Opera magazine
2026-01-19
Why You Should Know the Panel Cycle of Giotto’s Bell Tower
A journey to discover the meaning of the panels that once adorned Giotto's Bell Tower and that you can now admire at the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo
On the second floor of the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, the Galleria del Campanile opens, so called because it is intended to house the most complete collection of the Museum’s works, namely the sculptural cycles created between the mid-14th and the fourth decade of the 15th century by some of the greatest artists of their time, for the ornamentation of the first three registers of Giotto’s Bell Tower.
For conservation reasons of the marble, all these reliefs and sculptures were moved to the Museo dell’Opera between the 1930s and 1970s, replaced on site by copies and replicas, and then, on the occasion of the opening of the new Museum (2015), underwent restoration. In the current exhibition, care was taken not to alter the reading order of the works, arranging them in groups corresponding to the three different levels and the four sides of the tower they originally adorned, with, at the back, the sculptures of the 15th-century group (Christ and two prophets?), once decorating the tympanum of the Bell Tower’s entrance door. Finally, a fine Blessing Christ (A. Pisano?), from an unspecified location in the complex, finds its place here.
Turning to the right, one can admire, towering on a podium, sixteen larger-than-life marble statues depicting Sibyls and Prophets; a series begun in the 14th century by Andrea and Nino Pisano and completed in the 15th century with the masterpieces of Donatello and Nanni di Bartolo, originating from the niches of the uppermost register. The statues have been arranged in groups of four, following a sequence that starts with those already on the west side, moves to the south, continues to the east and north, corresponding to the arrangement they were given in 1463. The fact that their order had already been altered in the 15th century suggests that there was no intrinsic meaning in the sequence itself.
The situation is very different for the 54 marble reliefs aligned along the left wall, originating from the first two registers of the Tower, whose order has been carefully preserved because it follows a precise and elaborate overall iconographic program. Horizontally, they are organized in groups of seven, in a sequence running from those coming from the west side to the last on the south side. Vertically, they are arranged in two superimposed series, distinguished by form: the lower series consists of hexagonal marble reliefs depicting human trades and sciences; all were executed by Andrea Pisano and collaborators (1334–1360) except for the last five, created by Luca della Robbia (1439). The upper sequence of reliefs is lozenge-shaped, in white marble set against a background of blue maiolica tiles, depicting the “higher” forces that oversee, influence, and guide human life and activity according to the philosophy and theology of the period: Planets, Virtues, Sacraments, and the so-called “Liberal Arts.”
Taken together, the reliefs form a complex ensemble of figures, personifications, and allegories, drawn from the sacred text, classical Greco-Roman literature, and contemporary life, constituting an encyclopedia of the human universe of activities and sciences, in relation to the world, astral influences, and the Divine. The overall theme is—in the words of the Museum Director, Timothy Verdon—“the quest for the human,” through the fruits of human ingenuity and in the light of human knowledge. Within this iconological framework, the Prophets and Sibyls are placed at the apex, as they are directly inspired by God, having come into direct contact with the “light” of divine Wisdom, which, further down, the human sciences and arts receive only indirectly, mediated by the intermediate forces represented in the lozenge reliefs.
The sources proposed for this complex visual discourse are manifold: from Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, to Brunetto Latini’s Li livres du trésor, to Speculum majus by the French theologian Vincenzo di Bevauis, to Contra falsos ecclesiae professores by St. Thomas Aquinas’ disciple, the Dominican friar of Santa Maria Novella, Frate Remigio, and finally to De reductione artium ad theologiam by St. Bonaventure. Undertaking a concise reading: in the group already on the west side, one finds the first seven hexagons depicting the Creation of Man and Woman, that is, God as “Creator” generating Man, the “artifex,” in His image.
Indeed, the subsequent panels represent the first human labors through the example of their legendary “inventors” and according to the chronology recounted in the Bible: Adam tills the soil and Eve spins at the spindle; Jabal is the first shepherd, Jubal invents music, while Tubalcain is the father of metallurgy; Noah, drunk, initiates viticulture. These activities are overseen by the seven planets in the corresponding lozenges above, drawn from Ptolemy’s Almagest, presented as personifications in the following order: the Moon, regulator of liquids; Mercury; Venus, goddess of love; Mars, god of war; the Sun; Jupiter; Saturn, god of Time. Their personifications refer to those astral influences that, according to contemporary thought, govern practical and intellectual human activities, as also expressed by Dante in various passages of the Divine Comedy. This sector, dedicated to the “original history” of human activity, thus significantly references the Baptistery, where the great cosmic symbol of the zodiac was located.
On the south side, the hexagons depict the second phase of the evolution of man as “artifex”, namely the birth of “trades” or “arts”, governed by Morality. Below are Astrology, Building, followed by a physician in his workshop, symbolizing Medicine, and a man riding a horse representing Hunting or Horsemanship; Weaving is exemplified by Arachne’s challenge to the loom against the goddess Athena, followed by the birth of Legislation with Phoroneus, and finally Mechanics, which allowed Daedalus to make his son Icarus fly, here depicted. These arts are conceptually dominated by the upper lozenges representing the Virtues: first the Theological Virtues, namely Faith, Charity, and Hope; then the Cardinal Virtues, that is Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude, holding a shield, a club, and the skin of the Nemean lion as Hercules. The presence of the virtues aligns with the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, for whom only through their exercise is man permitted to conceive good actions, which then translate into valid works.
A “doing” that is the full expression of human existence and transforms earthly life, which explains why these reliefs were once oriented toward the civic center of the City: Piazza della Signoria. On the east façade of the Tower, the hexagons, here numbering five, continue the list of human arts, namely: Navigation, Social Justice, Agriculture, Theatrical Art, and Architecture; to these are added the two panels moved to the north in 1431, depicting Sculpture and Painting, through the citation of the two greatest representatives of these arts in antiquity: Phidias and Apelles, respectively.
On this side, the upper lozenges depict the Personifications of the “Trivium” and the “Quadrivium”, that is, those liberal arts which, in the scholastic university teaching system, were considered preparatory to theology and philosophy: Astronomy, Music, Geometry, Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, and Arithmetic. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the reliefs on this side face the Florentine Studium, the city’s first university institution where these disciplines were studied and taught.
Finally, on the last side, the series of hexagons executed by Luca della Robbia reflects the intellectual climate of Florentine Humanism, depicting, through exemplary figures from Roman antiquity, some of the most important intellectual activities: Priscian or Donatus for Grammar, Aristotle and Plato for Dialectics, Orpheus for Music, Euclid and Pythagoras for Geometry and Mathematics, and Pythagoras for Astrology.
Above them are the depictions of the Seven Sacraments, represented through scenes of everyday life in the 14th century, showing how they were administered. This side, therefore, faces the Cathedral, the heart of the sacramental life of the Florentine people. From the ensemble of these reliefs emerges a love for the human being in all its fullness, illuminated by God in every aspect of existence: with meticulous attention given to the weaving loom, the sculptor’s chisels, and the blacksmith’s workshop.
We can thus consider the cycle almost a manifesto of Florence at the time, a city at the height of its economic expansion, thriving with merchants, bankers, artisans, artists, intellectuals, and men of faith, all of whom interpreted and elevated this concrete “doing” and every achievement of human ingenuity in the light of a higher, divine source. It is this thought that the chancellor Coluccio Salutati would a few years later call the “holy enterprise”. Almost as a concluding seal to this journey in search of the divine within the human, one encounters the lunette executed by Andrea Pisano for the tympanum of a now-removed door, where the Madonna with Child, in the “tickling” iconography, provides a complementary and final vision of a very human God.
