The Ark of Saint Dominic (Bologna): a must-see collective work of the greatest names in Italian sculpture

Last visit : May 2025

My rating : 8/10

Visit duration : 10 minutes

In another post, to which I refer, I talked about the figure of Niccolò dell'Arca, his importance in the history of Italian sculpture, his role as a key figure in the transition from the Gothic to the Renaissance style and how much this great artist linked his work to the city of Bologna. There are two works in particular to which Niccolò owes his fame, but if the first, the Lamentation of the Dead Christ, was greeted with haughtiness by his contemporaries, the second was so popular that Niccolò linked his own name to it; I am obviously referring to the Arca di San Domenico, preserved in the basilica of the same name in Bologna, which despite being the collective work of some of the most extraordinary sculptors that Italy expressed between 1200 and 1400, is linked above all to the name of Niccolò.

The Ark of San Domenico, in fact, is a collective work that has stratified over the course of two centuries, going from being a simple sarcophagus to becoming an imposing monument that testifies to the evolution of the artistic style of Italian sculpture from Gothic to the Renaissance; in fact, over the centuries, the various components were created by none other than: Nicola Pisano, Arnolfo di Cambio, Niccolò dell'Arca, Alfonso Lombardi and Michelangelo; a final addition in the 18th century by the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Boudard, in my opinion, did not contribute to improving the work and, in my very personal opinion, it deserves to be relocated elsewhere.

The first Gothic nucleus of the Ark of San Domenico in Bologna: Nicola Pisano and his school

Saint Dominic of Guzmán, founder of the Order of Preachers, died in Bologna in 1221 and was initially buried in a simple tomb in the choir of the church of San Nicolò delle Vigne (the current Basilica of San Domenico). The cult of the saint spread rapidly, and already in 1233 – ten years before his canonization in 1234 – it was decided to transfer his remains to a more worthy tomb. The commission was entrusted to a team of sculptors led by Nicola Pisano, although his actual presence on the construction site is still a matter of debate: some scholars are in favor of his supervision or direct intervention in some scenes, while others believe that the style of the group should rather be attributed to craftsmen of Rhenish or French origin trained in the Cistercian Gothic climate.

In any case, the creation of the first ark dates back to between 1264 and 1267; this first nucleus, in fact a parallelepiped-shaped sarcophagus, constitutes not only an important document of Gothic art in transition, but also a milestone in the development of medieval sculpture in northern Italy. Sculptors trained in the French Gothic style worked on this first structure, but they also compared themselves with the Emilian Romanesque tradition and the nascent Tuscan classicism. The genesis, structure and style of this first nucleus therefore deserve a rigorous and detailed analysis.

In this first nucleus the Gothic style is evident both in the sharp and slightly angular forms of the human figures and in the rigid composition of the figures which, despite the necessary differences from one work to another, is typical of both the work of Nicola Pisano and of his son Giovanni .

The reliefs narrate in ten panels salient moments of the life and miracles of Saint Dominic, according to a sequence that reflects the hagiographic model of the time: the preaching, the exorcism, the rescue of a young knight who had fallen from his horse, the multiplication of the loaves, the resurrection of Napoleon Orsini, the posthumous apparition of the saint. The scenes are crowded with agitated figures, captured in dynamic and theatrical poses, almost as if they were mobile wings on a sacred stage.

The style of the reliefs shows a clear break with the Bolognese Romanesque tradition: the figures are elongated, with deeply incised draperies, and the faces tend to express vivid emotions, with open mouths, arched eyebrows, hands stretched out in eloquent gestures. These features hark back to the Nordic expressiveness of Gothic origin, but also to the classicizing lesson introduced by Nicola Pisano in the pulpit of the Baptistery of Pisa.

French influences are not lacking: the tight compositions, the ogival architectures in the background, the ascending tension of the poses reveal contacts with the Gothic construction sites beyond the Alps, perhaps mediated by the Franciscan or Cistercian circles active in the Po Valley of Italy. However, the narrative approach maintains a didactic structure typical of late Romanesque sculpture: consider the frontality of some figures, the hierarchy of dimensions or the symbolic redundancy of the attributes.

The anatomical rendering, although still stylized, shows a desire for greater naturalism compared to contemporary models: the bodies emerge from the draperies, the movements suggest a three-dimensional space, the gestures establish an internal dialogue between the characters. This balance between narration, pathos and formal structure constitutes one of the elements of greatest novelty of the work. It is evident the attempt in progress to free oneself from a certain naivety of the stylistic features of Gothic sculpture to evolve towards a more evolved naturalistic model; we are faced with the first cries of what will become the Renaissance and this evolutionary process unfolds within this work that we have before our eyes, with the subsequent contributions of the other great masters who developed it. The Ark is a true manual of art history!

