Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10): Cimabue to Agnolo GaddiVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10): Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
and lords of castles, as they still are to-day and were formerly even
more; with many ornaments of marble, which to-day have been covered over
with other ornaments of grey-stone, many and fine, which were set up in
that place with the design of Giorgio Vasari in the year 1535, for
the supporting of an organ of extraordinary excellence and beauty that
stands thereon.
[Illustration: _Lombardi_
A SYBIL
(_Detail, after_ Giovanni Pisano, _from the facade of the Duomo,
Siena_)]
Giovanni Pisano likewise made the design of the Church of S. Maria de'
Servi, which to-day has been destroyed, together with many palaces of
the most noble families of the city, for the reasons mentioned above. I
will not forbear to say that Giovanni made use, in working on the said
marble altar, of certain Germans who had apprenticed themselves to him
rather for learning than for gain; and under his teaching they became
such that, having gone after this work to Rome, they served Boniface
VIII in many works of sculpture for S. Pietro, and in architecture when
he made Civita Castellana. Besides this, they were sent by the same man
to S. Maria in Orvieto, where, for its facade, they made many figures in
marble which were passing good for those times. But among others who
assisted Giovanni in the work of the Vescovado in Arezzo, Agostino and
Agnolo, sculptors and architects of Siena, surpassed in time all the
others, as will be told in the proper place. But returning to Giovanni;
having departed from Orvieto, he came to Florence, in order to see the
fabric of S. Maria del Fiore that Arnolfo was making, and likewise to
see Giotto, of whom he had heard great things spoken abroad; and no
sooner had he arrived in Florence than he was charged by the Wardens of
the said fabric of S. Maria del Fiore to make the Madonna which is over
that door of the church that leads to the Canon's house, between two
little angels; which work was then much praised. Next, he made the
little baptismal font of S. Giovanni, wherein are certain scenes in
half-relief from the life of that Saint. Having then gone to Bologna, he
directed the building of the principal chapel of the Church of S.
Domenico, wherein he was charged by Bishop Teodorigo Borgognoni of
Lucca, a friar of that Order, to make an altar of marble; and in the
same place he afterwards made, in the year 1298, the marble panel
wherein are the Madonna and eight other figures, reasonably good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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