876 SCULPTURE, 
every capital almost is of fine ancient Greek workmanship. 
The sarcophagi, still preserved in the Campo Santa, formed 
the school in which Nicolo Pisano and his successor improved 
their sculpture. The consequences of these improvements 
are seen in the works of Nicolo Pisano, which are the pulpit 
of Sienna, the pulpit of the baptistery of Pisa, the bas-relief 
of St. Martin’s at Lucca, the bas-relief in the cathedral at 
Orvietto, and in other parts of Italy, in which his constant 
attention to the ancient bas-reliefs is every where observable. 
At this time the crusades had diffused such a spirit of piety, 
that magnificent churches were built all over Italy, in the 
designing of which, as well as the decoration with sculp¬ 
ture, Nicolo Pisano and his scholars were universally em- 
ed. 
n the basement in the west front of the cathedral of 
Orvietto, there is a series of basso-relievos, the work of Ni¬ 
colo Pisano and his school, containing the most important 
subjects of the Old and New Testament, from the Creation 
to the Last Judgment, with separate figures of the prophets. 
The different subjects are contained in a running foliage, 
making the most rich and beautiful decoration to the four 
basements formed by the three doors in that part of the 
church. The figures are each about twenty-two inches 
high, very highly finished in statuary marble. There is in 
many of them a beautiful simplicity of sentiment, and in 
those of the Last Judgment, and the other bas-reliefs that 
immediately relate to it, there are various striking instances 
of passion and terror. 
Many others followed, but they were rather employed in 
that sort of decorative sculpture that expends itself on bas- 
reliefs and the adorning of architecture, than in the por¬ 
traiture of expressive statues. John Pisano deserves mention, 
however, as one who deviated from his predecessor’s rigid 
imitation of antiquity, in giving a more waving line to his 
figures, and broader and less determined folds to his drape¬ 
ries, like the paintings and designs of Ghiotto. There is a 
general grace and delicacy in the character of his figures; of 
which the bronze statues of a madonna and angels in the ca¬ 
thedrals of Orvietto and Florence are examples: and there is 
so strong a resemblance between,the styles of these statues and 
those of queen Eleanor at Northampton, Geddington and 
Waltham, on her crosses, as affords reason to believe they 
were produced by one of the ablest of John Pisano’s scholars, 
if not from some statue or model by himself: nor is it here 
that the resemblance ceases ; for this style is to be traced in 
most of the sculptures of Europe from this time to the reign 
of Henry VII. 
Stephen Florentin, Taddeo Gaddi, and Peter Cavallini, 
in 1350 formed at Florence an academy of designing, which 
was the first that had been formed since the revival of the 
arts. This was afterwards encouraged and assisted by the 
princes of Medicis, which perfected at Florence the esta¬ 
blishment of the arts of design"; for there came out of that 
school a great number of painters, sculptors and architects, 
and also those great geniuses Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, 
and Brunileschi. 
Lorenzo Ghiberti was a sculptor in bronze, gold and 
silver. He made the two fine brazen gates in the baptistery 
of St. John, one of which represents the history of the Old 
Testament, which Michael Angelo said was worthy to be a 
gate of Paiadise; the other gate is adorned with the principal 
acts of bur Saviour’s life. Besides the beauty of the historical 
subjects in the pannels, the architraves and friezes of those 
gates are of exquisite design, containing flowers, fruits, 
plants and animals, so perfect that they seem to have been 
cast from nature. He executed a figure of St. Matthew, in 
bronze, of a colossal size, in the church of San Michele, 
but this figure is inferior to his smaller works, from an at¬ 
tempt at excessive grace; the folds of drapery also are too 
minute and curvilinear. 
