The Cathedral Builders Part 21

2 & 3. 1168 "M. Johannes and Guitto" Made the Ciborium at (Guido) Corneto.

4. 1196 Magister Buono, called Built the churches of S.

Gruamont Andrea and S. Gio.

Evangelista at Pistoja. This man is said by Vasari to be identical with the first Buono.

5. M. Adeodatus, his brother Worked with him at Pistoja.

6. 1206 "Magister Bonus," or Buono Designed Fiesole cathedral.

7. 1264 M. Giovanni Buono (Zambono) Worked at S. Anthony, Padua; in 1265 built the cathedral of S. Jacopo, in Pistoja.

8. M. Andrea Buono, his These brothers worked brother together at the pulpit at Corneto Tarquinia, and probably built the church.

Niccolao di Rannuccio sculptured the door, inlaid in Cosmati style.

9. 1285 M. Alberto di Guido Buono } } Sculptured at S. Pietro, 10. " M. Albertino di Enrico } Bologna.

Buono } ------+------+-----------------------------+-----------------------------

The family were leading members of the guild up to the fifteenth century, when Bartolommeo Buono and his sons won fame in Venice.

We have seen the long connection of the Comacines with Lucca, during Lombard times, when they helped to build S. Frediano and other churches there. Sig. Ridolfi, author of _L' Arte in Lucca_, proves that not only the chief churches, but the cathedral itself, were the work of the Lombard "Maestri Casari" who had established their schools there, since they restored S. Frediano for the Lombard Faulone in 686, and built the Basilica of S. Martino for Bishop Frediano in 588.

By the tenth century the church of S. Martino was very dilapidated, which much grieved the mind of Bishop Anselmo, who sought to gather together funds for its restoration. Two wealthy Lucchesi, Lambertus and Blancarius, both dignitaries of the cathedral, gave large donations towards it. Not long after this, Bishop Anselmo was elevated to the Papal See as Pope Alexander II., and immediately began the long-desired work of rebuilding his ex-cathedral.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHURCH OF S. MICHELE, LUCCA.

_See page 228._ ]

He being a Milanese, and the Comacines his countrymen, besides their having a long connection with Lucca, it is natural to suppose he chose them as his architects. Every sign of the work confirms this, although no names have come down to us. As was frequently the case, the church was left without a facade for over a century, and at the end of the twelfth century the Lucchesi wished to put this finishing touch.

There was in Lucca at the time a certain Magister Guido da Como, who had in 1187 built the church of S. Maria Corteorlandini. It was built for the feudal Lords Rolandinga, whose palace was called Corte Rolandinga, on the occasion of one of their family joining in the crusades.[176] There is mention of a Comacine sculptor named Guido before this date, at Corneto-Tarquinia, where in the church of S.

Maria di Castello is a fine Ciborium, signed "Johannes et Guitto hoc opus fecerunt, MCLXVIII." This, being only nineteen years previous, may have been an earlier work of this same Guido. This _Magister_ evidently had a son who followed his father's art, and was named after himself Guido, though called Guidetto, or young Guido, to distinguish him from his father. To these two men were confided the commission for the front of the Duomo. Probably the elder did not live to complete it, for although the commission was given to Maestro Guido Marmolario (_sic_), the inscription on the facade runs--"Mille C.C. IIII. condi dit ele cti tam pul chras. dextra Guidecti."[177] Among the sculptures is one figure with a very young face, supposed to be a portrait of Guidetto. This facade is a perfect specimen of pure Comacine-Romanesque, and shows that the Saracen influence under which the Masters had been placed in the south, when employed by the Lombard Dukes of Beneventum, had not led them to change entirely their old style, but only to develop it into a species of Oriental richness which (so far we may agree with old Vasari) sometimes errs against truth and good taste. It shows also the close connection between the Pisan and Lucchese Lodges.

The row of archlets which used to form a cornice under the roof now, as at Pisa, run wild over the whole facade. The outlines which used to follow honestly the shape of nave and aisles, now, for the sake of heaping on more ornament, stretch up far beyond the roof-line, forming a mask.

