NICCOLÒ. - A sculptor of the 12th century, who, according to 18th-century Ferrarese literature, was believed to be from Ficarolo in the Polesine region. His work demonstrates a conception no longer merely plastic and abstracted from narrative contingencies, but partly pictorial, with reduced carvings and projections, the use of low reliefs, hints of environmental definition, improved compositional and dramatic articulation, subtlety of ornamental motifs, iconographic derivations from classical sculpture, and calligraphic styles in drapery folds that echo the highlights of Byzantine painting.
Around 1135, NICCOLÒ executed the decoration on the lower part of the façade of Ferrara Cathedral, where, in the main portal, the highly vivid episode of the lunette (St. George slaying the dragon) stands out, along with the eight bas-reliefs of the architrave depicting scenes from the life of Christ, and numerous ornamental friezes and allegorical and realistically satirical panels in the splay. A later period includes the portal decorations in the Cathedrals of Verona and San Zeno, where the master’s pictorial symbolism becomes more pronounced. In the former, the lunette with the Adoration of the Magi is notable, while in the latter, in addition to the lunette depicting St. Zeno blessing the armed Veronese people, one admires representations of human labors, sin, the months, and animals, contrasted on the left side of the portal by reliefs inspired by the life of Jesus, attributed to a Guglielmo—an unspecified pupil of NICCOLÒ—who possessed evident narrative skills but was somewhat inferior to his master. NICCOLÒ’s art had followers in the cathedrals of Piacenza and Cremona, in the Sacra di San Michele near Susa, and even as far as Chamilly in France.