GUGLIELMO DA PISA, Fra
Italian sculptor. He assisted Nicola Pisano on the tomb of St Dominic for San Domenico in Bologna (dispersed; sarcophagus, in situ). Two groups of deacons (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; Florence, Bargello) from the tomb are attributed to him.
The reconstruction of Fra Guglielmo’s artistic personality must be based on the remarkable pulpit in San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia. A lost inscription bore the name Guglielmo and the date 1270. In this work he reverted to the traditional Tuscan rectangular plan, with two tiers of narrative reliefs. The carvings show a rigorous interpretation of Nicola’s vocabulary, particularly in the rendering of drapery and in the late Classical borrowings.
Guglielmo was recorded in 1292 and 1298 in documents concerning the convent of Santa Caterina, Pisa, where he was a lay brother, and he may be the Frater Guiglielmus who in 1301 supplied Cimabue with tesserae for the apse mosaic in Pisa Cathedral. He may also be the subject of a lost inscription that declared Guiglielmus pisanus as the operis factor, caput…et ordinis actor of the façade decoration at San Michele in Borgo, Pisa. Comparison with the Pistoia pulpit suggests he carved several of the human and animal reliefs of the lower storey, including lions flanking the door lunettes. The style of Nicola is still recognizable, but ideas derived from the work of Giovanni Pisano are also present. The architecture of the upper storeys may have been conceived by Fra Guglielmo, but it was executed by others. Stylistic comparison suggests he may also have designed at least the lower storey of the apparently contemporary façade of Santa Caterina, Pisa.
