reas without the piles, the foundations are
liable to give way, causing the walls to fall down. The church of S.
Michele in Borgo of the monks of Gamaldoli was also built after his
plans. But the most beautiful, ingenious and fanciful piece of
architecture that Niccola ever constructed was the campanile of S.
Niccola at Pisa, where the friars of St Augustine are. Outside it is
octagonal, but the interior is round with a winding staircase rising
to the top leaving the middle space void like a well, while on every
fourth step there are columns with lame arches, which follow the
curve of the building. The spring of the vaulting rests upon these
arches, and the ascent is of such sort that anyone on the ground
always sees those who are going up, those who are at the top see
those who are on the ground, while those who are in the middle see
both those who are above and those below. This curious invention was
afterwards adopted by Bramante in a better style with more balanced
measurements and richer ornamentation, for Pope Julius II. in the
Belvedere at Rome, and by Antonio da Sangallo for Pope Clement VII.
in the well at Orvieto, as will be said when the time comes.

To return to Niccola who excelled no less as a sculptor than as an
architect. For the church of S. Martino at Lucca he executed a
deposition from the Cross, which is under the portico above the minor
doorway on the left hand as one enters the church. It is executed in
marble, and is full of figures in half relief, carried out with great
care, the marble being pierced through, and the whole finished in
such style as to give rise to hopes in those who first practised this
art with the most severe labour, that one would soon come who would
give them more assistance with greater ease. It was Niccola also who
in the year 1240 designed the church of S. Jacopo at Pistoia, and set
some Tuscan masters to work there in mosaic, who did the vaulting of
the apse. But although it was considered a difficult and costly thing
at the time, it rather moves one to laughter and compassion to-day,
and not to admiration, oh account of the poorness of the design, a
defect which was prevalent not only in Tuscany, but throughout Italy,
where the number of buildings and other things erected without method
and without design betray the poverty of their minds no less than the
bountiful riches lavished on them by the men of their day; a wasteful
expenditure of wealth, because there was no m