Pisano, name of two 13th- and 14th-century Italian sculptors and architects, father and son, who were the preeminent figures of the 13th-century Italian revival of the classical Roman sculptural style. Working mainly in northern Italy in the cities of Pisa, Perugia, Siena, Pistoia, and Padua, the Pisanos created carved pulpits, cathedral facades, municipal fountains, and church sculpture.
Nicola Pisano (circa 1220-c. 1284). Nicola, the father, is thought to have been trained in the Italian workshops of the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II, who encouraged a Roman revival. Nicola's carved reliefs for the pulpit of the Pisa Baptistery were derived from figures on Roman sarcophagi in the Camposanto of Pisa: A nude Hercules was rendered into a personification of Christian fortitude; a Phaedra became the Virgin Mary. These carvings are outstanding for their assimilation of the solid, three-dimensional Roman style as well as for their corresponding emphasis on the individuality and dignity of the human figure. They mark a turning point in Italian sculpture analogous to that represented in painting by the work of Giotto.
Giovanni Pisano (circa 1250-c. 1314). In Nicola's later work, and that of his son, Giovanni, the classical style often shows an increasing integration of Gothic motifs and stylistic elements. This uniquely Italian assimilation of French Gothic influences can be seen in Nicola and Giovanni's Siena pulpit (1268), Giovanni's sculptures and architectural design for the facade of the Siena Cathedral (circa 1285), and his later pulpit for Pistoia (1301). In these sculptures the carved figures take on the Gothic elements of violent movement, animated detail, angular and oblique arrangements, and deep-cut shadowy carving. His later pulpit for the Pisa Cathedral (1310) shows a return to classical motifs, tempered by certain Gothic elements. Giovanni's designs were some of the most powerful and expressive in Italian art at the end of the 13th century, and they were a dominant influence on Italian sculptors of the early Renaissance, among them Jacopo della Quercia, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Donatello.

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