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

Madonna and Child

1321
Marble
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

With the departure of the papal court to Avignon, Rome ceased to be an important centre of art patronage. Its place was to some extent filled by Naples under the rule of Robert the Wise (1309-43). A number of eminent artists worked at his court and of this court art a considerable number of royal tombs survived, though not very much else. The sculptor whose style had the greatest influence in Naples was the Sienese Tino di Camaino.

Trained in Pisa, Tino worked in Siena and Florence before moving in about 1323 to the Angevin court. There he remained until his death. He was an extremely accomplished decorator, and his work well represents one Italian version of the generalized mid-Gothic style of fourteenth-century Europe. It is unusually graceful for Italy, but its origins are almost always proclaimed by the full, rather heavy female faces, which are totally unlike the dainty Parisian convention and are probably an aftermath of the Roman matrons carved on Nicola Pisano's Pisa Baptistery pulpit.