ics and Masterpieces of this Group--Sepulchral
Monuments--Andrea Contucci's Tombs in S. Maria del Popolo--Desiderio da
Settignano--Sculpture in S. Francesco at Rimini--Venetian
Sculpture--Verona--Guido Mazzoni of Modena--Certosa of Pavia--Colleoni
Chapel at Bergamo--Sansovino at Venice--Pagan Sculpture--Michael Angelo's
Scholars--Baccio Bandinelli--Bartolommeo Ammanati--Cellini--Gian
Bologna--Survey of the History of Renaissance Sculpture.

In the procession of the fine arts, sculpture always follows close upon
the steps of architecture, and at first appears in some sense as her
handmaid. Mediaeval Italy found her Pheidias in a great man of Pisan
origin, born during the first decade of the thirteenth century. It was
Niccola Pisano, architect and sculptor, who first breathed with the breath
of genius life into the dead forms of plastic art. From him we date the
dawn of the aesthetical Renaissance with the same certainty as from
Petrarch that of humanism; for he determined the direction not only of
sculpture but also of painting in Italy. To quote the language of Lord
Lindsay's panegyric: "Neither Dante nor Shakspere can boast such extent
and durability of influence; for whatever of highest excellence has been
achieved in sculpture and painting, not in Italy only but throughout
Europe, has been in obedience to the impulse he primarily gave, and in
following up the principle which he first struck out."[56] In truth,
Niccola Pisano put the artist on the right track of combining the study of
antiquity with the study of nature; and to him belongs the credit not
merely of his own achievement, considerable as that may be, but also of
the work of his immediate scholars and of all who learned from him to
portray life. From Niccola Pisano onward to Michael Angelo and Cellini we
trace one genealogy of sculptors, who, though they carried art beyond the
sphere of his invention, looked back to him as their progenitor. The man
who first emancipated sculpture from servile bondage, and opened a way for
the attainment of true beauty, would by the Greeks have been honoured with
a special cultas as the Hero Eponym of art. It remains for us after our
own fashion to pay some such homage to Pisano.

The chief difficulty with which the student of early art and literature
has to deal, is the insufficiency of positive information. Instead of
accurate dates and well-established facts he finds a legend, rich
apparently in detail, but liable at ev