Arnolfo di Cambio

Italian architect and sculptor

• Born: c. 1245
• Birthplace: Colle di Val d'Elsa (now in Italy)
• Died: Between 1302 and 1310
• Place of death: Florence (now in Italy)

As chief architect of Florence during the end of the thirteenth century, Arnolfo directed the construction of some of Florence's principal monuments and brought the Italian classical tradition together with elements of the French Gothic.

Early Life

Little is known of the early years of Arnolfo di Cambio (awr-NOL-foh dee KAWM-byoh). From 1266 to 1268, he worked as chief assistant to Nicola Pisano, Italy's first great sculptor ; together they created the pulpit in the cathedral in Siena, Italy. Arnolfo may also have worked with Pisano at about the same time on the tomb of Saint Dominic in the Church of San Domenico in Bologna. Around 1272, Arnolfo constructed the monument to Cardinal Annibaldi in the Church of San Giovanni Laterano of Rome. This work may have been commissioned by Emperor Charles I of Anjou, who became Arnolfo's patron in 1271, when the sculptor went to Florence after leaving Pisano's shop. The monument to Annibaldi reflects the characteristics of Arnolfo's early work, with graceful yet stiff drapery and simple treatment of the facial features expressing the restraint of classical Roman sculpture, which was Arnolfo's model.

Arnolfo continued to distinguish himself as a sculptor of funerary monuments during the first stage of his artistic career. Two of Arnolfo's notable works of this period are the monument to Cardinal Guillaume de Braye in San Domenico in Orvieto (1282) and the ciborium (an ornamental altar canopy) in San Paolo Fuori le Mura in Rome (1285). The monument to Cardinal de Braye combines the energetic Gothic figures of Saint Peter and Saint Dominic with a restrained, classical rendering of the Virgin Mary as an empress holding her son. The strong horizontal lines, maintained by the ornamentation of the pedestal and sarcophagus, temper the vertical quality of the Gothic design. Similar effects are found in the ciborium in San Paolo Fuori le Mura. The figures of the saints reflect the restrained, sober classicism of early Christian work. Moreover, the Gothic design is consistently controlled: The trilobed arches are gently rounded, conveying spaciousness rather than strong upward movement; the pediment gables and pinnacles are countered with strong horizontal lines accented by the decorative use of nearly black marble. These two characteristics of Arnolfo's sculptures the serene, controlled spirit of sculptured portraits and the de-emphasis of vertical movement are also trademarks of Arnolfo's architectural work.

Life's Work

Arnolfo's classicism, distinctive in his sculptures in Rome, is most evident in the Tuscan capital of Florence, where he served as the city's capomaestro, or chief architect, probably beginning in 1284. In many respects, Tuscany was based on classical precedent, and Florence, of all Tuscan cities, took this precedent most seriously, modeling its own republican government after the Roman Republic. Giovanni Villani, in 1338, referred to Florence as “the daughter and creature of Rome.” As capomaestro of Florence, Arnolfo was charged with extensive city planning, culminating in the reconstruction for which Florence has been famous ever since. Pressured by the city's growth (its population had surpassed fifty thousand by the end of the thirteenth century) and strengthened by the success of the city's banking and wool industry, the guilds and prominent families of Florence were eager to have the city stabilized through comprehensive city planning. Arnolfo directed a building campaign for a new set of city walls (it would be the third set, the last having been built in 1170). These walls would draw into the city's circumference the enclaves, at opposite edges of the city, of the two powerful brotherhoods, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, as well as the neighborhoods along the banks of the south side of the Arno River. The building campaign also called for a new cathedral and a new town hall, the Palazzo Vecchio. In addition, the communal granary, also a monument to the city's guilds, was slated for renovation.

These three focal points of the new city cathedral, town hall, and guild hall were to be united by the widening of the straight thoroughfare, Via Calzaioli. Thus public monuments would dominate over private ones, and the republic of Florence would become a more vivid expression of classical ideals, including Aristotle's notion that city walls add strength and beauty and the Roman contention that wide, straight streets (pulchrae, amplae, et rectae) contribute health, convenience, and beauty to a city. Arnolfo was designer and director of all these projects, although none was completed during his lifetime. In addition to these public works, Arnolfo started restorations of the Franciscan abbey church known as the Badia and designed the Franciscan Church of Santa Croce, one of the most famous monuments of Florence. Arnolfo was probably also responsible for refacing the baptistry, situated a few yards west of the new cathedral.

