valuable possession of the city, while some went so far as to say that
it could not be surpassed in the world. Even now, after all it has
suffered from time and weather, it commands our admiration.

In 1278 Nicola died, after a life of great achievements. He left an
untarnished name, too, for he had been loved and respected by all his
associates, and as patron, friend, and servant had done all his duty.
Mr. Perkins, in his "Tuscan Sculptors," says of him: "Inestimable were
the services rendered to art by this great man. He gave the death-blow
to Byzantinism and barbarism; established new architectural principles;
founded a new school of sculpture in Italy, and opened men's eyes to the
degraded state of art by showing them where to study and how to study;
so that Cimabue, Guido da Siena, the Masuccios and the Cosmati all
profited by his pervading and enduring influence. Never hurried by an
ill-regulated imagination into extravagances, he was careful in
selecting his objects of study and his methods of self-cultivation; an
indefatigable worker, who spared neither time nor strength in obedience
to the numerous calls made upon him from all parts of the peninsula; now
in Pisa, then in Naples, Padua, Siena, Lucca, or Florence; here to
design a church, there to model a bas-relief, erect a pulpit, a palace
or a tower; by turns architect and sculptor, great in both, original in
both, a reviver in both, laying deep and well the foundations of his
edifices by hitherto unpractised methods, and sculpturing his
bas-reliefs upon principles evolved from the study of antique models
long unheeded. Ever respected and esteemed by the many persons of all
classes with whom he came in contact, he was truly a great man--one to
whom the world owes an eternal debt of gratitude, and who looms up in
gigantic proportions through the mist of five centuries, holding the
same relation to Italian art which Dante holds to Italian literature."

FRA GUGLIELMO D'AGNELLO (1238-1314?), also a Pisan, was a pupil of
Nicola Pisano, and worked with him at Bologna. There is little to be
said of his works after his master's death.

GIOVANNI PISANO (about 1240-1320) was born at Pisa, and though a pupil
of his father and a co-worker with him, he seems to have fallen under
some other and a very different influence. In architecture he preferred
the Gothic style, and in sculpture he was fond of all sorts of fantastic
action and expression; his works were full of exagg