The second nucleus: the cymatium by Niccolò dell'Arca

The ark was not only intended to house relics, but also represented a true instrument of visual preaching. The Dominican friars, masters of the word, recognized in the language of images a very powerful vehicle of doctrine and emotion. In this sense, the sculpture of the sarcophagus should be read as a summa theologiae in images: each episode reinforces the thaumaturgical and prophetic charisma of the founder, promoting his cult among the faithful and the legitimacy of the Order in the face of ecclesiastical authority.

The success of the work was such that the need to expand the work was immediately felt, making a simple sarcophagus a real monument. The expansion of the work was thus entrusted to Niccolò dell'Arca.

Niccolò dell'Arca 's intervention on the Ark of San Domenico constitutes one of the highest and most significant episodes of Italian sculpture in the second half of the fifteenth century, not only for the formal value of the additions but for the intense dialogue that they establish with the previous thirteenth-century work. Called to complete a work already dense with religious, liturgical and symbolic meanings, Niccolò faced a task that required iconographic rigor, stylistic sensitivity and an exceptional capacity for synthesis between tradition and innovation. His contribution is configured not as a simple ornament, but as a conceptual transformation of the monument, transposing the Gothic spirit of the original into a fully Renaissance and dramatic register. Niccolò's intervention on the work of Nicola Pisano is almost a philological work that acts as a trait d'union between tradition and the new Renaissance style. When Niccolò began his Gothic work (probably in 1469), Donatello was already dead, the Brancacci Chapel had already been built for half a century, Piero della Francesca had already created some of his main works, the Renaissance was already a reality. Yet Niccolò did not distort the work in his hands, but attempted a very successful synthesis between the two styles. His assignment included the creation of the crowning of the sarcophagus, which remained incomplete in its upper part. It was therefore a question of creating a new plastic structure above the thirteenth-century parallelepiped, without altering its narrative readability or compromising its iconographic balance. The result was one of the most original and dynamic sculptural conceptions of the Po Valley Renaissance.

Niccolò designed an articulated, pyramidal ensemble, developed on two main levels. At the base of the crown, he placed figures of standing saints, statues in the round resting on small pedestals, arranged along the perimeter of the lid of the ark. These include saints of the Dominican Order (including St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Peter Martyr), as well as other figures important to the universal Church. The upper register culminates in an architectural aedicule, in which Niccolò sculpted a composite group depicting the Madonna and Child between two angels: a devotional and theological fulcrum that underlines the centrality of Mary in Dominican thought.

Overall, the system presents itself as a cusp structure , which leads the eye upwards according to an ascending movement consistent with the symbolism of celestial glory. This crowning, in addition to enriching the verticality of the sarcophagus, also renews its ideological function: from the biographical story of a saint we move on to the exaltation of his sanctity as the foundation of the divine order and the triumph of the Church.

The formal language adopted by Niccolò dell'Arca in this work is of extraordinary expressive tension and typological variety. The statues in the round of the saints are distinguished by the individualized treatment of the faces, the richness of the draperies and the vitality of the gestures. Each figure seems animated by a different internal pathos: the absorbed gaze of Saint Thomas contrasts with the extroverted posture of other saints, creating a composed theatricality that still reflects the Gothic lesson, but is already innervated by a naturalism of Renaissance origin.

Particularly significant is the interpenetration between architectural structure and sculptural figuration: the statues relate to the frame that hosts them, breaking any rigid frontality. The aedicule at the top, instead, presents itself as a true “sacred scene”, in which the figures of the Virgin and Child are idealized but not abstract: one can perceive in them a human sweetness, a contained pathos that recalls certain Tuscan models (Donatello, but also Desiderio da Settignano), mediated by a Nordic sensibility.

The treatment of materials is refined: Niccolò uses marble with extreme mastery, alternating smooth surfaces with meticulously chiseled areas. The drapery, in particular, becomes an opportunity for an almost manneristic study of folds, which on the one hand envelop the body with plastic elegance, on the other reveal it in its internal tension.

Niccolò dell'Arca's intervention transforms the ark from a pure narrative reliquary into a triumphal monument of scholastic theology and ecclesiastical glory. The crowning is not simple decoration, but a visual hierarchy of meanings: at the base is the historical narration of the saint's life (13th century), at the center the community of holy witnesses (15th century), at the top the Christological and Marian mystery. The vertical scansion thus becomes the vehicle of an eschatological synthesis: from earthly life to celestial contemplation.

The second nucleus of the Arca di San Domenico represents one of the peaks of Niccolò dell'Arca's production, not only for its technical virtuosity but also for the extraordinary plastic intelligence with which he manages to transform a work already concluded in itself into a living, coherent, narrative and theological organism. His contribution marks the point of balance between the dynamic force of the Gothic and the compositional rigor of the Renaissance, blending dramatic plasticity and doctrinal construction.

His work on the Ark is not a simple expansion, but a sculptural commentary , a three-dimensional glossary that enriches the thirteenth-century “marble writing” without ever overpowering it, but rather prolonging its spirit into a new era of form.

It is surprising to note Niccolò's ability to express an extraordinary aesthetic rigour in this work, even more so if one compares this work with the expressionism and pathos of the Lamentation of the Dead Christ, which raised so much perplexity among his contemporaries.