By the time Arnolfo began the work of enlarging Florence and constructing its major religious and secular buildings, the city had already established an architectural tone that was consistent with Arnolfo's tastes. Italian Gothic was a combination of classical and French Gothic influences, with the classical dominating. This classical influence is most dramatically represented in the Italian Romanesque style found in the Benedictine Abbey Church of San Miniato al Monte, located on a hill across the Arno from the site of Santa Croce. San Miniato al Monte's round arches supported by columns and its triangular pediment are imitative of classical architecture. The stark contrast between the white and dark green marble used as paneling for the church's façade is pure Romanesque, having no parallel in antiquity, but the classical proportions emphasized by the façade's geometric patterns are strong echoes of classical forms, whose gentle curves and strong horizontal lines are the antithesis of the Gothic style. The Church of San Miniato al Monte was begun in 1013, but the Florentines of the thirteenth century regarded it as far older than it was, a survival from Roman antiquity. For an architect of Arnolfo's time, influenced by the attraction to classical forms that was to become a trademark of the Renaissance, this accessible “ancient” model could not be ignored.

The Church of Santa Maria Novella, begun a generation before Arnolfo became capomaestro of Florence, offered a precedent of compromises between these Italian classical ideals and the French Gothic tradition so popular throughout the Middle Ages. The ceiling of the church is a stone vault instead of the open timbered roof of other Tuscan churches, such as San Miniato al Monte. The usual effect of this vaulting is a feeling of vertical thrust, but in this Tuscan rendering the vertical thrust is minimized by many elements. The spacing of the interior columns along the nave of the church creates square nave bays and proportionally longer aisle bays than are found in Gothic churches. The heights of the arcade and clerestory are nearly equal, creating the illusion that the roof is shorter than it is. In addition, the vaults and arches are made from pietra serena, a dark gray stone of Tuscany, and stand outlined against the plaster walls. The effect of these features is an interior that feels spacious, light, and broad, unlike a narrow and vertical Gothic interior. In these respects, the Church of Santa Maria Novella is the structural predecessor to Arnolfo's two great churches, Santa Croce and Florence's cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore.

Arnolfo designed Santa Croce closely after Romanesque models. The ceiling of Santa Croce takes after San Miniato al Monte rather than Santa Maria Novella; the church has an open-trussed, wooden roof rather than stone vaulting. The lighter weight ceiling allows for lighter supporting columns, which give the church's nave its Tuscan openness. Gothic influence, however softened, is evident not only in its pointed arches but also in its long, rather narrow aisle bays and nave bays wider than they are long.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is perhaps Arnolfo's chief achievement. The most striking monument of Florence, it brings together the dominant elements of Tuscan art. Santa Maria del Fiore is the architectural culmination of an age, integrating native Tuscan qualities with the Italian Romanesque and the French Gothic. To appreciate Arnolfo's design, however, one must ignore the alterations that were made by later designers who finished the cathedral complex. Giotto (c. 1266-1337), who succeeded Arnolfo as capomaestro, did not attempt working on the church proper but designed and began construction of the bell tower. Francesco Talenti, a subsequent capomaestro, altered the church's façade and enlarged the floor space, extending the nave and broadening the transepts and chancel. Although they violated the original scale of the building, Talenti's changes otherwise respected Arnolfo's design. Arnolfo's original plan survives in manuscript, and his design for the façade is depicted in a thirteenth century painting by Bernardino Poccetti.

