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The tabernacle over the high altar of St. John Lateran is derived from a design by Arnolfo di Cambio and decorated with paintings by Barna da Siena in 1367-1368. The cage above contains silver reliquaries which are said to hold the heads of SS. Peter and Paul.

The sculpture of St. Peter found within St. Peter's Basilica, Rome.

Arnolfo di Cambio^[1] (c. 1240 – 1300/1310^[2]) was an Italian architect and sculptor.

Biography

Arnolfo was born in Colle Val d'Elsa, Tuscany.

Particular of the tomb of Riccardo Cardinal Annibaldi, at St. John Lateran. This was the first major work of Arnolfo in Rome.

He was Nicola Pisano’s chief assistant on the marble pulpit for the Duomo in Siena (1265-1268), but he soon began to work independently on an important tomb sculpture. In 1266-1267 he worked in Rome for King Charles I of Anjou, portraying him in the famous statue housed in the Campidoglio. Around 1282 he finished the monument to Cardinal de Braye in the church of San Domenico in Orvieto, including a Madonna which he created by converting an ancient Roman statue of the goddess Abundantia. In Rome Arnolfo had seen the Cosmatesque art, and its influence can be seen in the intarsio and polychrome glass decorations in the churches of San Paolo fuori le Mura and Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, where he worked in 1285 and 1293 respectively. In this period he also worked on the presepio of Santa Maria Maggiore, on Santa Maria in Aracoeli, on the monument of Pope Boniface VIII (1300) and on the bronze statue of St. Peter in St. Peter's Basilica.

In 1294-1295 he worked in Florence, mainly as an architect. According to his biographer Giorgio Vasari, he was in charge of construction of the cathedral of the city, for which he provided the statues once decorating the lower part of the façade destroyed in 1589. The surviving statues are now in the Museum of the Cathedral. Also attributed to Arnolfo is the design of the Church of Santa Croce. Vasari also attributed to him the urban plan of the new city of San Giovanni Valdarno.

The monumental character of Arnolfo's work has left its mark on the appearance of Florence. His funerary monuments became the model for Gothic funerary art.

Giorgio Vasari included a biography of Arnolfo in his Lives of the Artists.

Selected works

Architecture

• Old basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence

Sculpture

• St. Peter Enthroned inside St. Peter's Basilica, is often attributed to Arnolfo.
• Monument to Pope Adrian V (1276) - San Francesco, Viterbo
• Monument to Riccardo Cardinal Annibaldi (1276) - San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome
• Statue of Charles I of Anjou (1277) - Campidoglio, Rome
• Fountain of the Thirsty People (Fontana Minore) - Perugia
• Tomb of Cardinal Guillaume de Braye (c. 1282) - San Domenico, Orvieto
• Monument of Pope Boniface VIII - the Museum of the Opera del Duomo - Florence

Tomb of Adrian V

Tomb of Honorius IV

References

• Tomasi, Michele (February 2007). "Lo stil novo del Gotico italiano". Medioevo (121): pp. 32–46.  

Footnotes

External links

• Arnolfo di Cambio in the "History of Art"