TINO DI CAMAINO
(b. ca. 1285, Siena, d. ca. 1337, Napoli)

Tomb of Catherine of Austria

c. 1324
Marble
San Lorenzo Maggiore, Naples

Tino di Camaino probably went to Naples towards the end of 1323 or early in 1324, although he is not documented there until May 1325. This change of residence had profound consequences for him, as can be seen in his earliest works there: the tombs of Catherine of Austria in San Lorenzo Maggiore and Mary of Hungary in Santa Maria Donnaregina, both of whom had died in the spring of 1323.

Despite the presence of Tuscan artists, with Simone Martini and Giotto at their head, the aesthetic atmosphere in Naples was more relaxed than that of Tuscany, and it seems to have been prejudicial to Tino's art. The monuments he undertook in Naples are tabernacle tombs, free-standing or set against the wall, and all of them are marked by the subordination of the figure sculpture to an architectural scheme and by dependence on polychromy in the form of gilding on figures and Cosmatesque inlay in the ground.

The tomb of Catherine of Austria is free-standing, set between the piers of the choir arcade; the sarcophagus is carried by two piers with allegorical figures, and two saints stand at both head and foot of the recumbent effigy, the whole being covered by a large baldacchino.