A still more glaring instance of the same fault is seen in Guidetto's other church, S. Michele, at Lucca, where the two upper galleries are the frontage of a mere useless wall in the air.

As an architect, young Guido left something to be desired; as a sculptor he was marvellous. Variety seems to have been his aim. In both S. Martino and S. Michele, among all the hundreds of colonnettes, you can scarcely find a duplicate. They are plain, fluted, foliaged, cl.u.s.tered, inlaid; black, white, red, green, yellow or parti-coloured, in endless variety. As for capitals, you get every imaginable shape and style, symbol and ornamentation. He outdoes his prototype Rainaldus of Pisa, and no clearer proof of a guild, rather than a single mind, can be furnished, than by this infinite variety of detail, which plainly speaks of the imaginings of many minds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATHEDRAL OF LUCCA (SAN MARTINO), ERECTED 11TH CENTURY; FAcADE 1204. BY GUIDECTUS.

_See page 228._]

The Comacines here are still in the transition stage, though near its end, for the sign of the lion of Judah holds its place above the pillar, under the spring of the arch. In the Italian Gothic, their next development, it is always beneath the column.

One of the lion-capped columns is entirely covered with sculptures representing the genealogical tree of the Virgin. The statue above the door, of St. Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar, is sufficiently well modelled as to suggest its belonging to a later century.

Signor Ridolfi, who has studied much in the archives of Lucca for his learned work _L' Arte in Lucca_, thinks that, in 1204, Guidetto the younger was only just beginning his career. His father must have died about this time, for the son loses his diminutive, and becomes in his turn Guido _Magistro_. In 1211 he was called to Prato to work at the Duomo there (then known as S. Stefano). The contract, which still exists, does not specify what part of the church he was to build. It is drawn up by the Notary Hildebrand, and binds "Guido, Maestro marmoraio" of S. Martino of Lucca, to go to Prato on fair terms, and there to remain working, and _commanding others to work_, at the church of S. Stefano. After this he was recalled to Lucca, to put the above-mentioned facade to S. Michele, which Teutprand had built in the eighth century, and which had been rebuilt, when in 1027 Beraldo de'

Rolandinghi had left a large legacy for the purpose. This facade, which, as I have said, is precisely similar in style to that of the Duomo, was finished in 1246.[178] Guido was then called to Pisa, to sculpture the altar and font in the Baptistery there. Not much remains of the altar--which appears to have been the usual edifice on four columns--except some very ancient sculpture, and two small columns with extremely rude statues on them. The inscription, however, is preserved, and runs--"A.D. MCCXLVI, sub Jacobi Rectore loci--Guido Bigarelli da Como fecit hoc opus."[179] This valuable discovery was made by the German Schmarzow. Here we have the family name of this busy sculptor, and of his father Guido of Como. It is one of the first instances, for surnames only became fixed about this time.

Guido or Guidetto's last work appears to have been the pulpit in San Bartolommeo in Pantano, at Pistoja, executed in 1250. This is particularly interesting, as being the immediate precursor of Niccol Pisano's pulpit at Pisa in 1260. It has been thought that Guido, either from death or other cause, left the work imperfect, and his pupil Turrisia.n.u.s finished it. The inscription as quoted by Cav.

Tolomei is--"Sculptor laudator qui doctus in arte probatur Guido de Como quem cunctis carmine promo Anno domini 1250 Est operi sa.n.u.s superestans Turrisia.n.u.s Namque fide prova vigil K Deus indi corona."[180]

