Pulpit

The pulpit in Ravello Cathedral was executed in 1272 on commission by Nicola Rufolo, a member of the powerful Ravellese family for his financial relations with the Angevin court.

It consists of a rectangular box of mosaic panels with marble cornices, resting on architraves and columns supported by lions. The staircase is framed by a trefoil arch decorated in the spandrels with two low-relief profile heads and surmounted by a female bust. All of the marble sculpture is generally attributed to Nicola.

The profile heads may represent the patron of the pulpit, Nicola Rufolo, and his wife Sicligaita, who are mentioned in an inscription on the staircase ramp. The female bust is not in its original position but is similar in style, and it is generally attributed to Nicola.

Nicola di Bartolomeo da Foggia’s pulpit at Ravello, with its combination of proto-Renaissance heads and Gothic foliated capitals provides a parallel for the first major work Nicola Pisano carved in Tuscany, the pulpit in the Baptistery at Pisa.