Gothic art and architecture in Pavia

tradition c. 1270-1450 Pavia Italy

Gothic art and architecture flourished in Pavia, near Milan, from the late thirteenth to the mid-fifteenth century, first under the commune and then under the Visconti, who used the city as a dynastic stage. Its facades are built in Lombard terracotta: San Francesco, completed in the late 1200s, with its double portal and monumental trifora, and Santa Maria del Carmine, begun in the later fourteenth century to a design associated with Bernardo da Venezia. The Visconti Castle, begun in 1359, was frescoed by Pisanello and held one of Italy's great libraries; the Certosa, founded by Gian Galeazzo Visconti as a family mausoleum in 1396, was Lombardy's largest late Gothic building site. Sculpture culminates in the monumental marble Ark of Saint Augustine (1362) in San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, while the Visconti court made Pavia's illuminators - Giovannino de' Grassi, Michelino da Besozzo, Belbello da Pavia - famous across Europe.

Marble Ark of S. Agostino, Pavia, S. Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, commissioned in C.E.1362 by Bonifacio Bottigella, prior of the convent of the Her
Marble Ark of S. Agostino, Pavia, S. Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, commissioned in C.E.1362 by Bonifacio Bottigella, prior of the convent of the HerCC BY-SA 4.0 (credit: Carlo Dell'Orto) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Lombard Gothic facades in brick and terracotta: gabled fronts, rose windows, trifore
  • Diamond and square patterns of alternating brick and white plaster
  • Rib-vaulted naves on bundled piers, with pointed-arch porticoes on civic palaces
  • Monumental marble tomb sculpture: carved arks and sarcophagi with narrative reliefs
  • Courtly manuscript illumination of unusual refinement: fluid line, gold, observed detail

Key figures

  • Gian Galeazzo Visconti (1351-1402) — First duke of Milan who commissioned the Certosa di Pavia as the Visconti mausoleum
  • Bernardo da Venezia (fl. 14th century) — Architect of the Visconti Castle (from 1359) and probably of Santa Maria del Carmine
  • Giovannino de' Grassi (c. 1350-1398) — Painter, sculptor and illuminator of the Hours of Gian Galeazzo Visconti
  • Michelino da Besozzo (c. 1370-c. 1455) — International Gothic painter-illuminator of the Bodmer Offiziolo whose soft style spread through Lombardy
  • Belbello da Pavia (active 1430-1462) — Expressive illuminator of the Bibbia di Niccolo d'Este (1431-1434)

Example works

Sources

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