Pulpit

The complete doctrinal system expressed through figures, to which the Pisa pulpit aspired, is pursued once more by Nicola in Siena, where from 1256 to '68 he was engaged in completing the pulpit of the Cathedral, assisted by his son Giovanni, by Arnolfo and by other minor collaborators. The same architectural layout returns, though less peremptorily: the structure becomes more complex, octagonal, and between the panels of the parapet, in place of the clusters of small columns, stand figures of Saints and the Virgin and Child (the access staircase is a sixteenth-century addition). With the thickening of the figurative scenes and the crowding of the episodes with more numerous figures, the geometry of the Pisa pulpit dissolves into a fluid pictorialism, to which the warm colour of the marble also contributes.