Donatello very much excelled the sculptors who had 
gone before him, in his copious compositions, and the passion 
and life in his designs, and in the character of nature in his 
statues, which are to be seen in Florence; he was born in 
1403, and lived to be above 80 years old. His statue of 
St. George is a youthful pedestrian figure, standing with' hfs 
legs considerably apart, his two hands before him leaning on 
his shield. Michael Angelo admired the head of this figure 
so much, that he copied it in the monumental statue of 
Julian, duke of Namurs. Donatello composed and executed 
the greater part of those noble bas-reliefs from the life of our 
Saviour, in bronze, round the two pulpits of St. Lorenzo, in 
Florence; the sentiment, passion and composition of which, 
in parts, it seems impossible to excel. He executed different 
statues of St. John, and crucifixes in wood, the characters 
of which are rather vulgar, and consequently very inferior 
to his bas-reliefs. It was said of this artist, upon the 
Pythagorean idea of transmigration, that either Michael 
Angelo’s soul energized in his body, or his in Michael 
Angelo’s. There is a statue of a youth naked, about twelve 
or fourteen years old, in the ducal gallery of Florence, 
which is worthy to be ranked with the fine statues of 
antiquity. 
The remains of Bruneleschi’s sculpture are very few; there 
is an admirable crucifix carved in wood by him, in the 
church of St. Mary Novella at Florence. 
About the year 1450 appeared Andrea Verrochio and 
Dominic Ghirlandaio. He was esteemed of the first 
rank of sculptors, and preferred to Donatello and to Ghi¬ 
berti, in making St. Thomas feeling our Saviour’s side, 
which he constructed of brass for the oratory of St. Michael. 
His last work was the famous figure on horseback of Bar- 
tholomeo Gogleone de Bergamo, which is at Venice, in the 
square of St. John and St. Paul. 
Dominic Ghirlandaio was the master of Michael Angelo ; 
but he worked more in painting than in sculpture. ’ 
But the progress of art was greatly accelerated by the 
progressive discovery of those miraculous productions of an¬ 
cient Greek art, which had been buried so many ages, and 
were by degrees restored from the bowels of the earth. 
Poggius, the secretary to Eugeuius IV., in the year 1430, 
particularly enumerated all the remains of ancient magni¬ 
ficence in Rome existing at that time, among which he 
reckons only five statues ; two of them were the colossal 
statues by Phidias and Praxiteles, on Mount Cavallo; the 
third the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, at that’time 
before the church of St. John de Lateran; the two others, per¬ 
haps, were the figure called Marforio, which is a recumbent 
statue of the Ocean, now in the Capitol; the other a fragment 
of the group of Ajax supporting the body of Patroclus, 
called Pasquin. The Laocoon was found in the year 
1506. 
In the beginning of the 14th century, Michael Angelo 
appeared, and though devoted by his great talents in those 
branches to painting and architecture, formed a new sera 
in the history of sculpture. Of him, however, we shall in 
this place say nothing, as the proper remarks have already 
been anticipated in the article Angelo. 
John of Bologna was a sculptor of great merit, both in 
bronze and marble, who lived rather later than Michael 
Angelo: his groups are remarkable for the good composition 
and fine undulation of his lines, of which the Rape of the 
Sabines, in the market-place of Florence, is an instance. 
His statue of Mercury rising from the point of his toe into the 
air is also justly admired. 
Benvenuto Cellini executed a fine colossal group, of 
Perseus holding the head of Medusa in his left hand, with 
the sword in his right, and standing on the body from which 
the head has been separated: the pedestal is most whimsi¬ 
cally adorned with bas-relief and chimerical figures relating 
to the subject. 
Bernini’s best work of sculpture is the group of Apollo 
and Daphne : he designed and modelled innumerable figures 
for the colonnade of St. Peter’s and the bridge of St. An¬ 
gelo ; he executed the monuments of Alexander VII. and 
Urban VIII. in St. Peter’s; the colossal statue of St. Lon¬ 
ginus; and four doctors, which support the chair of St. 
Peter. 
This sculptor, whose works were so numerous, as he was 
first a painter, and formed in the Lombard school, endea¬ 
voured 
