Anthropomorphic corbel

Corbel with Gothic ornamental motifs and structure whose elevation can be inscribed in the shape of an inverted equilateral triangle, with a small carved head crowned with floral motifs at the lower vertex. This feature rules out the possibility that the three identical faces correspond to an ancient and disavowed iconography of the Holy Trinity. There is no documentation on the provenance of this work, which does not show any affinity with any of the other relics from suppressed Como churches and convents, nor with the various relics from the demolition of lay buildings in the Cortesella district of the city. The plastic definition of the refined sculpture of the three identical faces reveals an inspiration from the classical world, typical of the incipient 13th-century Italian Gothic sculpture. The style is also distant from the trends of 14th-century Como and more generally Lombard sculpture, ambits that were at first informed by the practice of the Campionese masters and later, at times, by the Milanese example set by the art of the Tuscan Giovanni di Balduccio in the Ark of St Peter Martyr in Sant’Eustorgio. However, the volumetric solidity and proportionate quality of the faces, seem to share earlier references inherited from 13th-century Frederician sculpture and from the developments of Nicola Pisano’s emerging “Italian” sculpture. The hair lock typology recalls that of the “antique-style” portrait of Frederick II in the Santarelli Collection in Rome. (A. Rovi)