Tolomei is puzzled by the cypher K, and Ciampi, the collector of inscriptions, has, in reporting this one, left out the last line altogether. He interprets it as implying that Guido having left the work unfinished, Turrisia.n.u.s finished it. Whilst I was studying lately some old doc.u.ments in the archives of S. Jacopo at Pistoja, Signor Guido Macci of that city, who kindly a.s.sisted me to read the crabbed old characters, threw a new light on that inscription. He says Tolomei has misread it; that the cypher is not a K but H C, which was plainly legible in a rubbing he took of it, and that _superstans_ merely means overseer; in fact, the Latin form of _operaio_. The same term _superstans_ was used for the head of the _laborerium_ in Rome up to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, and survived in the later lodges as _soprastante_. Signor Macci interprets the inscription thus--"The famous sculptor Guido of Como has proved himself learned in art, and his name should be sung in verse, A.D. 1250. Turrisia.n.u.s (Torrigiani) acted as overseer to this fine work, and may G.o.d crown him for superintending the work so well." I leave more learned cla.s.sics to say which interpretation is the true one. But as in most of the inscriptions, doc.u.ments, etc. of the guild, the name of the head of the lodge, and often those of the councillors are put in, I incline to think Signor Macci may be right, and the inscription is another proof of a Masonic lodge in which Torrigiani was, at the time, the head of the administration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PULPIT IN CHURCH OF S. BARTOLOMMEO, PISTOJA. BY GUIDO DA COMO.

_See page 230._]

Guido's pulpit is of white marble, and in the ancient square form, with eight panels in bas-relief. It rests on three columns; the first stands on a lion with a dragon at its feet, the second on a lioness suckling a cub, the third on a human figure. In this pulpit, and the older one at Groppoli, we have a perceptible link, connecting Niccol Pisano with the Comacine Guild, which we shall trace more closely when speaking of Romanesque sculpture.

There were at that epoch three lodges in the immediate neighbourhood.

One in connection with the Opera del Duomo at Pisa, one at Pistoja in the Opera di S. Jacopo, and a third one at Lucca, where Guido and Guidetto were chief sculptors. Besides this there was another in Apulia, where it is thought Niccol's father Pietro worked. Niccol's work, and that of Guido the younger, are so very much alike as to warrant the suspicion that they were both pupils of one master, but that Niccol had in him these greater qualities which go to form an epoch-making artist.

Little has. .h.i.therto come to light respecting the Masonic lodges of Lucca and Pisa. The _laborerium_ at Pistoja is rather more clearly defined, and furnishes some definite names. It existed from the twelfth century, but I do not think the archives were kept quite so early as that. There is the name RODOLFIN'S OP, anni 1167, carved on the architrave of the princ.i.p.al entrance of the Lombard church of S.

Bartolommeo in Pantano; but as critics cannot tell whether it means "Rodolfinus opus" or "Rodolfinus operaius" or head of the Opera, it is not a very decisive bit of history. The reading "Rodolfinus Operaius for the year 1167" would, like "Turrisia.n.u.s, overseer in 1250," be quite intelligible in its connection with the guild.

The facade of S. Bartolommeo is a masterpiece of Lombard work. It has the usual three round-arched doors, whose pilasters and architraves are rich with interlaced scrolls and foliage, and whose richly-carved arches rest on lions more or less fiercely dominating other animals, as emblems that divine strength is able to overcome sin. Whether all the animal sculptures on this church are due to the twelfth-century builder, or whether some are remains of Gundoaldo's[181] first edifice in 767, I cannot say. The architraves are certainly of the later date.

The head, or _capo-maestro_ of the _laborerium_ of Pistoja in the twelfth century, was evidently one of the Buono family, whose race and school became as famous as the Antelami and Campionesi, all three being branches of the original Lombard Guild. Like the Antelami and the Campionesi, the school founded by the Buoni furnished several shining lights among the Lombard _Magistri_. The name is first met with in the poem of which we have spoken,[182] on the Ten Years' War between Milan and the people of Como. Among the brave citizens who threw down their tools to take arms, and distinguished themselves in wielding them, was a certain Giovanni Buono from Vesonzo (now Bissone) in Vall' Intelvi, who took part in the siege of the fortress of S.

Martino on Lake Lugano. The war took place in the tenth century; the poem was written a little later than 1100. Sig. Merzario[183] opines that the Maestro Buono of whom Vasari speaks as the "first architect who showed a more elevated spirit, and aimed after better things, but of whose country and family he knows nothing,"[184] was one of this line of sculptor-architects originally from Vesonzo (Bissone) in Inteluum (Val d'Intelvi). The name Giovanni occurs constantly in the lists.

