A new exhibition here reveals how Italian sculptor and architect Arnolfo di Cambio shaped the dawn of the Renaissance.
Although not as famous as contemporary pioneers such as Cimabue, Giotto and Nicola Pisano, experts say Arnolfo played a key role in dragging Europe out of the cultural darkness of the Middle Ages.
Arnolfo, who was born in the fifth decade of the 13th century and died sometime between 1302-1310, was the foremost architect of his day and the builder of Florence cathedral. He was also the author of many of the first classical-style sculptures to be crafted since ancient times.
His statue of Charles of Anjou - made some time before 1277 - is the first modern portrait statue by a known artist. The exhibition, entitled Arnolfo, Alle Origini Del Rinascimento Fiorentino (Arnolfo, At The Origins Of The Fiorentine Rennaissance), runs at Florence's Museo dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore until April 21 2006. It marks the 700th anniversary of Arnolfo's death and aims to win the maestro the esteem he deserves with the modern public.
Over 90 works - marble and wood sculptures and various other decorative objects, many loaned from museums outside Italy - hsve come together for the first time. One of the highlights is the Annunciation, a wood sculpture made in the last decade of the 13th century, which is on loan from London's Victoria And Albert Museum. There are also previously unseen portions of the old facade of Santa Maria del Fiore, which was designed by Arnolfo.
These are on display to enable visitors to image what it would have looked like if the work had been completed. The unfinished facade was broken up and its carved decorations were dispersed in the 16th century. The exhibition highlights the influence Arnolfo's work had on Giotto as well. Art historians say Giotto was the first to grasp the importance of Arnolfo's ideas and develop them in painting, a century before Brunelleschi and Donatello did the same thing in the fields of architecture and sculpture respectively.
The show is enriched by an array of late 13th-century paintings and gold objects to give visitors a better idea of the artistic context Arnolfo worked in. Arnolfo di Cambio was born in the Tuscan town of Colle di Val d'Elsa, near Siena between 260-1265.
He began his career in 1265 working as Nicola Pisano's assistant on the pulpit for the Siena Cathedral. He spent most of the last quarter of the 13th century in Rome, making monuments and decorations for churches such as Saint Paul's, Saint Peter's, Saint John Lateran and Saint Mary Major.
In 1282 he made the tomb of Cardinal de Braye in San Domenico Church, Orvieto, considered by many his most significant existing sculpture. He moved back to Florence at the end of the century to oversee the construction of the cathedral. He was highly productive in the last years of his life, leaving a wealth of statues and his contribution to Palazzo Vecchio.
