NINO PISANO, son of Andrea Pisano of Pisa, created a number of sculptures
in Pisa, including the tomb of Archbishop Simone Salterelli at the Church
of S. Caterina. The critic John Pope-Hennessey calls Pisano "the
greatest Italian monumental sculptor of the middle of the fourteenth
century" (Italian Gothic Sculpture, 1985, p. 278)
A group of
his figures carved in the early 1360s was incorporated into the
funeral monument of Doge Marco Cornaro
(SA-51/B-1) in the main choir chapel of SS. Giovanni e Paolo [Zanipolo],
set above a stiff reclining effigy of the Doge that is attributed
to the Pisano workshop. Hugh Honour observes [Companion Guide
to Venice, p. 96], "The central Virgin is perhaps the finest
Gothic statue in Venice, delicately graceful in her swaying movement."
