Discover Romanesque: Peoples and Legends

Guidetto

In 1204, an artist named Guidetto signed and dated the upper section of the façade of S. Martino cathedral, in Lucca. Architect and sculptor, Guido (the diminutive Guidetto being likely justified by needs linked to the metrics of his inscription-signature) was a native of the territory of Como diocese. He went to Lucca in the late 12th century and, in a few years, his workshop attained an almost hegemonic position in the panorama of north-western Tuscan artistic production. His works (including, besides the façade of the San Martino, the completion of the S. Stefano of Prato and the creation of capitals and corbels for the interior of Pisa Baptistery) are marked by a decorative exuberance, a volumetrically well-defined relief, a rich repertoire of animal and vegetal types.
Also, his workshop created a few presbytery fittings, many of which were dismembered and dispersed; on the contrary, the one kept at the pieve di S. Giorgio di Brancoli is still integrally conserved.