renowned. And round the said pulpit, on the architrave, over some
columns that support it, thinking (as was the truth, according to the
knowledge of that age) that he had done a great and beautiful work, he
carved these verses:

HOC OPUS SCULPSIT JOANNES, QUI RES NON EGIT INANES,
NICOLI NATUS ...... MELIORA BEATUS,
QUEM GENUIT PISA, DOCTUM SUPER OMNIA VISA.

At the same time Giovanni made the holy-water font, in marble, of the
Church of S. Giovanni Evangelista in the same city, with three figures
that support it--Temperance, Prudence, and Justice; which work, by
reason of its having then been held very beautiful, was placed in the
centre of that church as something remarkable. And before he departed
from Pistoia, although the work had not up to then been begun, he made
the model of the Campanile of S. Jacopo, the principal church of that
city; on which campanile, which is on the square of the said S. Jacopo
and beside the church, there is this date: A.D. 1301.

[Illustration: _Alinari_

THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS

(_Detail, after_ Giovanni Pisano, _from the Pulpit of the Church of S.
Andrea, Pistoia_)]

Afterwards, Pope Benedict IX having died in Perugia, a summons was sent
to Giovanni, who, having gone to Perugia, made a tomb of marble for that
Pontiff in the old Church of S. Domenico, belonging to the Preaching
Friars; the Pope, portrayed from nature and robed in his pontifical
habits, is lying at full length on the bier, with two angels, one on
either side, that are holding up a curtain, and above there is a Madonna
with two saints in relief, one on either side of her; and many other
ornaments are carved round that tomb. In like manner, in the new church
of the said Preaching Friars he made the tomb of Messer Niccolo
Guidalotti of Perugia, Bishop of Recanati, who was founder of the
Sapienza Nuova of Perugia. In this new church, which had been founded
before this by others, he executed the central nave, which was founded
by him with much better method than the remainder of the church had
been; for on one side it leans and threatens to fall down, by reason of
having been badly founded. And in truth, he who puts his hand to
building and to doing anything of importance should ever take counsel,
not from him who knows little but from the best, in order not to have to
repent after the act, with loss and shame, that where he most needed
good counsel he took the bad.

Giovanni, having dispatched