Arnolfo di Cambio
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The tabernacle over the high altar of St. John Lateran is derived from a design by Arnolfo di Cambio and decorated with paintings by Barna da Siena in 1367-68. The cage above contains silver reliquaries which are said to hold the heads of SS. Peter and Paul. |
Arnolfo di Lapo, also known as
Arnolfo di Cambio, (
1245 -
1310) was a
Florentine architect and
sculptor.
Arnolfo was born in
Colle Val d'Elsa,
Tuscany.
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Particular 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
pulpit for the Duomo in
Siena (
1265-
1268), but he soon began to work independently on important tomb sculpture. In 1266-67 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 de Braye in the church of
San Domenico in Orvieto, for which he modified an antique Roman statue of the Abundance. In Rome Arnolfo had known by the
Cosmatesque art, and its influence can be seen in the
intarsio and polychrome glass decorations in the churches of
San Paolo fuori le Mura and
Santa Maria in Trastevere, where he worked in 1285 and 1293, respectively. In this period he also worked to the
presepio of
Santa Maria Maggiore, to
Santa Maria in Aracoeli, to the monument of
Pope Boniface VIII (1300) and the bronze statue of
St. Peter in
St. Peter's Basilica.
In the
1294-
1295 he worked in Florence, mainly as architecture. Vasari's claim that he he was in charge of construction of the
cathedral of the city has been later proved as false. More general agreements have received to attribution to him of the Church of
Santa Croce and the
Palazzo Vecchio. Vasari attributed him also 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 includes a biography of Arnolfo in his
Lives of the Artists.
Architecture
*Church of
Santa Croce,
Florence*
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
*Monument to
Pope Adrian V (1276) -
San Francesco,
Viterbo* Monument to Riccardo Cardinal Annibaldi (1276) -
San Giovanni in Laterano,
Rome* Statue of Charles I of Anjou (
1277) -
Campidoglio,
Rome* Fountain of the Thirsty People (Fontana Minore) -
Perugia* Tomb of Cardinal de Braye (c. 1282) - San Domenico, Orvieto
* Monument of pope Boniface VIII - the Museum of the Opera del Duomo - Florence)
