PISANO, Giovanni
(b. ca. 1250, Pisa, d. 1314, Pisa)

Pulpit reliefs: 4. Presentation in the Temple and the Flight into Egypt

1302-11
Marble
Cathedral, Pisa

The parapet, set between corbelled cornices, is circular, but the statues at the corners, set on projecting, semicircular platforms, define its octagonal plan. On the sides are narrative reliefs with scenes arranged in superimposed strips. The height of the pulpit is very great, and for this reason the buildings and figures are conceived in relation to the viewing point of the spectator not to the plane of relief.

Although the most highly developed and most elaborately designed of the four Pisano pulpits, the pulpit in Pisa Cathedral appears stylistically less unified than the one at Pistoia mainly because it is the work of so many hands. Moreover, after being dismantled in 1602, it remained so until 1926. By the time the pulpit was reassembled some of the reliefs had been removed to museums in New York or Berlin and reconstruction had to be made of those reliefs.

The fourth panel shows the superimposed scenes of the Presentation in the Temple, Herod and the Magi, the Angel Warning the Holy Family to Flee, and the Flight into Egypt.