Arnolfo di Cambio (ca. 1245-1302) was the most important Florentine sculptor and architect of the last half of the 13th century.

Arnolfo di Cambio was trained in the sculptural workshop of Nicola Pisano, where he assisted in carving the marble pulpit in the Cathedral, Siena (1265-1268). Shortly thereafter he left Nicola's shop to establish himself as an independent artist. Little is known of his activities until 1277, when he was working in Rome under the patronage of Charles of Anjou. Arnolfo's three earliest works date from the period 1265-1277: the monument to Adrian V in S. Francesco, Viterbo, made in collaboration with a Cosmati master; the monument to Cardinal Riccardo Annibaldi, of which remnants are in the cloister of St. John Lateran, Rome; and the seated portrait of Charles of Anjou in the Capitoline Museum, Rome. Arnolfo's early style was characterized by simple, geometric forms that gave the figures...