ANDREA PISANO. -(1273-1349.)

Andrea was the son of Ugolino di Nino, and he studied under Giovanni Pisano, the son of Niccolo), acquiring the reputation of being the most skilful bronze-founder of his day. He was the maker of one of the bronze gates in the Baptistery at Florence, and the inscription, still legible, gives the date on which the bronze was cast : " Andreas Ugolini Nini de Pisis me fecit, A.D. MCCCXXX. But though the casting was made on this date, Andrea, assisted by Leonardo di Giovanni, spent nine years more upon the chasing and finishing. A hundred years later, Lorenzo Ghiberti, who wrought the famous Gate of Paradise, was employed to make the frieze which runs round the gate executed by Andrea, and after his death in 1454 further additions were made to it by Pollainolo. There are altogether twenty panels, representing the principal incidents in the life of St. John the Baptist.

These gates were erected during the artist's lifetime at the principal entrance opposite the facade of the Duomo, and the Signoria came in procession from the Palazzo Vecchio when they were put into place, and conferred upon the maker the freedom of the city. Demonstrations of this kind are worth recording, for they excite a spirit of emulation among other nations, and lead to a further development of artistic progress.

Andrea was a friend of Giotto, and contributed to the decoration of the Campanile, for which he carved several of the bas-reliefs upon the lower story. He also executed some statues for the niches of the Duomo facade.

He was an architect as well, and fortified the Palazzo Vecchio for Gaultier de Brienne, who, however, failed to find it a secure refuge from the fury of the people. He also erected the Baptistery of Pistoia, and dying at Florence in 1345 was buried in the Cathedral. The development of the art of sculpture due to the genius of these men is indeed marvelous, for though in later times there has been more freedom of movement than the sculptors of the thirteenth century could boast of, their conceptions have never been outdone in point of boldness and conscious strength. There is a clear analogy between the bas-reliefs of the Campanile and those on the fountain at Perugia, their epic outline and symbolic expression lending to them characteristics of grandeur and simplicity worthy of the best epoch of ancient sculpture. It may be said, in fact, that there was more profundity of thought and geniality of conception with the Italian sculptors of the thirteenth than with those of the fifteenth century, though the latter excelled their harmony and grace of outline.

ANDREA ORCAGNA. -(1328-1368.)

Although Andrea Oreagna, surnamed Cione after his father, Matteo Cione, has already been mentioned among the architects and painters of his day, his name cannot well be omitted from a chapter on sculpture. He was a goldsmith as well, and he was the maker of the original of the silver altar preserved in the treasury of the Duomo. This work, commenced in 1366, was destroyed in the course of some rebellion, but a new one was made, and a few parts of the original one let into it, by Ghiberti, Michelozzo, Pollaiuolo, and Verrocchio.

His brother, who was a painter, helped him with the frescoes of Santa Maria Novella, and he then set to work upon the celebrated decorations of the Campo Santo, which have rendered his name so famous, "The Triumph of Death" and "The Last Judgment." He transformed, as described in a previous chapter, Or San Michele from a corn market into a sanctuary, and carved the Gothic shrine of white marble which illustrates the history of the Madonna.

He also is sometimes credited with being the architect of the Loggia den Lanzi, and to all these gifts was added that of poetry, for he has left behind him many sonnets, and manuscripts of his are to be seen in the library of the Strozzi Palace and in the Magliabecchiana. There is some doubt as to whether he built the Certosa near Florence, though, as Niccolo Acciaiuoli, the founder, was a contemporary of his, it is generally supposed that he or one of his pupils should be credited with it. Orcagna was the last of the Pisano school, the members of which may very appropriately be classed with that of Florence, not merely because of the influence which they exercised upon art there, but because most of them were made citizens of Florence. And in classing them thus I am only following an example set by all historians of art, from Vasari down to Perkins.

JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA. -(1374-1438.)

This artist was not a Florentine, though it is not too much to describe him as the forerunner of Michael Angelo. Born at Siena in 1374, he executed, when only nineteen years of age, the equestrian statue in wood of Azzo Ubaldini, the celebrated soldier. He left Siena when the city surrendered to Giovanni Galeas Visconti, and' after earning a precarious livelihood for nine or ten years, he came to Florence, and took part in the competition organized by the Signoria for the Baptistery gates, coming out of it only second to Ghiberti and Brunelleschi. This proof of ability stood him in good stead, and he was employed to make the Porta dei Servi at Santa Maria del Fiore, his handiwork being plainly discernible in the " Madonna Bella Cintola," over one of the side doors, and in the mystic " Mandorla," with angels as supporters.

