mention either, how in the course of time the round church of S. Giovanni was erected at Pisa in the year 1060, opposite the Duomo and on the same piazza. A marvellous and almost incredible statement in connection with this church is that of an ancient record in a book of the Opera of the Duomo, that the columns, pillars and vaulting were erected and completed in fifteen days and no more. The same book, which may be examined by any one, relates that an impost of a penny a hearth was exacted for the building of the temple, but it does not state whether this was to be of gold or of base metal. The same book states that there were 34,000 hearths in Pisa at that time. It is certain that the work was very costly and presented formidable difficulties, especially the vaulting of the tribune, which is pear-shaped and covered outside with lead. The exterior is full of columns, carving, scenes, and the middle part of the frieze of the doorway contains figures of Christ and the twelve apostles in half-relief and in the Byzantine style.

About the same time, namely in 1061, the Lucchese, in emulation of the Pisans, began the church of S. Martino at Lucea, from the designs of some pupils of Buschetto, there being no other artists then in Tuscany. The façade has a marble portico in front of it containing many ornaments and carvings in honour of Pope Alexander II., who had been bishop of the city just before he was raised to the pontificate. Nine lines in Latin relate the whole history of the façade and of the Pope, repeated in some antique letters carved in marble inside the doors of the portico. The façade also contains some figures and a number of scenes in half-relief below the portico relating to the life of St Martin executed in marble and in the Byzantine style. But the best things there, over one of these doors, were done by Niccola Pisano, 170 years later, and completed in 1233, as will be related in the proper place, Abellenato and Aliprando being the craftsmen at the beginning, as some letters carved in marble in the same place fully relate. The figures by Niccola Pisano show to what an extent the art was improved by him. Most of the buildings erected in Italy from this time until the year 1250 were similar in character to these, for architecture made little or no apparent progress in all these years, but remained stationary, the same rude style being retained. Many examples of this may be seen to-day, but I will not now enumerate them, because I shall refer to them again as the occasion presents itself.

The admirable sculptures and paintings buried in the ruins of Italy remained hidden or unknown to the men of this time who were engrossed in the rude productions of their own age, in which they used no sculptures or paintings except such as were produced by the old artists of Greece, who still survived, making images of clay or stone, or painting grotesque figures and only colouring the first lineaments. These artists were invited to Italy for they were the best and indeed the only representatives of their profession. With them they brought the mosaics, sculptures, and paintings which they themselves produced and thus they taught their methods to the Italians, after their own rough and clumsy style. The Italians practised the art in this fashion up to a certain time, as I shall relate.

As the men of the age were not accustomed to see any excellence or greater perfection than the things thus produced, they greatly admired them, and considered them to be the type of perfection, base as they were. Yet some rising spirits aided by some quality in the air of certain places, so far purged themselves of this crude style that in 1250 Heaven took compassion on the fine minds that the Tuscan soil was producing every day, and directed art into its former channels. And although the preceding generations had before them the remains of arches, colossi, statues, pillars or stone columns which were left after the plunder, ruin and fire which Rome had passed through, yet they could never make use of them or derive any profit from them until the period named. Those who came after were able to distinguish the good from the bad, and abandoning the old style they began to copy the ancients with all ardour and industry. That the distinction I have made between old and ancient may be better understood I will explain that I call ancient the things produced before Constantine at Corinth, Athens, Rome and other renowned cities, until the days of Nero, Vaspasian, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus; the old works are those which are due to the surviving Greeks from the days of St Silvester, whose art consisted rather of tinting than of painting. For the original artists of excellence had perished in the wars, as I have said, and the surviving Greeks, of the old and not the ancient manner, could only trace profiles on a ground of colour. Countless mosaics done by these Greeks in every part of Italy bear testimony to this, and every old church of Italy possesses examples, notably the Duomo of Pisa, S. Marco at Venice and yet other places. Thus they produced a constant stream of figures in this style, with frightened eyes, outstretched hands and on the tips of their toes, as in S. Miniato outside Florence between the door of the sacristy and that of the convent, and in S. Spirito in the same city, all the side of the cloister towards the church, and in Arezzo in S. Giuliano and S. Bartolommeo and other churches, and at Rome in old S. Peter's in the scenes about the windows, all of which are more like monsters than the figures which they are supposed to represent. They also produced countless sculptures, such as those in bas-relief still over the door of S. Michele on the piazza Padella at Florence, and in Ognissanti, and in many places, in tombs and ornaments for the doors of churches, where there are some figures acting as corbels to carry the roof, so rude and coarse, so grossly made, and in such a rough style, that it is impossible to imagine worse.

Up to the present, I have discoursed exclusively upon the origin of sculpture and painting, perhaps more at length than was necessary at this stage. I have done so, not so much because I have been carried away by my love for the arts, as because I wish to be of service to the artists of our own day, by showing them how a small beginning leads to the highest elevation, and how from so noble a situation it is possible to fall to utterest ruin, and consequently, how the nature of these arts resembles nature in other things which concern our human bodies; there is birth, growth, age, death, and I hope by this means they will be enabled more easily to recognise the progress of the renaissance of the arts, and the perfection to which they have attained in our own time. And again, if ever it happens, which God forbid, that the arts should once more fall to a like ruin and disorder, through the negligence of man, the malignity of the age, or the ordinance of Heaven, which does not appear to wish that the things of this world should remain stationary, these labours of mine, such as they are (if they are worthy of a happier fate), by means of the things discussed before, and by those which remain to be said, may maintain the arts in life, or, at any rate, encourage the better spirits to provide them with assistance, so that, by my good will and the labours of such men, they may have an abundance of those aids and embellishments which, if I may speak the truth freely, they have lacked until now.

But it is now time to come to the life of Giovanni Cimabue, who originated the new method of design and painting, so that it is right that his should be the first of the Lives. And here I may remark that I shall follow the schools rather than a chronological order. And in describing the appearance and the arts of the artists, I shall be brief, because their portraits, which I have collected at great expense, and with much labour and diligence, will show what manner of men they were to look at much better than any description could ever do.