The third nucleus: the stele of Alfonso Lombardi

With the intervention of Alfonso Lombardi in 1532, the long process of artistic stratification of the Ark of San Domenico, already enriched in the previous centuries by Gothic and Renaissance masters, was concluded.

Alfonso Lombardi is a name known today only to enthusiasts, but at the time he was a real star, to whom Vasari dedicated ample space in his Lives and the recipient of the main commissions in Bologna. Lombardi's work dates back to the sixteenth century and represents the last great decorative phase of the monument, integrating with sober effectiveness into the pre-existing complex. His addition concerns the marble base on which the sarcophagus rests, enriched by a sculptural cycle in high relief depicting salient moments of the Translation of the relics of Saint Dominic .

The cycle created by Lombardi develops on the front and sides of the new base, with a narrative sequence divided into four main panels , animated by a dense presence of moving characters: we can recognize the Dominican friars, the civil authorities, the faithful and the bearers of the reliquary case. The setting is strongly theatrical: the space opens up like a stage, and the figures are arranged according to an almost illusionistic perspective, with the intent of involving the spectator in the dramaturgy of the sacred event.

With this intervention the Ark project is concluded, which from a simple custodian of the saint's remains becomes a complete civic and liturgical monument, a synthesis of three centuries of spirituality, art and Bolognese identity. Lombardi's addition does not alter, but frames and elevates the entire complex, contributing to a greater solemnity of the whole.

With the addition of the base, the journey of the Ark through the main styles of Italian sculpture between 1200 and 1500 could be said to be complete, but at least one sensational addition is still missing; Niccolò dell'Arca, in fact, in the execution of his commission had not completely completed the project, missing the creation of the statuettes of three saints upon completion of the work. If it is true then that the Ark was destined to be, if not in the intentions of the clients, then at least in fact in the history of Italian art, the result of the work of a true dream team of the greatest names in sculpture of the time, what name was destined to complete the list of these great masters if not the greatest of all: Michelangelo?

The Completion of the Work: Michelangelo

Michelangelo Buonarroti's stay in Bologna , although brief and often considered marginal in his career, took place at a crucial moment in his formation and was of far from negligible importance for the maturation of his sculptural language. Michelangelo arrived in Bologna in the autumn of 1494 , at the age of nineteen, fleeing from Florence, which had just been shaken by the expulsion of the Medici and the establishment of the republican regime inspired by Savonarola.

His departure from Florence was, as Vasari recalls, a strategic escape for political and personal safety reasons. Michelangelo, who grew up under the protection of the Medici (in particular Lorenzo the Magnificent), found himself exposed to the disorders of the new regime. He therefore took refuge in Bologna, where he found protection from Gianfrancesco Aldrovandi , a noble scholar and member of the city Senate, who introduced him to the lord of the city, Giovanni II Bentivoglio. It was the latter who guaranteed him hospitality and commissioned some sculptures for the Ark of San Domenico, in the context of a Bologna that was still firmly noble and culturally lively.

Michelangelo stayed in Bologna for about a year, between the autumn of 1494 and late 1495, hosted in the Aldrovandi house. It was not a particularly sumptuous or remunerative stay: the artist was still semi-unknown, and the commissions he received were modest, but they represented a first public test of value in an artistic context different from the Tuscan one. His presence was greeted with curiosity and respect: Bologna, then a hub between the art of the Po Valley and the influence of the Tuscan Renaissance, proved to be a fertile ground for comparison.

The Michelangelo who worked on the Ark is a very young Michelangelo, who essentially had only 3 works behind him: the Madonna della Scala, the Battle of the Centaurs and the Crucifix of Santo Spirito.

The opportunity to work on the Ark, a work of great fame that brought lustre to the entire city of Bologna, was therefore essentially the first great test for the young Michelangelo who here had his first great opportunity to demonstrate his worth.

For the Ark, Michelangelo created the three statuettes that had not been completed by Niccolò: a candle-holding angel placed to the right of the base where Lombardi's stele would later be placed, a Saint Petronius and a Saint Proculus for the cyma.

These three works are not masterpieces in themselves on a par with Michelangelo's later production, but it is seductive to note the mastery that the young Michelangelo already had at this point in his early career; if the San Procolo shows a certain "grit" that already makes it stand out, distinguishing itself, among the works of Niccolò, it literally gives you the shivers to contemplate the candle-holding angel thinking that shortly thereafter Michelangelo will give life to that shocking work that is the Vatican Pietà; contemplating the Ark we are witnessing the exact moment in which Michelangelo is preparing to take the most dizzying flight that an artist has ever made in the history of humanity. From this point of view the angel acquires a very different interest; the collected position, the vibrant anatomy, the buttery drapery are the symptoms of an artist who, like his own Prisoners in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence, tenses his muscles to free himself from the constraints that oppress him and finally be free to express himself to the full of his immense abilities.