Pulpit in the Pisa Baptistery

Pulpit in the Pisa Baptistery by Nicola Pisano, 1260

The pulpit in the Pisa Baptistery was completed by Nicola Pisano and his assistants in 1260, and has long been regarded as a landmark in Italian art, especially for its large relief panels around the platform.[1] For Kenneth Clark the pulpit was "that false dawn of the Renaissance", as its innovations were not followed up for some time.[2] The nude male figure, called Daniel or Fortitude, but based on a Roman Hercules, has long been a particular focus of attention as "the first heroic nude in Italian art" (as opposed to Roman art).[3]

Large raised pulpits, elaborately carved with relief panels, were important monuments in the Italian Duecento, with the best known including those of the baptistery at Pisa (dated 1260), Siena Cathedral Pulpit (1268) also by Nicola Pisano, and by his son Giovanni Pisano, who went on to make the Pulpit of Sant' Andrea, Pistoia, 1297–1301, and that in Pisa Cathedral (1302–1310).[4]

View from above
  1. ^ For White, 80, it "marks a new stage in the history of Italian sculpture".
  2. ^ Clark, 48
  3. ^ Hartt, 53–55, quoted; Olson, 13 has "the first modern representation of a heroic nude in the Classical manner".
  4. ^ White, 83–87, 122–130, 133–139; Olson, 15–16, 19–22; Hartt, 55–57