Arnolfo di Cambio

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Arnolfo di Lapo
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Arnolfo di Cambio
Born
Arnolfo di Lapo

1232/1240
Died(1302-03-08)8 March 1302/1310
NationalityItalian
Occupation(s)Architect and sculptor
Cardinal de Braye, Orvieto
, San Domenico, c. 1282

Arnolfo di Cambio

Italian architect and sculptor of the Duecento, who began as a lead assistant to Nicola Pisano. He is documented as being capomaestro or Head of Works for Florence Cathedral in 1300,[3]
and designed the sixth city wall around Florence (1284–1333).

By the end of his career he evidently had one or more workshops of some size, producing work with considerable stylistic variation, and distinguishing his personal hand can be difficult.[4]

Biography

Arnolfo's biography is complicated by lingering uncertainties as to whether "Arnolfo di Cambio", born in

San Paolo fuori le Mura and Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome, not to mention "Arnolfus Architectus" who signed the tomb of Pope Boniface VIII. The majority view is that they are the same man, and variations in style are caused by the use of workshop assistants, which many of his large works would certainly have needed.[5] He probably had a workshop in Rome by 1277.[6]

He was

San Domenico in Orvieto, including an enthroned Madonna (a Maestà) for which he took as a model an ancient Roman statue of the goddess Abundantia; the Madonna's tiara and jewels reproduce antique models.[7]

In Rome Arnolfo had seen the

(1300).

The bronze statue of

is traditionally attributed to him, but this is often doubted. .

In 1294–1295 he worked in Florence, mainly as an architect. According to his biographer

Santa Croce has been attributed to Arnolfo, this is highly disputed. Vasari also attributed to him the urban plan of the new city of San Giovanni Valdarno
.

The monumental character of Arnolfo's work has left its mark on the appearance of Florence. His funerary monuments became the model for Gothic funerary art.

Giorgio Vasari included a biography of Arnolfo in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.

Dante Alighieri probably makes a discrete reference to him with a double citation of the Battle at Colle Val d'Elsa, birthplace of the great artist, in the year 1269 in the Cantos XI, XIII of Purgatorio. Dante almost certainly met Arnolfo, as architect of the cathedral in Florence, at latest when Dante was prior of Florence in 1300.[8]

Selected works

Architecture

Sculpture

  • Detail of the tomb of Riccardo Cardinal Annibaldi, at St. John Lateran. This was the first major work of Arnolfo in Rome.
    Detail of the tomb of Riccardo Cardinal Annibaldi, at
    St. John Lateran
    . This was the first major work of Arnolfo in Rome.
  • Tomb of Pope Boniface VIII
    Tomb of Pope
    Boniface VIII
  • Crib group, Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome
    Crib group,
    Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome
  • Madonna group, Florence Cathedral Museum

Footnotes

  1. ^ The name "Arnolfo di Lapo" by which he is mentioned in some sources was an invention by his biographer Giorgio Vasari. See Tomasi, 2007.
  2. ^ The traditional date of 1302 has been recently discovered to be wrong. See Tomasi, 2007.
  3. ^ White, 30
  4. ^ White, 93, 112
  5. ^ White, 93
  6. ^ White, 106
  7. ^ Roberto Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (Oxford: Blackwell) 1973:14 note 2.
  8. ^ Lombardi, Giancarlo (2022). L'Estetica Dantesca del Dualismo (in Italian). Borgomanero, Novara, Italy: Giuliano Ladolfi Editore.
  9. D. Appleton
    . p. 182.
  10. .
  11. ^ White, 105
  12. JSTOR 876902
    .
  13. .
  14. .
  15. ^ Krén, Emil; Marx, Daniel. "Tomb of Cardinal de Braye". Web Gallery of Art. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  16. .

Sources

External links