BALDUCCI, Giovanni da Pisa (Giovanni di Balduccio). - Sculptor, b. in Pisa toward the end of the 13th century. He is documented up to 1349. In Pisa between 1317 and 1318 he was working in the Cathedral under the guidance of Giovanni Pisano, Tino di Camaino and Lupo di Francesco.
Some time later he erected the pulpit now in the oratory of the Misericordia at S. Casciano near Florence, and in 1328 the tomb for the son of Castruccio Castracane in S. Francesco at Sarzana. Then in 1339 the master was in Milan, where he carved the shrine of St. Peter Martyr in S. Eustorgio, turning to account, besides his Tuscan experience, his knowledge of the works of the masters of Campione. A short time later he must have been in Cremona, where three statues in the loggia above the entrance of the Cathedral are assigned to him. Returned to Milan in 1347, he signed the door of S. Maria di Brera, today fragmentary, in the archaeological museum of that city. In 1349 he was recalled to his homeland to assume the direction of the works of the Opera del Duomo, but there is no evidence that he accepted the invitation. After having made known in Lombardy the forms of the new Tuscan sculpture, exercising considerable influence in that artistic milieu, G. di B. showed, in turn, that he understood certain intimate values of the sculpture of the masters of Campione, so that both in the tomb of St. Peter Martyr and in the three statues of Cremona there appear evident, in comparison with his earlier works, improvised refinements of form and feeling. These show how G. was able to turn to account the new experience he had gained in Lombardy, grafting it onto his previous Tuscan culture.
Bibliography2 works
Emilio Lavagnino