d-fortune for him to have his so
great excellence recognized in his own country, seeing that it rarely
comes to pass that men of excellence are universally loved and honoured
in their own country.

[Illustration: TOMB OF S. ROMANO

(_After_ Matteo Civitali. _Lucca: S. Romano_)

_Brogi_]

A disciple of Jacopo was Matteo, a sculptor of Lucca, who made the
little octagonal temple of marble--in the Church of S. Martino in his
own city, in the year 1444, for Domenico Galigano of Lucca--wherein
there is the image of the Holy Cross, a piece of sculpture miraculously
wrought, so it is said, by Nicodemus, one of the seventy-two disciples
of the Saviour; which temple is truly nothing if not very beautiful and
well-proportioned. The same man carved in marble a figure of S.
Sebastian wholly in the round, three braccia high, and very beautiful by
reason of its having been made with good design and in a beautiful
attitude and wrought with a high finish. By his hand, also, is a panel
wherein there are three very beautiful figures in three niches, in the
church where the body of S. Regulus is said to be; and likewise the
panel that is in S. Michele, wherein are three figures in marble; and in
like manner the statue that is on the corner of the said church, on the
outer side--namely, a Madonna, which shows that Matteo was ever striving
to equal his master Jacopo.

Niccolo Bolognese was also a disciple of Jacopo, and he, among other
works, brought to completion divinely well--having found it
unfinished--the marble sarcophagus full of scenes and figures wherein
lies the body of S. Dominic, a work made long ago by Niccola Pisano in
Bologna; and he gained thereby, besides profit, that name of honour,
Maestro Niccolo dell'Arca, which he bore ever after. He finished this
work in the year 1460, and afterwards, for the facade of the palace
where the Legate of Bologna now lives, he made a Madonna in bronze, four
braccia high, and placed it in position in the year 1478. In a word, he
was an able master and a worthy disciple of Jacopo della Quercia of
Siena.

[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD

(_After_ Matteo Civitali. _Lucca: Museo_)

_Brogi_]

NICCOLO ARETINO

LIFE OF NICCOLO ARETINO

[_NICCOLO D'AREZZO OR NICCOLO DI PIERO LAMBERTI_]

SCULPTOR

About the same time, engaged in the same pursuit of sculpture, and
almost of the same excellence in the art, lived Niccolo di Piero, a
citizen of Arezzo, to whom Nature was