MARCO ROMANO - b. ~1290 Venezia, d. ~1330 Venezia

Italian sculptor. He is known from a single surviving sculpture, the effigy of St Simeon in San Simeone Grande, Venice. The tomb, commissioned to preserve the relics of the Saint, no longer survives. An inscribed tablet accompanying the effigy records the names of the clerics who commissioned the monument, the sculptor’s name MARCUS ROMANUS and the date 4 February 1317 (NS 1318). The style of the statue in its confident treatment of the supine figure and the summary but convincing delineation of drapery folds points to a sculptor of considerable skill and experience who was outside the mainstream of early 14th-century Venetian sculpture. The expressive head with its prominent cheekbones, furrowed brow and heavy features and the realistic detail of the teeth just showing between strong lips, suggest knowledge of the work of Giovanni Pisano and, in particular, his series of prophets and sibyls for Siena Cathedral. Remarkably progressive in comparison to contemporary Venetian sculpture, St Simon was to provide the starting-point for subsequent tomb effigies in the Veneto: that of the Blessed Oderico da Pordenone (1331) by Filippo de Santi for Santa Maria del Carmine, Udine, is the most significant.

Recumbent figure of St Simeon

In the early part of the fourteenth century Venetian sculptors were still firmly tied to traditional formulas.This may have been one of the reasons why more demanding patrons, such as Bartolomeo Ravachaulo, rector of San Simeone, preferred to commission sculptors from other towns. One example is the recumbent figure from the dismembered tomb of St Simeon, carved by Marco Romano, who gained his artistic training in the circle of Giovanni Pisano.