"Sacrifice of Isaac" in the
cathedral of Pisa, and the "Christ Bound to the Pillar" in the Academy at
Siena.

[407] The church of S. Sigismondo, outside Cremona, is very interesting
for the unity of style in its architecture and decoration.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

_The Pulpits of Pisa and Ravello_

Having tried to characterise Niccola Pisano's relation to early Italian
art in the second chapter of this volume, I adverted to the recent doubts
which have been thrown by very competent authorities upon Vasari's legend
of this master. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, while discussing the
question of his birthplace and his early training, observe, what is no
doubt true, that there are no traces of good sculpture in Pisa antecedent
to the Baptistery pulpit of 1260, and remark that for such a phenomenon as
the sudden appearance of this masterpiece it is needful to seek some
antecedents elsewhere.[408] This leads them to ask whether Niccola did not
owe his origin and education to some other part of Italy. Finding at
Ravello, near Amain, a pulpit sculptured in 1272 by Niccola di Bartolommeo
da Foggia, they suggest that a school of stone-carvers may have flourished
at Foggia, and that Niccola Pisano, in spite of his signing himself
_Pisanus_ on the Baptistery pulpit, may have been an Apulian trained in
that school. The arguments adduced in favour of that hypothesis are that
Niccola's father, though commonly believed to have been Ser Pietro da
Siena, was perhaps called Pietro di Apulia,[409] and that meritorious
artists certainly existed at Foggia and Trani. Yet the resemblance of
style between the pulpits at Ravello [1272] and Pisa [1260], if that
indeed exists (whereof hereafter more must be said), might be used to
prove that Niccola da Foggia learned his art from Niccola Pisano, instead
of the contrary; nor again, supposing the Apulian school to have
flourished before 1260, is it inconsistent with the tradition of Niccola's
life that he should have learned the sculptor's craft while working in his
youth at Naples. For the rest, Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle dismiss the
story of Pisano's studying the antique bas-reliefs at Pisa with
contempt;[410] but they omit to notice the actual transcripts from those
marbles introduced into his first pulpit. Again, they assume that the
lunette at Lucca was one of his latest works, giving precedence to the
pulpits of Pisa and Siena and the fountain of Perugia. A comparison of