ISAIA da Pisa. - Sculptor active in Rome and Naples around the middle of the 15th century. In 1447 in Rome he was charged, as the successor of Filarete, with the completion of the tomb of Antonio Martinez Chiaves, cardinal of Portugal (now fragmentary in S. Giovanni in Laterano), and in the same year he took part in the works for the burial of Pope Eugene IV (now in S. Salvatore in Lauro, in the cloister).

From 1450-51 are the designs for the crowning of the facade of the cathedral of Orvieto (not executed). In 1456-58 he worked in Naples on the Arch of Castel Nuovo, in 1460 he was again in Rome under the orders of Pope Pius II, for whom he executed the tabernacle of S. Andrea for S. Peter's, now fragmentary in the Vatican Grottoes. Among his other works are remembered the lavabo of S. Maria Maggiore and the relief of the architrave of S. Marco. His art derives from Pisan sculpture, whose themes he continues to echo: nevertheless his weak but clearly individual artistic personality wavers among various tendencies, which range from a love for the antique to the memory of Donatello, with results of energetic plasticity and insistent calligraphisms. I. da P. is the father of the sculptor Gian Cristoforo Romano.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: Venturi, VI, pp. 376-88; M. Semrau, s. v. in Thieme-Becker, XIX, pp. 240-42.

Eugenio Battisti

@incollection{ec7_isaia_da_pisa, author = {Battisti, Eugenio}, title = {Isaia da Pisa}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {246}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/isaia-da-pisa} }

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