Colore e materiali nella scultura funeraria lombarda del tardo Medioevo

Following the model of S. Domenico’s tomb in Bologna, the pupils of Nicola Pisano adopted the idea of a precious and brightly coloured funerary sculpture, which uses the alternation of the whiteness of the marble and the chromatic accents of the glass inserts. While in central and southern Italy the fashion for sumptuous sepulchres with abundant gilding and mosaic inserts remained in vogue throughout the 14th century and beyond, in the Po Valley, the Tuscan Giovanni di Balduccio introduced a different model from the 1330s. As Giovanni Pisano, he remained faithful to the ideal of plastic effects, and he renounced to mosaic incrustations. He proposed instead a more sober type of polychromy, based on the combination of Apuan marble, which he had specially flown in from Tuscany, with local stones, often coloured. The Lombard sculptors of the next generation, from the Master of Viboldone to Bonino da Campione, seemed reluctant to adopt the habit of creating polychrome funerary monuments through the use of varied materials. However, at the end of the century, the Venetians Jacobello and Pierpaolo Dalle Masegne revived the assemblages of coloured stones, guaranteeing their success in Lombardy, Emilia and Veneto well beyond the end of the Middle Ages.