Arnolfo di Cambio

Arnolfo di Cambio[1] (c. 1240 – 1300/1310[2]) was an Italian architect and sculptor. He designed Florence Cathedral and the sixth city wall around Florence (1284–1333),[3] while his most important surviving work as a sculptor is the tomb of Cardinal de Braye in S. Domenico, Orvieto.[4]

Arnolfo di Cambio
Posthumous portrait by Giorgio Vasari
Born
Arnolfo di Lapo

1232/1240
Colle di Val d'Elsa
Died(1302-03-08)8 March 1302/1310
Florence
NationalityItalian
Occupation(s)Architect and sculptor
The sculpture of St. Peter found within St. Peter's Basilica, Rome

Biography

Arnolfo was born in Colle Val d'Elsa, Tuscany.

Detail of the tomb of Riccardo Cardinal Annibaldi, at St. John Lateran. This was the first major work of Arnolfo in Rome.

He was Nicola Pisano’s chief assistant on the marble Siena Cathedral Pulpit for the Duomo in Siena Cathedral (1265–1268), but he soon began to work independently on an important tomb sculpture. In 1266–1267 he worked in Rome for King Charles I of Anjou, portraying him in the famous statue housed in the Campidoglio. Around 1282 he finished the monument to Cardinal Guillaume de Braye in the church of 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.[5] In Rome Arnolfo had seen the Cosmatesque art, and its influence can be seen in the intarsia and polychrome glass decorations in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls and the church Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, where he worked in 1285 and 1293 respectively. In this period he also worked on the presepio of Santa Maria Maggiore, on Santa Maria in Aracoeli, on the monument of Pope Boniface VIII (1300) and on the bronze statue of St. Peter in St. Peter's Basilica.

In 1294–1295 he worked in Florence, mainly as an architect. According to his biographer Giorgio Vasari, he was in charge of construction of the cathedral of the city, for which he provided the statues once decorating the lower part of the façade destroyed in 1589. The surviving statues are now in the Museum of the Cathedral. While the design of the Church of 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.[6]

Selected works

Architecture
Tomb of Honorius IV (Its attribution to Arnolfo is disputed. The columns and upper entablature are of a later date).

Sculpture

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. "Firenze-Oltrarno.net: City Walls".
  4. Oxford illustrated encyclopedia. Judge, Harry George., Toyne, Anthony. Oxford [England]: Oxford University Press. 1985–1993. p. 22. ISBN 0-19-869129-7. OCLC 11814265.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. Roberto Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (Oxford: Blackwell) 1973:14 note 2.
  6. Lombardi, Giancarlo (2022). L'Estetica Dantesca del Dualismo (in Italian). Borgomanero, Novara, Italy: Giuliano Ladolfi Editore.
  7. Heck, Johann Georg (1856). The Art of Building in Ancient and Modern Times, Or, Architecture Illustrated. Vol. 1. D. Appleton. p. 182.
  8. Norman, Diana (1995). Siena, Florence, and Padua: Case studies. Yale University Press. p. 43. ISBN 9780300061260.
  9. Thomson de Grummond, Nancy (11 May 2015). Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Routledge. p. 84. ISBN 9781134268542.
  10. Gardner, Julian (March 1972). "The Tomb of Cardinal Annibaldi by Arnolfo di Cambio". The Burlington Magazine. Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd. 114 (828): 136–141. JSTOR 876902.
  11. Abulafia, David (2000). "Charles of Anjou reassessed". Journal of Medieval History. Tandfonline. 26 (1): 93–114. doi:10.1016/S0304-4181(99)00012-3. S2CID 159990935.
  12. Gilbert, Creighton (1972). History of Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture Throughout Europe. H.N. Abrams. p. 24. ISBN 9780810901698.
  13. Krén, Emil; Marx, Daniel. "Tomb of Cardinal de Braye". Web Gallery of Art. Retrieved 26 September 2018.

Sources
  • Tomasi, Michele (February 2007). "Lo stil novo del Gotico italiano". Medioevo (121): 32–46.
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