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| Arnolfo di Cambio |
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The sculptor and architect Arnolfo di Cambio was born in Colle di Val d'Elsa circa 1245, and died in Florence before 1310.
Giorgio Vasari, in his 'Lives of the Most Accomplished Painters, Sculptors, and Architects', originally secured Arnolfo's "fortune", describing him as a multi-talented figure who founf a way of restoring dignity to architecture following "centuries of darkness" in the Middle Ages.
The first documents relating to his works date to 1266 in Siena, and name him as a pupil of Nicola Pisano, and a collaborator of Giovanni Lapo Pisano on the pulpit of the Cathedral.
It is also said that he may have collaborated on the arch of S. Domenico in Bologna from 1265 until 1267.
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Arnolfo was familiar with the art of Rome and southern Italy, as revealed by the tomb, later dismantled, of Cardinal Annibaldi (1276) in the church of S. Giovanni in Laterano, which was a prototype for tombs in Rome in the Gothic period, and which formulated the problem of the relationship between sculpture and architecture.
In 1277, and also in 1281, he was present in Perugia, where he produced three figures representing Thirst, the remains of a small fountain for Piazza Maggiore, marked by sober and effective naturalism.
His name is also linked to the following works: the monument to Cardinal De Braye (1282), which was later taken apart and put back together again badly, in the church of S. Domenico in Orvieto; the ciboria in S. Paolo Fuori le Mura (1285) and in S. Cecilia in Trastevere (1293), both in Rome; and the votive chapel to Pope Boniface IV (1296) in the old church of S. Pietro in Vaticano, where he was officially described as "architector".
In the surviving sculptures from the facade of S. Maria del Fiore in Florence, prominent among which is a large statue of a Madonna with Child and the Virgin of the Nativity (1296-1302, Florence, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo), which are in a classically solemn style, the formal synthesis makes the artist similar to Giotto, as an innovator in Italian medieval art.
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Works in Florence attributed to him as an architect are the plans for S. Maria del Fiore (1296) itself, and parts of S. Croce, as well as less certain attributions such as Palazzo Vecchio (1299) and the renovation of La Badia.
All this is enough to reveal his monumental concept of space, classically divided into large areas in its structural components, paving the way for 14th century art and the art of the Renaissance.
But if there are few known works by Arnolfo in his day, perhaps owing to the lack of sources, he became so famous in the 19th century that there were a great many representations of him in a range of art forms.
An important role was reserved for the figure of Arnolfo in the opera "Gianni Schicchi" by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), in the libretto for which Giovacchino Forzano cites Arnolfo as an exemplary model of the "new man from the provinces", representing him as the prototype of new Italian culture.
The opera was staged for the very first time at the New York Metropolitan Opera Theater in 1918, and featured Galileo Chini (1873-1956).
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"A genius creates a harmony between the world in which he lives, and the world which lives in him."
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Poet (1874 - 1929)
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