Il “braccio destro” di Giovanni Pisano. Marco Romano e le sculture dell’altare Scrovegni

Abstract The “Right Hand” of Giovanni Pisano. Marco Romano and the Scrovegni Chapel Altar Statues Of the three marble statues on the altar of Padua’s Scrovegni Chapel, dated to 1303–1305, only one is signed by Giovanni Pisano, although all three have been attributed without hesitation to this innovative fourteenth-century sculptor active in northern Italy. This essay seeks to demonstrate that only two of the figures – the Madonna with Child and the right-hand Angel bearing a candelabrum – were directly sculpted by Giovanni Pisano. The third – the Angel on the left of the group – should be ascribed to a different sculptor. Drawing on a combination of stylistic-formal and technical-executive analysis, enabled by a new, in-depth photographic survey, the essay argues that this second sculptor – the “right hand” of Giovanni Pisano – was none other than Marco Romano, who collaborated with Giovanni Pisano in the 1290s in the workshop responsible for the portals of Siena Cathedral. As scholars have long recognized, Marco Romano’s work for Enrico Scrovegni is known to have led to his commission at San Simeone Grande in Venice in 1318.