THE medieval Florentines did not always deal kindly with their neighbours. Like her larger neighbour Prato, Pistoia – with agricultural and commercial wealth and banks – was a rival; conquered in 1294, Pistoia became a protectorate in 1329 and in 1530 was absorbed in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
The town is on the northern margin of the plain of the Ombrone, backed by the rising mass of the Apennines. The parallelogram of the late walls implies Pistoia’s importance. Near the centre is the Piazza del Duomo, hemmed in by buildings of surprisingly consistent interest: the thirteenth-century cathedral, the Gothic Baptistery, the Palazzo del Podestà, begun in 1367, and the impressive Palazzo del Comune. The cathedral’s most celebrated treasure is the silver altarpiece of San Jacopo, begun in 1287 and progressively augmented in the ensuing century. Of the numerous reliefs the finest are arguably the scenes from the life of the saint of 1367–71 by Leonardo di Giovanni. For the student of the Renaissance, two works on the opposite – left – side of the church are of particular interest. The altarpiece on the right of the chapel at the end of the left aisle was ordered from Andrea del Verrocchio. The executant was his pupil Lorenzo di Credi, and the vigour of such details as the fringe of the carpet demonstrates why Verrocchio’s studio was so influential an artistic powerhouse. Just inside the main door is another undertaking of Verrocchio, the tomb of Cardinal Niccolò Forteguerri, who died in 1473; this would, if completed to the original scheme, have been the most distinguished mural monument of the age.
The pulpits of Pistoia are very remarkable, and it makes sense to see them in chronological sequence. Leaving the Piazza del Duomo at the north-east corner, continue to the church of San Bartolomeo in Pantano. The unfinished façade is of Pisan type. The pulpit of 1250 is by Guido da Como, whose narrative reliefs already reflect the advances of contemporary Pisan sculpture. The second of the great Pistoiese pulpits is in San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, on the south side of the Via Cavour – the first major road south of the Piazza del Duomo – which represents the line of the medieval wall. The Romanesque church has been restored and the façade was not finished. Inside you come first to the splendid water stoop, itself attributed to Giovanni Pisano. The pulpit is by Fra Guglielmo da Pisa, a follower of Nicola Pisano, and was finished in 1270.
The most beautiful sculpture in the church is of a different stamp. The glazed terracotta Visitation, usually attributed to Andrea della Robbia, is one of the very few free-standing works of serious distinction in the medium. I first saw it with John Pope-Hennessy, who lit candles so we could see how these gave life to the white glaze – as the artist so clearly intended. Tender in expression yet restrained to the point of austerity, the group is as moving on its own terms as Pontormo’s picture some twelve kilometres to the south at Carmignano.
Cathedral, Romanesque façade with portico added in 1311.
Sant’Andrea: Giovanni Pisano, pulpit, marble (detail).
The last – and noblest – of the Pistoiese pulpits is at Sant’Andrea, north-west of the Piazza del Duomo. The arcaded façade – again of Pisan type – is enriched by a central portal with reliefs of 1166. The nave and aisles are relatively narrow. On the left is the pulpit of 1296–1301 by Giovanni Pisano, son of Nicola, whose great pulpit of 1260 in the Baptistery at Pisa had heralded nothing less than the rebirth of Italian sculpture as an intellectual force. Of all the pulpits of the age, that at Sant’Andrea is perhaps the loveliest. Giovanni understood his father’s achievement and knew what he had learnt from classical example. He respected, too, his father’s narrative discipline. But the son is an artist of the highest order in his own right. His forms have a sinuous Gothic generosity, his reliefs a rhythmic conviction. Few works of their generation still speak with equal eloquence.
The Trecento marked the zenith of Pistoia’s prosperity, as the large Franciscan and Dominican churches confirm, but the Renaissance left its contribution in the small church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, often attributed to Michelozzo but probably by an indigenous architect, and in the loggia of the Ospedale, adorned with a polychrome frieze.
