Architrave with the "Deesis" and Stories of the Baptist

Alongside the more strictly Romanesque masters, whose leader was Guglielmo, marble carvers of Byzantine training worked in Pisa in the second half of the 12th century; they are easily recognisable in the frieze of the east door of the Baptistery. The Master of the “stories” of the Baptist adopts, with a cold and monotonous meticulousness partly redeemed by the polish of the execution, Early Christian schemes, taken up even in their technical details; the author of the Deesis, partly because he was less committed to narrative, attains a higher quality, offering a series of faces of nervous refinement and penetrating melancholy.