GUIDO DA COMO
Guido di Bonagiunta Bigarelli da Como, Italian sculptor, born in Aragno, near Lugano. His father, Bonagiunta, may have been a marblecutter working alongside Guidetto in 1203 at Ponziano, Lucca. Guido may be identified with a ‘Magister Guidus de Como’, one of many sculptors of that name, noted in Barga, near Lucca, in 1238. The earliest secure reference to him is in 1244 in Lucca. Two years later he signed the octagonal font in Pisa Baptistery ( Guido Bigarelli de Cumo fecit opus hoc).
In 1248 Guido was again noted in Lucca, but he was in Pistoia by 1250, when he signed and dated the pulpit in San Bartolomeo in Pantano (in situ). The design follows a type formulated by Guglielmo in his pulpit for Pisa Cathedral (now in Cagliari Cathedral).
In October 1252 a ‘Magister Guido de Como’ was recorded working with assistants Giannino and Lucano on the north door of Pistoia Cathedral and on the water pipes for the nearby baptistery. Among other works to be attributed to Guido is the Angel that once crowned the façade of San Giuseppe in Pistoia, which is comparable with the most accomplished parts of Guido’s pulpit. Furthermore, there is a clear link between the decoration of a series of carved and inlaid panels (Sant’Andrea, Pistoia) and that of the Pisa font.
Documents monitor Guido’s presence in Lucca in 1252-54, and stylistic evidence indicates that he must have worked there. In particular, reliefs of an Eagle and Angel flanking the lunette above the central doorway of Lucca Cathedral appear to be his work. Indeed, a document of 1257 shows that he was in a specific workshop, probably that of Lucca Cathedral, where Master Guidobono (active 1246-1258), his half-brother with whom he is sometimes confused, was working.
