the building then constructing by Arnolfo (Santa Maria del Fiore), but also to visit Giotto, of whom he had heard great things related while on his travels. But he had scarcely arrived in Florence, before he was appointed, by the Intendants of the fabric, to execute the Madonna, which stands between two angels, over that door of the church which leads into the canonical palace ; a work which was then greatly commended.[1] He afterwards erected the small baptismal font of San Giovanni, adorning it with passages from the life of that saint, in mezzo-rilievo.[2] Then, proceeding to Bologna, he directed the construction of the principal chapel in the church of San Domenico, where he was also commissioned, by Teodorico Borgognoni, of Lucca, the Bishop, a friar of the Dominican order, to execute an altar in marble ; and in the year 1298 he completed the marble table in which are seen the Virgin with eight other figures, all of very tolerable workmanship.[3]
In the year 1300,[4] Niccola da Prato, cardinal legate, being despatched by the pope to Florence, in the hope of appeasing the dissensions of the Florentines, employed Giovanni to build a convent for nuns in Prato, which he caused to be called the Convent of San Niccola, after his own name ; in the same district he restored the convent of San Domenico, with another of the same name in Pistoja, and on both these buildings the arms of the aforesaid cardinal may still be found. Then the people of Pistoja, holding the name of Niccola, the father of Giovanni, in high respect, for the many excellent works that he had produced in their city, caused Giovanni to construct a marble pulpit for their church of Sant’ Andrea, similar to that which Niccola had executed for the cathedral of Siena, and in which he was to compete with one erected shortly before by a German, in the church of St. John the Evangelist, which had been highly praised.[5] This work Giovanni com-
- ↑ This beautiful and well-preserved work may still be seen in the place thus described by Vasari. —Ed. Flor. 1846.
- ↑ The present baptismal font cannot be the work either of Giovanni, or of Andrea Pisano, as Del Migliore supposes, the inscription around it declaring it to have been executed in 1370, when Gio. had been dead fifty years, and And. twenty-five.—Ed. Flor. 1846.
- ↑ This work has been lost.—Ibid.
- ↑ Schorn says 1303.
- ↑ This pulpit of St. Andrew, at Pistoja, is precisely in the same
