asters capable of
executing in a good style the things which they made for them. Now
Niccola was steadily increasing his renown in both sculpture and
architecture, and was of greater account than the sculptors and
architects who were then at work in the Romagna, as one may see in
S. Ippolito and S. Giovanni at Faenza, in the Duomo of Ravenna, in
S. Francesco, in the houses of the Traversari, and in the church of
Prato, and at Rimini, in the public palace, in the houses of the
Malatesti, and in other buildings which are much worse than the old
buildings erected in Tuscany at the same time; and what is here said
of the Romagna, may be repeated with even more truth of a part of
Lombardy. It is only necessary to see the Duomo of Ferrara and the
other buildings erected for the Marquis Azzo, to perceive at once how
different they are from the Santo of Padua, built from Niccola's
model, and from the church of the friars minors at Venice, both of
them magnificent and famous buildings.

In Niccola's day there were many moved by a laudable spirit of
emulation, who applied themselves more diligently to sculpture than
they had done before, especially in Milan, where many Lombards and
Germans were gathered for the building of the Duomo. These were
afterwards scattered throughout Italy by the dissensions which arose
between the Milanese and the Emperor Frederick. They then began to
compete among themselves, both in carving marble and in erecting
buildings, and produced works of some amount of excellence. The same
thing happened in Florence after the works of Arnolfo and Niccola
were seen. The latter, while the little church of the Misericordia on
the piazza S. Giovanni was being built after his designs, carved a
marble statue of Our Lady with St Domenic and another saint on either
side, which may still be seen on the facade of that church. It was
also in Niccola's time that the Florentines began to demolish many
towers, erected previously in a rude style in order that the people
should suffer less by their means in the frequent collisions between
the Guelphs and Ghibellines, or for the greater security of the
commonweal. One of these, the tower of Guardamorto, situated on the
piazza S; Giovanni, presented unusual difficulty to those who wished
to destroy it because the walls were so well knit that the stones
could not be removed with the pickaxe, and also because the tower was
a very high one. Niccola, however, caused a piece to be