This classicism was partly promoted by Frederick II, under whom ancient styles still steeped in medieval tradition acquire new energy. We owe him great 13th-century architecture, especially of a civil character (Castel del Monte, Porta di Capua, the loca solaciorum in Lucera, Gravina etc.), a rare fusion of classical culture, Arab experiences and gothic spirit. Beyond the Alps, Gothic architecture developed from Romanesque presuppositions, namely the cross vault, the buttresses, the ribs. In Italy Burgundian Gothic was introduced between the end of the 12th century. and the beginnings of the following by the Cistercian monks (abbeys of Fossanova, Casamari and, later, of S. Galgano); examples of the Gothic of French influence occurred in the Angevin dominions and in Puglia, and manifestations of the Gothic appear in every region of Italy, although through a particular interpretation, from Florence, to Bologna, to Venice, to Orvieto, according to a research of spaciousness, of a rhythmic balance, more than the extreme rendering of the construction technique.
According to ELAINEQHO.COM, Giovanni Pisano in Siena and L. Maitani in Orvieto made an original contribution to the problem of the façade of cathedrals. The plant of S. Croce in Florence gave an admirable solution to the problem of the internal space of the church. Other original experiences of Italian Gothic were the constructions of broletti, arenghi and palazzi della reason, monumental expressions of communal life, with the definition of two distinct types: the northern one, with large arcades, and the Tuscan one and the Italy central, closed and gathered around the tower. The story of the Milan cathedral is different, which began only at the end of the 14th century. and conducted with a large participation of French and German artists. THERE. in the north it adhered to the international Gothic tradition, as did the Kingdom of Naples both under the Angevin and Aragonese domination.
In the 13th and 14th centuries. the sculpture found its vital center in Pisa (where the personalities of Guglielmo, Gruamonte, Bonanno emerged already in the 12th century) with the classical sculptures of Nicola Pisano (pulpers of the baptistery of Pisa and of the cathedral of Siena). From the school of Nicola Pisano came Fra Guglielmo (ark of S. Domenico in Bologna, pulpit in S. Giovanni Fuorcivitas in Pistoia); Arnolfo di Cambio, who established himself with irrepressible individuality; Giovanni Pisano, fully Gothic (parchments of S. Andrea in Pistoia and the cathedral of Pisa); while the influence of the latter prevails in Tuscany, Tino di Camaino and Giovanni di Balduccio, his disciples, spread the methods, one in southern Italy, the other in Lombardy. Part of Maitani (Orvieto cathedral) and Goro di Gregorio, active in Messina, are linked to Pisan sculpture. Florence entrusted the doors of the Baptistery to Andrea Pisano (1330): an advocate of Gothic rhythms, but a sure interpreter of Giotto’s plasticity in the reliefs of the bell tower, begun on his drawings and completed, with the series of the Sacraments, by A. Arnoldi. Continuator of Andrea Pisano, with his own refined expressions, was his son Nino. In the second half of the fourteenth century in Verona, in Venice, with Italy and PP Dalle Masegne, in Lombardy, with the Campionesi, G. De ‘Grassi, Anovelo da Imbonate, a realistic trend developed, even in the international Gothic tradition. In the ivory carving, in addition to the Sicilians, the Venetians are active, in particular with the Embriaci; other ivories with an ultramontane aspect were made in Milan and Bologna; the goldsmith’s art counts supreme masterpieces: from the reliquary of the Corporal of Ugolino di Vieri in Orvieto.
Italian painting of the 13th century, despite being in the orbit of Byzantine techniques and ways, is divided into schools with a very specific physiognomy: Padua, Venice, the Adriatic coastal areas, with common and peculiar characteristics; Lucca, Pisa, Florence that emerge on the other centers of Tuscany; Bologna (very active in the production of illustrated codices), Parma (frescoes in the Baptistery); Lombard painting (which extends to present-day Piedmont and Liguria); Rome and Umbria with a school of refined classicism. Important personalities emerge everywhere, such as the painters active in Anagni. Sicily, which already had its own school in the 12th century, accentuates certain Byzantine characters, combining them with subtle gothic-inspired observations of reality and promoted by the important custom to traditional scientific research in southern Italy The personalities of artists such as Pietro Cavallini in Rome are grandiose; in Florence, Cimabue; in Siena, Duccio di Buoninsegna.
Between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the figure of Giotto resolves every traditional formula, preparing the break with the Middle Ages in Florence, while in Siena it affirms itself in the 14th century. and with S. Martini the different late Gothic language with wavy lines, unreal and shining color is refined. Even in the orbit of this taste, Ambrogio Lorenzetti realizes new plastic power and his brother Pietro reaches a dramatic expression parallel to that of Giovanni Pisano. Outside Tuscany, the first reflections of Giotto’s art are in the Rimini painters; Modena (Barnaba and Tommaso da Modena), Bologna (Vitale da Bologna), Milan (Giovanni da Milano) find ingenious agreements between the two Tuscan schools; in Verona and Padua, the Giottesque example is at the basis of Altichiero’s art; in Venice a fusion of Byzantine tradition and Gothic taste is created (Paolo Veneziano), to which Guariento is linked in Padua, with Giotto influences. The painters of Bologna and those of Lombardy, Verona and the Marches refer to the international Gothic at the end of the fourteenth century, all linked to the culture of the courts and therefore in close relationship with the currents beyond the mountains.
The miniature, from the 13th century. close to the Byzantine ways and connected to the events of monumental painting, it was particularly active and open to French influences in the Italy especially in Bologna and in Lombardy with Giovannino de ‘Grassi.