Certainly the head of the line, as far as regards art, was the Magister Giovanni Buoni here mentioned by Vasari, who goes on to say that this Buono in 1152 had been employed on buildings in Ravenna, after which he was called to Naples, where he built the Castel dell'

Uovo and Castel Capuano; and that in the time of Doge Domenico Morosini, _i.e._ 1154, he founded the Campanile of S. Marco at Venice, which Vasari a.s.serts was so well built that up to his time it had never moved a hair (_non ha mai mosso un pelo_).

Vasari says that Giovanni Buono was in 1166 at Pistoja, where he built the church of S. Andrea. Both Milanesi, Vasari's annotator, and Merzario[185] complain that Vasari was very confused in these statements. The tower of S. Marco was, Cicognara says, by a later Bartolommeo Buono from Bergamo, who also built the Procuratie Vecchie in the sixteenth century. It is curious how Vasari, living in the same century, could have made such a statement; he must have known whether the tower were being built then, or had been standing for several centuries. The fact was that one Buono built the older tower in Venice to which Vasari refers, and the sixteenth-century Bartolommeo Buono was its restorer. The style is certainly antique.

Vasari's annotators agree that this Buono worked at Arezzo, where he built the bell-tower, and the ancient palace of the Signoria of Arezzo (_cio e un palazzo della maniera de' Goti_), _i.e._ with large hewn stones; after which he came to Pistoja, where he built S. Andrea and other churches.

But even here some confusion exists. It is difficult to decide whether the builder of S. Andrea at Pistoja, and the cathedral of Lucca was indeed named Buono or Gruamonte. There is an inscription on the sculpture of the architrave of the facade which has been a great bone of contention. It proves, however, beyond a doubt that the usual organization, with the _Opera_ as the administrative branch, existed in Pistoja in 1196. It runs--"Fecit hoc opus Gruamons magister bon(us) et Adot ... (Adeodatus) frater ejus. Tunc erat operarii Villa.n.u.s et Pathus filius Tignosi A.D. MCIXVI."[186] This work was done by Gruamons, Master Buono, and Adeodatus his brother; Villa.n.u.s and Pathus, son of Tignosi, being then _operai_ (_i.e._ on the administrative council).

In that word _bonus_ lies the difficulty. Some say it is merely placed in encomium: Gruamons the good master; but it does not seem to me probable that a man would habitually sign his name with a boastful adjective; and habitual it was, because on the white stripes of the architrave of the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista Fuorcivitas he has again signed himself "Gruamons magister bonus fec hoc opus." Knowing the Italian love of nicknames from the earliest ages, I take it that the architect was really, as Vasari says, Master Bonus or Buono, and that either from a long neck and a stoop, or from his clever use of a crane, he was nicknamed Gruamons, "the crane man,"[187] _grue_ being Italian for both bird and machine. That the Gruamons who carved the Magi on the architrave of S. Andrea was one of the very early Masters, is evident from the mediaeval grossness of his work in carving the human figure; that he may very likely be Comacine is suggested by the style and mastery of his _ornamento_ and the life in the figures of his animals. The capitals supporting this architrave are evidently by one of his subordinates; they are very rough, but full of meaning, explaining the mystery of the Annunciation and Conception; below them the signature _Magister enricus mi fecit_. These early sculptures are especially interesting, for they are the first efforts of the Comacines to show Bible events and truths by actual representation instead of by symbols, and so form the link with the development under Niccol Pisano. Hence the greater want of practice in the human figures, compared to the animals and scrolls, with which the guild had been familiar for ages.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHURCH OF S. ANDREA, PISTOJA. DESIGNED BY GRUAMONS.

