206-1278), one of the chief sculptors and architects of mediaeval Italy, was born about 1206. Though he called himself Pisanus, from Pisa, where most of his life was spent, he was not a Pisan by birth. There are two distinct accounts of his parentage, both derived mainly from existing documents. According to one of these he is said to have been the son of “Petrus, a notary of Siena;” but this statement is very doubtful, especially as the word “Siena” or “de Senis” appears to be a conjectural addition. Another document among the archives of the Sienese cathedral calls him son of “Petrus de Apulia.” Crowe and Cavalcaselle, as well as the majority of modern writers, accept the latter statement, and believe that he not only was a native of the province of Apulia in southern Italy, but also that he gained there his early instruction in the arts of sculpture and architecture. Those on the other hand who, with most of the older writers, prefer to accept the theory of Niccola’s origin being Tuscan suppose that he was a native of a small town called Apulia near Lucca. As is the case with the biographies of so many of those artists who lived long before Vasari’s own time, that author’s account of Niccola is quite untrustworthy. There is no doubt that in the century preceding Niccola Pisano’s birth Apulia, and the southern provinces generally, were more advanced in the plastic art than any part of northern Italy—witness especially the magnificent architecture and sculpture in the cathedrals of Salerno, Bari, Amalfi, Ravello, and many others, in which still exist bronze doors, marble pulpits, and other works of art of great merit, dating from the 11th and 12th centuries,—a period when northern Italy produced very little art-work of any real beauty. That the young Niccola Pisano saw and was influenced by these things cannot be denied, but Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in their eagerness to contradict the old traditions, go very much too far when they deny the story, told by Vasari, of Niccola’s admiration for and keen study of the remains of ancient Roman sculpture which were then beginning to be sought for and appreciated. In Niccola Pisano’s works it is somewhat difficult to trace the direct influence of Apulian art, while in many of them, especially the panel-reliefs of his Pisan pulpit (see figure), classical feeling is apparent in every fold of the drapery, in the modelling of the nude, and in the dignified reserve of the main lines of the composition.

For all that, Niccola was no dull copyist; though he emancipated himself from the stiffness and unreality of earlier sculpture, yet his admiration and knowledge of the physical beauty of the human form in no way detracted from the purity and religious spirit of his subjects. Though pagan in their beauty of modelling and grace of attitude, his Madonnas are as worshipful, and his saints as saintly, as those of any sculptor the world has ever seen. With true genius he opened out to the church a new field in which all the gifts of God, even purely physical ones, were made use of and adopted as types and symbols of inward purity and love—not repudiated and suppressed as snares of the evil one. Except through his works, but little is known of the history of Niccola’s life. As early as 1221 he is said to have been summoned to Naples by Frederick II., to do work in the new Castel dell’ Uovo. This fact supports the theory of his southern origin, though not perhaps very strongly, as, some years before, the Pisan Bonannus had been chosen by the Norman king as the sculptor to cast one of the bronze doors for Monreale cathedral, where it still exists. The earliest existing piece of sculpture which can be attributed to Niccola is a beautiful relief of the Deposition from the Cross in the tympanum of the arch of a side door at San Martino at Lucca; it is remarkable for its graceful composition and delicate finish of execution. The date is about 1237. In 1260, as an incised inscription records, he finished the marble pulpit for the Pisan baptistery; this is on the whole the finest of his works.

It is a high octagon, on semicircular arches, with trefoil cusps, supported by nine marble columns, three of which rest on white marble lions. In design it presents that curious combination of Gothic forms with classical details which is one of the characteristics of the mediaeval architecture of northern Italy; though much enriched with sculpture both in relief and in the round, the general lines of the design are not sacrificed to this, but the sculpture is kept subordinate to the whole. In this respect it is superior to the more magnificent pulpit at Siena, one of Niccola’s later works, w⅛ich suffers greatly from want of repose and purity of outline, owing to its being overloaded with reliefs and statuettes. Five of the sides of the main octagon have panels with subjects— the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, the Crucifixion, and the Doom, These are all, especially the first three, works of the highest beauty, and a wonderful advance on anything of the sort that had been produced by Niccola’s predecessors. The drapery is gracefully arranged in broad simple folds; the heads are full of the most noble dignity; and the sweet yet stately beauty of the Madonna could hardly be surpassed. The panel with the Adoration of the Magi is perhaps the one in which Niccola’s study of the antique is most apparent (see figure). The veiled and diademed figure of the Virgin Mother, seated on a throne, recalls the Roman Juno; the head of Joseph behind her might be that of Vulcan; while the youthful beauty of an Apollo and the mature dignity of a Jupiter are suggested by the standing and kneeling figures of the Magi. Certain figures in others of the panels are no less deeply imbued with classical feeling.

