Pisano, Giovanni

Pisano, Giovanni

(born c. 1250, Pisa—died after 1314, Siena?) Italian sculptor and architect. His early work is similar to that of Nicola Pisano, his father and teacher. About 1285 he began work on the facade of Siena's cathedral, whose lavish and ordered design and ornamentation became the model for future Gothic facade decoration in central Italy. His other great achievement, the Pistoia pulpit (c. 1298–1301), is characterized by extreme agitation, its figures, animals, drapery, and landscape being wrenched into physically impossible configurations. His pulpit for the Pisa cathedral (1302–10) is much more Classical, perhaps to accord with Giotto's monumental style, then in the ascendancy. Though regarded as Italy's only true Gothic sculptor, he never lost sight of the heritage of Classical Rome.