or ninth century. Christ's figure is upon the cross and that of
his mother stands near. The sculptor was Petrus Albericus. On the
cross is an inscription in the form of a dialogue: "My son?" "What,
Mother?" "Are you God?" "I am." "Why do you hang on the cross?"
"That Mankind may not perish."

The Masters of Stone and Wood were among the early Guilds and
Corporations of Florence. Charlemagne patronized this industry and
helped to develop it. Of craftsmen in these two branches exclusive
of master builders, and recognized artists, there were, in 1299,
about a hundred and forty-six members of the Guild.

Italy was backward for a good while in the progress of art, for
while great activities were going on in the North, the Doge of
Venice in 976 was obliged to import artists from Constantinople
to decorate St. Mark's church.

The tombs of this early period in Italy, as elsewhere, are significant
and beautiful. Recumbent figures, with their hands devoutly pressed
together, are usually seen, lying sometimes on couches and sometimes
under architectural canopies.

The first great original Italian sculptor of the Renaissance was
Nicola Pisano. He lived through almost the whole of the thirteenth
century, being born about 1204, and dying in 1278. What were the
early influences of Nicola Pisano, that helped to make him so much
more more modern, more truly classic, than any of his age? In the
first place, he was born at the moment when interest in ancient
art was beginning to awaken; the early thirteenth century. In the
Campo Santo of Pisa may be seen two of the most potent factors in
his aesthetic education, the Greek sarcophagus on which was carved the
Hunting of Meleager, and the Greek urn with Bacchic figures wreathing
it in classic symmetry. With his mind tuned to the beautiful, the
boy Nioola gazed at the work of genuine pagan Greek artists,
who knew the sinuousness of the human form and the joy of living
with no thought of the morrow. These joyous pagan elements, grafted
on solemn religious surroundings and influences, combined to produce
his peculiar genius. Basing his early endeavours on these specimens
of genuine classical Greek art, there resulted his wonderful pulpits
at Pisa and Siena, and his matchlessly graceful little Madonnas
denote the Hellenistic sentiment for beauty. His work was a marked
departure from the Byzantine and Romanesque work which constituted
Italian sculpture up to that period. An examination of hi