The Tuscan tradition is evident in Santa Maria del Fiore's interior, which is similar to the interior of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella in its openness and classical pilasters. Like Santa Croce, it has horizontal lines coursing the interior perimeter above the aisle arches. The cathedral's Gothic vaulted ceiling, like that of Santa Maria Novella, is lightened through the use of pietra serena and plaster. The colored marble outlining geometric patterns on the exterior is an Italian Romanesque feature. In the interior, the octagonal opening at the crossing mirrors the octagonal form of the baptistry. It is this octagon that is the most distinguishing feature of the cathedral, giving shape to the open center of the interior. The dome above it, spanning the complete width of the nave, creates a spaciousness unmatched by other Italian churches of the period. Arnolfo, no doubt responding to pressure from Florentine patrons to outdo rivaling cathedrals in Pisa and Siena, was intent on the octagonal form, but such a design required very sophisticated engineering. This problem would not be solved until more than one hundred years later, when Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) came up with a plan that enabled the dome to be built. With its completion, Arnolfo's intention was realized: The French Gothic style that was so influential in the late Middle Ages informs and gives grace to this cathedral, which nevertheless leaves as its dominant impression a light spaciousness, the quality that was native to the architecture of Arnolfo's Italian heritage.

Significance

In his time, Arnolfo's talents were well recognized. The Florentines, in 1300, declared him officially exempt from tax obligations because he was the best known and most highly respected architect of church buildings. As sculptor, architect, and city planner, he can also be appreciated for his range of talents, a sort of precursor of the ideal of the Renaissance man.

Arnolfo's legacy as a sculptor is his creation of a blend of classical and contemporary Italian forms. His subdued, classical draperies and his warmly human, yet austere, portraits look forward to the human figures painted by Giotto (many of which appear as frescoes in Arnolfo's Church of Santa Croce). Arnolfo's funerary monuments, particularly the monuments to Cardinal Annibaldi in Rome and to Cardinal de Braye in Orvieto, became the principal models of Gothic funerary art.

Arnolfo's distinctive architecture, however, became his most wide-ranging contribution. The architecture of Italy's Renaissance, which had Florence as its capital, generally carries forward the synthesis of styles that Arnolfo realized. Evidence of this is seen most notably in Brunelleschi's Florentine churches, Santo Spirito and San Lorenzo. Though Brunelleschi, as a Renaissance architect, was concerned with consistent mathematic proportions in his buildings to an extent not realized in Arnolfo's age, he nevertheless maintains the same uniquely Italian balance of the Romanesque, Tuscan, and Gothic styles that Arnolfo first mastered. Even Brunelleschi's balanced proportions can be seen foreshadowed in the evenly radiating aisles of the broad central octagon at the center of Florence's cathedral.

Creator of a native art, like Dante writing in the vernacular and Giotto expressing biblical themes in classically influenced Italian portraits, Arnolfo strengthened and gave longevity to the Italian style in art.

Bibliography

Kostoff, Spiro. A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. An extremely accurate and thorough source of information about the architectural precedents to Arnolfo and Arnolfo’s achievement. Two chapters contain information on Arnolfo: “The Urbanization of Europe: 1100-1300” and “Edges of Medievalism.” Useful photographs, drawings, and maps pertaining to Arnolfo’s buildings in Florence. Scholarly, but readable. Contains a glossary and an index. A bibliography is included at the end of every chapter.

Mayernik, David. Timeless Cities: An Architect’s Reflections on Renaissance Italy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2003. Mayernik’s examination of Italian Renaissance cities includes a look at Florence and Siena. Bibliography and index.

Murray, Peter. The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance. New York: Schocken Books, 1986. Includes an excellent, clear account of Romanesque and Gothic influences in Tuscany before and during Arnolfo’s time. Discusses Arnolfo’s achievement, with more accurate information than is available in older accounts. Also includes drawings and photographs of Arnolfo’s architectural work, a carefully annotated bibliography, and an index.

Vasari, Giorgio. Lives of Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Reprint. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. A classic biography of Italian artists by a Renaissance Italian painter, written more than two hundred years after Arnolfo’s death. Though riddled with inaccuracies (Vasari indiscriminately mixed legend with history), it is still valuable as an appreciation of the genius of Arnolfo from an artist’s point of view. Treats Arnolfo as Arnolfo di Lapo, a composite figure that includes Arnolfo di Cambio. If not a consistently reliable account, it nevertheless shows how Arnolfo was viewed until the twentieth century.