_See page 235._]

It is interesting to compare Gruamons' work with that of the later sculptor of the facade of S. Bartolommeo, and note the rapid progress that art was making towards more perfect and natural form in sculpture. There are only twenty-two years between them, but the sculptor of S. Bartolommeo is far in advance of Gruamons in his representation of the human figure. It is said that Gruamons has left his sign in a portrait of himself on the doorway of S. Andrea, where a curiously negro-like head stands out from the middle of a column. It seems, however, to have acquired its blackness by being used through several centuries as a torch extinguisher at funerals.

Another of Gruamons' churches in Pistoja is that of S. Giovanni Evangelista Fuorcivitas, which is extremely interesting as showing a perfect specimen of the practicable Lombard gallery or outer ambulatory, which in two orders here surrounds the church. The building is entirely encrusted with black and white marble, mostly in alternate lines, but in some places inlaid in chequers. This fashion, which began in this very city of Pistoja, has an historical significance, and was introduced as a symbol of the peace between the factions of Bianchi and Neri, which so long hara.s.sed Pistoja. It was taken up afterwards by Siena and Orvieto, and in Florence and Prato, when their respective civic feuds were healed.

Gruamons, or Magister Buono, may have been the chief master of the _laborerium_ at Pistoja with its accompanying _Opera di S. Jacopo_, which began to keep its registers in 1145. At any rate his family name was kept up in that lodge for more than a century. The Buoni followed the usual custom, and sought commissions in other towns. In 1206 we find one of them restoring and almost rebuilding the cathedral at Fiesole, which had been built in 1028, in the time of Bishop Jacopo Bavaro, but was menacing ruin two centuries later. On the sixth column of the nave, on the right, is inscribed--

"MCCVI. Indict VIII Bonus Magister Restaurus.

Operarius Ecclesiae Fesulanae Fecit aedificare IIII columnas I. Allex P.P."

Here even at this early date we have the _Opera_ or administration under the direction of the dignitaries of the cathedral. The tower was built by a Maestro Michele in 1213. An inscription on the left of the apse tells us that the building of the tower cost seventy _mancussi_, a gold coin in use in the Middle Ages.[188] It is supposed that Maestro Buono copied his church from S. Miniato near Florence. The plan is nearly identical, and both have the same peculiarity of the omission of the narthex, or portico, which till this time had been an indispensable part of the ecclesiastic Basilica. It is true the Fiesole church is built of stone, and is simple in ornament, while S.

Miniato is of marble and rich in decorations, but in plan and form the two are identical. In each case the same use has been made of the older buildings on the site by leaving them as crypts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHURCH OF SAN GIOVANNI FUORCIVITAS, PISTOJA. DESIGNED BY GRUAMONS.

_See page 236._]

The first San Miniato church was built under Charlemagne, by Bishop Hildebrand in 774; the second was endowed by the Emperor Henry the Saint, and Saint Cunegonda his wife; both times the patrons were accustomed to employ the Comacine Masters. In San Miniato we see one of their masterpieces.

In the thirteenth century another distinguished scion of the Buono race came down to join the lodge at Pistoja. We have seen Giovanni Buono, or Zambono as he writes himself, at work at S. Antonio at Padua in 1264, together with Egidio, son of Magister Graci; Nicola, son of Giovanni; Ubertino, son of Lanfranco, etc. In 1265 Magister Bonus or Buono was _capo-maestro_ and architect of the Duomo at Pistoja, and in 1266 he erected the tribune of S. Maria Nuova there, on the cornice of which he has carved--"A.D. MCCLXVI tempore Parisii Pagni[189] et Simones, Magister Bonus fecit hoc opus," _i.e._ A.D. 1266, in the time when Paris Pagni and Simones were _operai_, Magister Bonus executed this work.

In 1270 Buono was commissioned to make the facade of the church of S.

Salvatore in the same energetic little town. The inscription on the pretty little facade is--

"Anno milleno bis centum septuageno Hoc perfecit opus qui fertur nomine Bonus Praestabant operi Jacobus, Scorcione vocatus Et Benvenuti Joannes, quos Deus omnes Salvator lenis millis velit augere p.e.n.i.s. Amen."