Background on the Pisano Nativity Panel

The Piazza dei Miracoli

The work we will be considering is the Nativity panel in the Baptistry in Pisa from a pulpit designed and sculpted by Nicola Pisano completed in 1260.  This information is also available in video here.

A bit of background is necessary to put this work into its historical context. Pisano lived and worked in Pisa, Italy in the 13th century. He was both an architect and a sculptor.

Pisa is recognized for its outstanding medieval art, and the Piazza dei Miracoli (or Square of Miracles) is one of the most exceptional architectural complexes in the world. The complex consists of the Pisa Cathedral, the Pisa Baptistry, the Campanile (the bell tower commonly referred to as the Leaning Tower of Pisa), and the Camposanto Monumentale (or Monumental Cemetery).

Baptism

Baptism was an important rite of passage in Medieval life. If you were a resident in Pisa, there was one Christian church, the Catholic church, and the building of a place of worship was often the primary focus of the entire community. There was little separation between church and civic concerns, and baptism was the point of entry into both the civic and spiritual community.

Blending of the Romanesque and Gothic style into the Baptistry

The grand Gothic cathedrals that were erected over hundreds of years were a source of civic pride, and often the primary source of work for artists. Work was begun on the Pisa cathedral in 1064 and on the Baptistry in 1153.

During the construction of the monumental edifices, which took over 100 years, the original architects would pass

away and others would have to continue the work. This change over often meant changes in the design to reflect current trends.

In the Pisa Baptistry the original style was Romanesque–you can see the typical curved arches on the lower stories. As work continued, Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni were brought in to serve as both architects and sculptors. Nicola was responsible for the upper stories and dome of the Baptistry. He adjusted the plans to the newer Gothic style, evident in the peaked arches and more intricate details. The building embodies the transition between styles.

Nicola Pisano commissioned to sculpt the Baptistry pulpit

Nicola Pisano was also commissioned to create the pulpit for the Baptistry which includes the Nativity Panel we are examining. (In later years, his son, Giovanni, created the pulpit for the cathedral.) The Baptistry pulpit stands over 15 ft. high and is a hexagonal shape, rather than the typical rectangular shape. This decision was probably influenced by the round footprint of the building itself.

The Nativity Panel of the Pisa Baptistry

Below is a close up of the relief sculpture of the nativity panel by Nicola Pisano that is our focus. As you can see, it has not survived the past 800 years without damage. Several arms and heads have been destroyed. I suppose with the numbers of wars fought, periods of iconoclastic cleansing, and natural disasters, we are fortunate to have so much intact.

This work is a relief sculpture made of marble. The term relief comes from the Latin word to rise. In relief sculpture the figures appear to be rising from the stone. They are still firmly attached to the stone behind them, not free-standing, but they are more than just etched into the stone. They have form and substance. Before I move to more serious matters can I just point out the goat in the bottom right who is scratching his head with his hoof. I just love that, such a realistic and fun detail in a serious work.

In the center, dominating the work, is the massive Virgin Mary reclining; Joseph is seated in the bottom left corner, while two midwives give the infant Jesus his first bath. In the upper left, we see the annunciation (Gabriel bringing word to Mary that she will conceive and bear the Messiah). In the upper right, we have the Adoration of the Shepherds as they gather around the baby Jesus in his manger.

Untangling the meaning of a medieval word

To the modern eye, much of Nicola Pisano’s nativity panel is confusing, but to the medieval audience for whom it was sculpted, the work made perfect sense. It was not unusual for a painting to include multiple parts of a story in one work. Here we see the same thing in sculpture. It is perhaps a bit disorienting to to see Mary and Jesus more than once, but if you begin reading the work in the upper left and work in a U-shape, you have a good portion of the story.

The size of Mary can also seem a bit strange. If the central Mary were to stand she wouldn’t fit within the frame of the sculpture. In contrast, Joseph seems quite small and uninvolved, sitting in the corner. This is due to hieratic scale, a device commonly used in various periods of art. Basically, size has nothing to do with realism, and everything to do with importance. In these stories Mary is the central figure, and the veneration of the Virgin Mary had increased significantly during this time period.type an essay online for free

I’ve found that those, like me, who come from a reformed background, often react negatively to Mary’s elevated status in Catholicism and end up over-correcting in the opposite direction. We end up ignoring her to our detriment. Mary was chosen to be the mother of God, and contemplating her life and role is not something we should shy away from.

That said, as we can see clearly in the Nicola Pisano nativity panel, there are ideas at work that might be strange to those outside of Orthodox or Catholic strains of Christianity.

The Virgin Mary

First, Mary is composed, regal, and somewhat unattached to Jesus for a woman who has just given birth. That is our 20th century need for realism surfacing. Paintings and sculptures in the Middle Ages were not just used to tell a story, but to communicate doctrinal concepts and spiritual truths. Depending on where you fall in the Christian spectrum, these concepts will feel natural or foreign.

I’ll just proceed with the Medieval view of Mary to clear the away any confusion. Doctrine held that Jesus was conceived while Mary was still a virgin and that she remained a virgin until her death. Some even believed that she delivered in a miraculous way that left her hymen, and therefore her virginity, intact. There was also the belief that she delivered with no pain, hence her calm and serene expression post birth.

Her seeming detachment from Jesus is due to his being fully man and fully God. He is not an infant in the usual sense: He is her Lord.  Again, the work is communicating far more than narrative details–it is giving us a glimpse into the theology of the incarnation.

