h circumstance would be even
clearer than it is, if the little care and diligence of those who have
directed the Works of S. Maria del Fiore in the years past had not left
the very model that Arnolfo made to go to ruin, and afterwards those of
Brunellesco and of the others.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: The braccio is a very variable standard of measurement. As
used by Vasari, it may be taken to denote about 23 inches.]

[Footnote 7: Vescovado includes both the Cathedral and the Episcopal
buildings of Arezzo. Vasari generally uses it to denote the Cathedral.]

NICCOLA AND GIOVANNI OF PISA

LIFE OF NICCOLA AND GIOVANNI OF PISA,

[_NICCOLA PISANO AND GIOVANNI PISANO_],

SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS

Having discoursed of design and of painting in the Life of Cimabue and
of architecture in that of Arnolfo di Lapo, in this one concerning
Niccola and Giovanni of Pisa we will treat of sculpture, and also of the
most important buildings that they made, for the reason that their works
in sculpture and in architecture truly deserve to be celebrated, not
only as being large and magnificent but also well enough conceived,
since both in working marble and in building they swept away in great
part that old Greek manner, rude and void of proportion, showing better
invention in their stories and giving better attitudes to their figures.

Niccola Pisano, then, chancing to be under certain Greek sculptors who
were working the figures and other carved ornaments of the Duomo of Pisa
and of the Church of S. Giovanni, and there being, among many marble
spoils brought by the fleet of the Pisans, certain ancient sarcophagi
that are to-day in the Campo Santo of that city, there was one of them,
most beautiful among them all, whereon there was carved the Chase of
Meleager after the Calydonian Boar, in very beautiful manner, seeing
that both the nude figures and the draped were wrought with much mastery
and with most perfect design. This sarcophagus was placed by the Pisans,
by reason of its beauty, in the side of the Duomo opposite S. Rocco,
beside the principal side-door, and it served for the body of the mother
of Countess Matilda, if indeed these words are true that are to be read
carved in the marble:

A.D. MCXVI. IX KAL. AUG. OBIIT D. MATILDA FELICIS MEMORIAE
COMITISSA, QUAE PRO ANIMA GENETRICIS SUAE DOMINAE BEATRICIS COMITISSAE
VENERABILIS, IN HAC TUMBA HONORABILI QUIESCENTIS, IN MULTIS
PARTIBUS MIRIF