Pisan style in these three
Lombard towns, and have felt how widely Niccola's creative genius was
exercised. Traces of the same influence may perhaps be observed in the
tombs of the Scaligers at Verona.[76]

The most eminent pupil of Andrea Pisano, however, was a Florentine--the
great Andrea Arcagnuolo di Cione, commonly known as Orcagna. This man,
like the more illustrious Giotto, was one among the earliest of those
comprehensive, many-sided natures produced by Florence for her everlasting
glory. He studied the goldsmith's craft under his father, Cione, passing
the years of his apprenticeship, like other Tuscan artists, in the
technical details of an industry that then supplied the strictest method
of design. With his brother, Bernardo, he practised painting. Like Giotto,
he was no mean poet;[77] and like all the higher craftsmen of his age, he
was an architect. Though the church of Orsammichele owes its present form
to Taddeo Gaddi, Orcagna, as _capo maestro_ after Gaddi's death, completed
the structure; and though the Loggia de' Lanzi, long ascribed to him by
writers upon architecture, is now known to be the work of Benci di Cione,
yet Orcagna's Loggia del Bigallo, more modest but not less beautiful,
prepared the way for its construction. Of his genius as a painter, proved
by the frescoes in the Strozzi chapel, I shall have to speak hereafter. As
a sculptor he is best known through the tabernacle of Orsammichele, built
to enshrine the picture of the Madonna by Ugolino da Siena.[78]

In this monument Orcagna employed carved bas-reliefs and statuettes,
intaglios and mosaics, incrustations of agates, enamels, and gilded glass
patterns, with a sense of harmony so refined, and a mastery over each kind
of workmanship so perfect, that the whole tabernacle is an epitome of the
minor arts of mediaeval Italy. The subordination of sculpture to
architectural effect is noticeable; and the Giottesque influence appears
even more strongly here than in the gate of Andrea Pisano. This influence
Orcagna received indirectly through his master in stone carving; it
formed, indeed, the motive force of figurative art during his lifetime.
The subjects of the "Annunciation," the "Nativity," the "Marriage of the
Virgin," and the "Adoration of the Three Kings," framed in octagonal
mouldings at the base of the tabernacle, illustrate the domination of a
spirit distinct both from the neo-Romanism of Niccola and the Gothicism of
Giovanni Pisano. Th