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

Tomb of Archbishop Francesco Moricotti

1360s
Marble
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Pisa

Nino Pisano made the tomb of Giovanni Scherlatti, Archbishop of Pisa (d 1362), in Pisa Cathedral, the contract for which survives. When the tomb was reconstructed from fragments in 1986, the sarcophagus was exchanged with that of the tomb of Francesco Moricotti, Scherlatti's successor as Archbishop, in order to rectify an earlier reconstruction.

Moricotti left Pisa as Cardinal in 1378, having first arranged for his tomb to be built along the lines of Scherlatti's. Although the sculptures of the tombs are very close in style, the construction and modelling of the figures on the Moricotti tomb are inferior to those of the Scherlatti monument and can be attributed to Nino's son Andrea di Nino, from whose hand other works can be traced (e.g. a marble tabernacle, Museo Bardini, Florence; a relief of Christ with Saints, Angels and Prophets, Lucca Cathedral).

Of the Morricotti tomb, the gisant and the front of the sarcophagus are preserved. The front contains a blessing Christ and two saints, perhaps St Efisio (Ephysius) and St Potito (Potitus). Each figure is flanked by two angels as in the Scherlatti monument. The statuettes of St Francis and a bishop saint, today exhibited with the monument, could have belonged to the tomb.

Since Moricotti died long after Nino's death, only in 1394 (after leaving the Pisan office in 1378), the structural and stylistic similarity with the Scherlatti tomb was explained by hypothesizing a commission from the archbishop who had just climbed the Pisan throne (1363) and an immediate execution by Nino. Scholars do not agree on the attribution to Nino, varying between recognition of his hand, a reference to the workshop after the death of the master, or to a master different from Nino but close to him.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.