Her reclining position in this work could be due to the custom of ‘lying in’ after a birth. All things to do with birth and death were considered to be sacred, and a number of rites prescribed how these events were handled. A lying in period secluded the mother and protected her from resuming work too soon after giving birth. After a month, there was a ‘churching’ ceremony to reintroduce her back to society and to give thanks for her protection during birth. In our lives the death of a mother during childbirth is a rare occurrence, but that was not the case in the Middle Ages or ancient times. Care for the mother and her ritual purification were serious considerations.

Extra Biblical stories

Extra-Biblical sources included the story of mid-wives being present at the birth. One of these mid-wives doubted that Mary was to deliver the Messiah. This woman also had a withered hand. In some artwork, as she bathes the infant Jesus her hand is miraculously restored. Hence, midwives are frequently included in the artwork of the nativity. Eventually, this element was eliminated in Western art, but continued in  the Eastern church.

Additional Figures of the Pisano nativity panel

In light of the doctrines surrounding Mary, Joseph was relegated to a benign caretaker by many. He is often portrayed as elderly, hence not a threat to Mary’s virginity, and sleeping, so as not to witness the birth. In contrast, animals, untouched by sin, are frequently pictured watching the goings on.

The representation of the Annunciation in the Nicola Pisano nativity panel seems clear enough. Mary is shocked by the news, and then humbly accepts the angel’s words.

In the scene depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds, we also have the angels present. This can be referred to as the Annunciation to the Shepherds, but since the shepherds have arrived at the manger, the scene is titled the Adoration of the Shepherds.

You may have noted that Jesus’ manger seems to resemble a coffin more than a manger. Allusions to the purpose of Jesus’ birth, that is, his death, are frequently present in nativity art. Sometimes an apple, to denote the first and second Adam; sometimes a cross, sometimes the swaddling clothes resembling funeral wrappings.

Did the Pisano Baptistry Pulpit mark the beginning of the Italian Renaissance?

Beyond the spiritual meanings present in this sculpture, the work of the pulpit as a whole is significant in the timeline of art history. Up to this point, religious art adhered to a set of standards that were stylized. The way Biblical themes were presented in art had not changed for 1,000 years. In the North, France, sculptors had begun to move toward a more graceful realism. We now refer to this style as Gothic, and Pisano had been exposed to the style and would, in fact, adopt the Gothic style to finish the exterior of the Baptistry. However, Pisano, absorbing Gothic sensibilities, was going to leap forward, becoming a driving force in the coming Renaissance.

It is significant that the pulpit for the Baptistry was completed in the year 1260, and that is the date used by art historians to mark the beginning of the Renaissance. It has been noted that changes in art are often gradual, but occasionally a work is seminal, marking in an instant a shift in development.

Incorporating the style and content of Ancient Rome

It is not as if artists in Italy were unfamiliar with classic sculpture and ‘rediscovered it’. In reality, they were surrounded by the ruins of Ancient Roman civilization. But, the development of art had moved them away from the classical works towards a focus on the truths of Christianity. Ancient Greece and Rome had valued the individual and celebrated the human as the pinnacle of creation. Their gods and goddesses were very human and were represented as larger, more powerful versions of regular humans. Moving away from their pagan roots, the early church rejected much of the artistic culture that surrounded them.

Nicola Pisano, drawn by the relief sculptures on ancient Roman sarcophagi around him, incorporated not just the style but the content of Rome. In particular, two sarcophagi provided models that he incorporated into the panels on the pulpit. Compare the Mary figure, her clothing and headpiece with the panel on the sarcophagus, and you can see the similarities. The Virgin Mary strongly resembles an Etruscan matron reclining in the Roman fashion. The clothing of the surrounding figures is Roman, not Medieval.

Nicola Pisano’s Fortitude

The melding of Christianity and Classic themes is most vividly apparent in a sculpture just under the

nativity panel. This figure is the virtue, Fortitude. He is copied from the nude standing in front of the female figure on the sarcophagus, but that is not all. Around Fortitude’s shoulders is the lion cloak that signifies that this is Hercules of Greek mythology. Hercules slew the Nemean Lion and made his coat into a cloak with protective powers. Hercules is a natural representation of strength and fortitude, but equating the Greek half-god with a Christian virtue goes far beyond borrowing Roman art principles.  For the first time, we see a borrowing of classical concepts melding with Christian ones.

Thehow to write a compare contrast essay is identified by this very melding, a coming together of Classicism, Humanism, and Christianity into a new way of thinking; a new approach to science, and new ways of creating art. The Western world was on the brink of seismic shift, and the pulpit in the Baptistry in Pisa was the first tremor.

Video Version of Pisano’s Baptistry Pulpit

If you would like to see this information in a video format you can find that how to stop bullying persuasive essay or head over to my youtube page to view it https://www.kellybagdanov.com/shooting-stars-essay-plan/

Other works in this series

If you wish to read more works in this Advent series you can follow three paragraph essay exampleto a list of the complete works. Videos of each work will be released over the month of December  Be sure to subscribe here, and on my YouTube page so that you won’t miss the video releases.

Thanks for reading this post on the Nicola Pisano nativity panel. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below – and be sure to share the post using the social media links.

The next work in this series is:

Mosaic from the Chora Church

Sources

E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art. (New York, Phaidon Press, 2016)

Professor Sharon Latchaw Hirsh, How to Look at and Understand Great Art, Lecture series, Great Courses

Professor William Koss, History of European Art  Lecture series, Great Courses

Sister Wendy Beckett, The Story of Painting (London, Dorsey Kindersley, 2000)

Marilyn Stokstad, Art History. (New Jersey, Pearson Education, 2005)

National Gallery of Art website  www.nga.gov

Metropolitan Museum of Art website  www.metmuseum.org

The Getty Center www.getty.edu

And thanks to the Met and Wiki commons quality images for public domain art is now much more easily accessible.