Ciborium
by ARNOLFO DI CAMBIO, Marble, with polychromatic incrustations
At the end of the 13th century the mixture of tradition and innovation reached at its highest point in the work of the Tuscan Arnolfo di Cambio during the period he spent in Rome. Architecture, sculpture, and mosaic Cosmatesque decoration came together to form an organic whole, as in the ciboria at San Paolo fuori le Mura (1285) and Santa Cecilia in Trastevere (1293) or in the tomb of the papal notary Annibaldi, who died in 1283 in St John Lateran and the tomb of Boniface VIII, from some time before 1296, in St Peter’s.
In architectural terms the ciborium in San Paolo is the supreme surviving example of what could be accomplished through the fusion of Roman Cosmatesque and Northern Gothic traditions.
The San Paolo ciborium was executed in collaboration with a certain Pietro who may perhaps be identified with the still somewhat mysterious figure of Pietro di Oderisio, who made the tomb of Clement IV in the church of San Francesco in Viterbo.