The next important work of Niccola in date is the Area di San Domenico, in the church at Bologna consecrated to that saint, who died in 1221. Only the main part, the actual sarcophagus covered with sculptured reliefs of St Dominic’s life, is the work of Niccola and his pupils. The sculptured base and curved roof with its fanciful ornaments are later additions. This “Area” was made when St Dominic was canonized, and his bones translated; it was finished in 1267, not by Niccola himself, but by his pupils. The most magnificent, though not the most beautiful, of Niccola’s works is the great pulpit in Siena cathedral (1268). It is much larger than that at Pisa, though somewhat similar in general design, being an octagon on cusped arches and columns. Its stairs, and a large landing at the top, with carved balusters and panels, rich with semi-classical foliage, are an addition of about 1500. The pulpit itself is much overloaded with sculpture, and each relief is far too crowded with figures. An attempt to gain magnificence of effect has destroyed the dignified simplicity for which the earlier pulpit is so remarkable.

Niccola’s last great work of sculpture was the fountain in the piazza opposite the west end of the cathedral at Perugia. This is a series of basins rising one above another, each with sculptured bas-reliefs; it was begun in 1274, and completed, except the topmost basin, which is of bronze, by Niccola’s son and pupil Giovanni.

Niccola Pisano was not only pre-eminent as a sculptor, but was also the greatest Italian architect of his century; he designed a number of very important buildings, though not all which are attributed to him by Vasari. Among those now existing, the chief are the main part of the cathedral at Pistoia, the church and convent of Sta Margherita at Cortona, and Sta Trinita at Florence. The church of Sant’ Antonio at Padua has also been attributed to him, but without reason. Unfortunately his architectural works have in most cases been much altered and modernized. Niccola was also a skilled engineer, and was compelled by the Florentines to destroy the great tower, called the Guarda-morto, which overshadowed the baptistery at Florence, and had for long been the scene of violent conflicts between the Guelfs and Ghibellines. He managed skilfully so that it should fall without injuring the baptistery. Niccola Pisano died at Pisa in the year 1278, leaving his son Giovanni a worthy successor to his great talents both as an architect and sculptor.

Though his importance as a reviver of the old traditions of beauty in art has been to some extent exaggerated by Vasari, yet it is probable that he, more than any other one man, was the means of starting that “new birth” of the plastic arts which, in the years following his death, was so fertile in countless works of the most unrivalled beauty. Both Niccola and his son had many pupils of great artistic power, and these carried the influence of the Pisani throughout Tuscany and northern Italy, so that the whole art of the succeeding generations may be said to have owed the greater part of its rapid development to this one family.

On the three preceding Pisani see Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. i.. 1864; Cicognara, Storia della Scultura, 1823-24; Gaye, Kunstblatt, 1839; Riimohr, italienische Forschungen, 1827-31; Milancsi, Documenti dell' Arte and Vita di Niccola Pisano·, Vasari, Milanesi's ed., i. p. 293 and 481, 1882; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Painting in Italy, 1864-66; Gruner, Μarmor- Bildwerke der Schule der Pisaner, 1858; Leader Scott, Early Italian Sculptors, 1882; Symonds, Renaissance in Italy : Fine Arts, p. 100 sq., 1877; Dohme, Kunst und Künstler Italiens, Leipsic, 1878; Le tre porte del Battistero di Firente, 1821. (J. H. Μ.)

PISANO, Vittore (c. 1380-1456), commonly called Pisanello, the greatest of Italian medallists, was a native of San Vigilio sul Lago in the territory of Verona. Specimens of his work as a painter are still extant in Rome, Venice, Verona, and Pistoia, and entitle him to a place of some distinction in the history of that art. The National Gallery in London possesses a very fine specimen of Pisanello’s work—a panel painted with miniature-like delicacy. For his pre-eminent position as a medallist, see Numismatics, vol. xvii. p. 657. During the latter portion of his life he lived in Rome, where he enjoyed great repute.