ANDREW PISANO. - Goldsmith and sculptor, son of the notary Ugolino di Nino, b. at Pontedera, near Pisa, ca. 1295. In Jan. 1330 the guild of Calimala (Corporation of Merchants) awarded him the contract for the panels for one of the doors of the Baptistery of Florence, panels which were cast in bronze in 1332 and gilded in 1336; they bear the artist's signature and the date 1330. After the death of Giotto he was appointed chief master of the Opera of the cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore, and he attended to the continuation of the works of the campanile, which had been begun in 1334: but in 1343 he was dismissed from the post, according to Pucci - who mentions it in his Centiloquio - for having introduced modifications, which were not liked, to the original Giottoesque design; according to others, as a consequence of the expulsion of the duke of Athens, from whom A. had received commissions and favors. In May 1347 we find him chief master of the Opera of the cathedral of Orvieto. He died in 1348 or '49, leaving two sons who were also sculptors, Nino (v.) and Tommaso (v.). The bronze panels of the Baptistery of Florence are his only securely documented work: they are divided into twenty-eight small panels and bear within quatrefoil frames twenty Scenes from the Life of St. John the Baptist, and below them allegorical representations of Virtues in relief. The iconographic sources for the stories of the Baptist have been identified in the thirteenth-century mosaics of the dome of the Florentine Baptistery, which A. nevertheless skillfully transformed, adapting them to the new taste, and in Giotto's frescoes in S. Croce, which were more faithfully followed by the sculptor. Equally certain appears his involvement in the plastic decoration of Giotto's campanile, and more precisely in the execution of the lower series of hexagonal panels in relief with the Stories of the Creation of Man and with the representations of the Mechanical Arts: some of these reliefs were executed in collaboration with Giotto himself, but it is not known whether the latter limited himself to supplying the drawings for them, or whether he actually prepared the sketches for them.
More recent criticism has succeeded in considerably expanding the catalogue of A.'s works, both by restoring to him sculptures traditionally assigned to his son Nino, and by reinterpreting with greater reliability the scanty documentary records and the testimonies of the earliest historiographers, such as Ghiberti: thus, alongside the better-known figure of the goldsmith and master of small reliefs, the figure of the sculptor of statues in the round, in marble and in wood, is becoming ever more clearly delineated. To A. indeed certainly belong: the most elegant wooden statue of the Annunciata in the Museum of Pisa which, having revealed during a recent restoration the date 1321, would be the only work of A. surviving from before the panels of Florence (attrib. Carli and Valentiner); two small marble statuettes, the Redeemer and St. Reparata in the Museum of the Opera of Florence (attrib. Schmarsow); four large statues: David, Solomon, the Erythraean Sibyl and the Tiburtine Sibyl on the exterior of Giotto's campanile (ca. 1338-42, recorded by Ghiberti); some parts of the Monument to Archbishop Simone Saltarelli (d. 1342) in S. Caterina in Pisa (attrib. Carli and Valentiner); a splendid Madonna and Child in the Museum of the cathedral of Orvieto (attrib. Lanvi) which would be the last work, and perhaps the masterpiece, of the Master. Less certain, although not entirely improbable, appears the attribution to A. of other statues, such as for example those in the interior of the Oratory of the Spina in Pisa, a Madonna in the Museum of Detroit, etc. The critical evaluation of A.'s art cannot prescind from an appreciation of the contacts he had with Giotto, which profoundly influenced the formulation of the sculptor's style, who decisively broke away from the by then tired and mannered tradition of the followers of Giovanni Pisano, inaugurating a second and fervent season in Pisan sculpture. From Giotto indeed A. derived that compositional clarity, that serenity, that firm, monumental and self-contained rhythm which give a classical flavor to his creations: while the Gothic taste for line, which he adopted in all its melodic fluency, intervening intimately in the definition of the plastic and compositional values, remains immune from all decorativeness and from all hedonistic complacency. - See Plates CIII-CIV.
