PISANO, Nino
(b. ca. 1315, Pisa, d. ca. 1368, Pisa)

Biography

Italian sculptor, son of Andrea Pisano. He is known from documents to have been active as a goldsmith and architect, but all his surviving works are sculptures in marble. He was much less distinguished as an artist than his father, but noteworthy in being one of the first sculptors to specialize in free-standing life-size statues.

He collaborated with his father in sculptures for the churches of Santi Giovanni e Paolo at Venice and in Santa Caterina at Pisa, and provided some panels for the Campanile of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Nino succeeded his father in the works of the Orvieto Cathedral in 1349.

Works he made alone include a Madonna with Child in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, a Saint Bishop in the Cathedral of Oristano and a Monument to Bishop Scherlatti now in the Museum of Pisa Cathedral. His other attributed works include a Madonna of the Rose in Santa Maria della Spina and a Madonna del Latte in the Museum of San Matteo, both in Pisa. An Annunciation, once in Santa Caterina, is now in the National Gallery of Art of Washington, USA.

In contrast to his father Andrea, whose conception of the figure was based on the Antique, Nino consistently drew inspiration from a cultivated Gothic formal vocabulary that continued in use after his death and even to the end of the 14th century in the sculpture of both Pisa and Venice.



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