rtion of this master-work is crowded
with figures--some detached, some executed in relief; and yet, amid so
great a multitude, the eye is not confused; the total effect is nowhere
dissipated. The whole seems governed by one constructive thought,
projected as a perfect unity of composition.[63]

A later work of Giovanni Pisano was the pulpit executed for the cathedral
of Pisa, now unfortunately broken up. An interesting fragment, one of the
supporting columns of the octagon which formed the body of this structure,
still exists in the museum of the Campo Santo. It is an allegorical statue
of Pisa. The Ghibelline city is personified as a crowned woman, suckling
children at her breast, and standing on a pedestal supported by the eagle
of the Empire. She wears a girdle of rope seven times knotted, to betoken
the rule of Pisa over seven subject islands. At the four corners of her
throne stand the four human virtues, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and
Fortitude, distinguished less by beauty of shape than by determined energy
of symbolism. Temperance is a naked woman, with hair twisted in the knots
and curls of a Greek Aphrodite. Justice is old and wrinkled, clothed with
massive drapery, and holding in her hand the scales. Throughout this
group there is no attempt to realise forms pleasing to the eye; the
sculptor has aimed at suggesting to the mind as many points of
intellectual significance as possible. In spite of ugliness and hardness,
the "Allegory of Pisa" commands respect by vigour of conception, and
rivets attention by force of execution.

A more popular and pleasing monument by Giovanni Pisano is the tomb of
Benedict XI. in the church of S. Domenico at Perugia. The Pope, whose life
was so obnoxious to the ambition of Philip le Bel that his timely death
aroused suspicion of poison, lies asleep upon his marble bier with hands
crossed in an attitude of peaceful expectation.[64] At his head and feet
stand angels drawing back the curtains that would else have shrouded this
last slumber of a good man from the eyes of the living.[65] A contrast is
thus established between the repose of the dead and the ever-watchful
activity of celestial ministers. Sleep so guarded, the sculptor seeks to
tell us, must have glorious waking; and when those hands unfold upon the
Resurrection morning, the hushed sympathy of the attendant angels will
break into smiles and singing, as they lead the just man to the Lord he
served in life.

Whether