assistant to his father in the contract of 1265 for the pul-
pit in Siena; Giovanni received periodic payments until
October 1268, when the pulpit was completed (Bacci
1926; Carli 1943; Milanesi 1854). Nothing certain is
known of Giovanni’s activities between 1268 and 1278,
when his name appears together with Nicola’s on the
Fontana Maggiore in Perugia. From c. 1285 to c. 1297,
Giovanni was at work in Siena, where he is mentioned
as capomaestro of the project for the cathedral facade
in 1290. His name is recorded in Siena in 1314, but in
1319 he is referred to as having died. There is consid-
erable uncertainty regarding the attribution of his early
work or supposed early work on the pulpit in Siena,
and elsewhere; passages that convey a greater degree of
“spiritual tension” have tended to be ascribed to him,
whereas those characterized by greater emotional re-
straint have suggested the hand of Nicola. One image on
the Fontana Maggiore is almost certainly by Giovanni:
a pair of eagles with enormous claws, powerful breasts,
and twisting bodies that seem to anticipate the griffi n on
the central support of the pulpit in Pistoia.
The facade of the cathedral in Siena was left incom-
plete on Giovanni’s departure c. 1297, and scholars
disagree as to whether the present facade refl ects his
original plan (Kosegarten 1984) or the upper section is
a much later design, c. 1370 (Carli 1977; Keller 1937).
The program in Siena (unlike the encyclopedic programs
of French Gothic cathedrals) is strictly Mariological,
and the coherence of its iconography is strong argu-
ment for assigning the conception of the entire facade
to a single initial project. From early sources we know
that a (lost) Madonna and Child stood in the lunette
of the central portal fl anked by a representative of the
commune swearing an oath of allegiance on behalf
of Siena, and by a personifi cation of Siena holding
up a model of the cathedral. Scenes from the lives of
Joachim and Anna and from Mary’s childhood adorned
the lintel of the central portal; the side lunettes and the
gable fi elds contained mosaics representing further
events from Mary’s life. On platforms projecting from
the towers and between the lunettes of the lower facade
were placed prophets and kings of the Old Testament
and sibyls and pagan philosophers, i.e., those who in
remote times had foreseen the miraculous birth of the
savior. Spread out along the upper facade were evan-
gelists and apostles, whose teachings are confi rmed
by the prophets. Though these were executed in the
fourteenth century, they too were probably part of the
original plan, which envisioned the prophets standing
like foundations for the New Testament fi gures above.
Around the rose window appeared a seated Madonna
and Child flanked by half figures representing the
genealogy of Christ; scenes from the life of David, an
ancestor of Christ, appeared on one of the tendril col-
umns that originally fl anked the portals. The pictorial
program of the facade thus revealed the place of Siena
within the total redemptive plan of Christian theology.
The initial visual impact of the facade comes from an
interplay of its chromatic, plastic, and structural effects:
the contrasts of color, light, and shadow created by the
deep jambs, gables, and gallery; the rich tactile plastic-
ity and rhythmic fl ow of concave-convex movements
across the lower horizontal band of portals and lunettes;
and the stepping back of the upper facade behind the
gables. The fourteen prophets and sibyls (the originals
are in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo) are dynamic,
plastic forms whose gestures and movements embody
the excitement of their special enlightenment. The dra-
matic effect of these fi gures communicating across real
space has no medieval or antique precedent. However,
the facade abounds in classicizing motifs such as bead
and reel patterns, dentils, masks, acanthus foliage, and
all’antica “peopled columns” originally fl anking the
main portal (Seidel 1968–1969, 1975; Venturi 1927).
The traceried bifore and trifore and aspects of the fi gure
style are infl uenced by French precedents, whereas the
alternation of dark and light marble revetment belongs
to the Tuscan Romanesque tradition. The facade, then,
shows a creative synthesis of antique traditions, local
traditions, and northern Gothic infl uences––the last of
these seen also in the undermining of solid surface in
favor of perforated mass.
Perhaps as a result of professional difficulties,
Giovanni left Siena c. 1297, when the facade was still
incomplete (Ayrton 1969). Around this time, or possibly
earlier, he executed a number of sculptures for the exte-
rior of the baptistery in Pisa. The remaining fragments
(installed in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Pisa)
are badly weathered, but these swelling, twisting fi gures
burst with inner energy.
Around 1297, Giovanni received his fi rst commis-
sion for a pulpit, from the parish of Sant’Andrea in
Pistoia. Pistoia was unusually rich in Romanesque
monumental sculptured pulpits, and the proposal for
Sant’Andrea insisted that it must not be inferior to one
made for San Giovanni Fuorcivitas by Guglielmo, a
student of Nicola Pisano; this suggests that there was
a strong sense of rivalry among churches. Giovanni’s
pulpit is signed and dated 1301 and has an inscription
that boasts of a “mastery greater than any seen before”
(Pope-Hennessy 1972). This richly carved and elegant
structure—its parapet poised on Gothic trefoil arches
above slender columns with alternating animal and
fi gural supports—reveals Giovanni’s debt to Nicola’s
two earlier pulpits, but it also reveals that Giovanni
was completely independent in terms of technique,
composition, and expressiveness. Like Nicola’s pulpit
in the baptistery in Pisa, Giovanni’s pulpit in Pistoia
is hexagonal and has great structural clarity. But here
Giovanni adopts an invention from his father’s pulpitPISANO, GIOVANNI