From Florence Jacopo repaired to Ferrara, where he executed the tomb of Vera, afterwards transferred by Annibale Bentivoglio to the church of San Giovanni Maggiore at Bologna. While at Ferrara he received an application to erect the fountain (1409-1419) upon the grand piazza at Siena, and "La Fonte Gaza," as it is called, is as celebrated as that erected by Pisano at Perugia, though it is of such singular construction that it is more like a water-tower than a fountain. This work was in such a dilapidated state that the municipality of Siena has recently had it restored, and the work, so far as it has gone, has been very conscientiously done.

Only a small fragment of the tomb erected by Jacopo in the cathedral of Lucca to Ilaria, the second wife of Pablo Guinigi, the signor of the city, is still extant, the remainder having been destroyed when Paolo was dethroned ; and the best specimen of his talent is to be seen in the decoration of the grand portal of the basilica of San Petronius at Bologna, with its fifteen bas-reliefs, which undoubtedly influenced Michael Angelo ; as may be seen by comparing certain parts of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with the portal of San Petronius.

Jacopo della Quercia returned to Siena, in accordance with the contract he had signed for two bas-reliefs for the Baptistery; he passed the last three years of his life there, dying in that city on the 20th of October, 1438.

LORENZO GHIBERTI. (1378-1455.)

The son of Cione di Ser Buonaccorso, born at Florence in 1378, bears one of the most popular names in the history of Florentine art, thanks to the Porte del Paradiso of the Baptistery, and an adequate biography of him would occupy a volume in itself.

He served his apprenticeship as a goldsmith under Bartolo di Michieli, who was his mother's second husband. In 1399 he went to Rimini, and attracted the notice of Carlo Malatesta, the uncle of Sigismundi, by some frescoes he executed in the palace ; but on hearing of the competition for the Baptistery gates he at once returned to Florence, and, as previously explained, was successful against such rivals as Brunelleschi and Quercia.

Ghiberti took twenty years to complete this work, though he had twenty assistants in the moulding and casting, among them being Donatello and Paolo Uccello. In 1424 the gates were placed in the position previously occupied by those of Andrea Pisano, just opposite the entrance to the Duomo, and the church-wardens of Santa Maria immediately commissioned him to make the second gates, for which Leonardo Bruni Aretino, the Secretary of the Republic, was requested to select the subjects. Ghiberti began these gates when quite a young man, and when they were finished he was seventy-four years old. It should be added, however, that be had undertaken several other works in the interval, including the St. Matthew, St. John, and St. Stephen at Or San Michele. He also left behind him bas-reliefs for the Baptistery font at Siena, funeral slabs at Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce, and the bronze shrine of San Zenobio, executed in 1446 for the Duomo at Florence.

Ghiberti left a diary, from which it is clear that many of his works have disappeared, and this may be regarded as a sort of poetical justice ; for, as already mentioned in the sketch of Brunelleschi, he acted in anything but an honorable way towards the latter when they were both engaged upon the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore.

Ghiberti was pre-eminently a painter and goldsmith, for in sculpture he attempted too much ; and instead of being content with the resources of an art which, from the very nature of the materials employed, is limited, he abused it by trying to obtain all the variety of a picture. The result arrived at is remarkable, beyond all doubt, but the principle itself is false, for it is unreasonable to ask from a material more than it is capable of giving. Even in the gates which are the creation of a goldsmith rather than of a sculptor he has represented the sky and passing clouds; and there is an anecdote told of a very competent judge of sculpture, who, passing in front of the Baptistery gate, said, "There is the man who has ruined sculpture." The judgment was a severe one, but it expresses, if in an exaggerated form, a true canon of art.

Ghiberti was less at home in the carving of statues than in fashioning shrines, mitres, and other ecclesiastical objects which he executed for the pontiffs. The complete list of his works is as follows: At the age of two-and-twenty he was at Rimini, where he did several enamels and frescoes for Carlo Malatesta. He commenced the Baptistery gates in 1403, and continued at work upon them for twenty years. In 1414 he cast the statue of St. John for Or San Michele, and in 1417 we find him at Siena, executing two bas-reliefs for the font, which, however, were not completed until 1427, and then at Rome, where he made a mitre and some other things for Pope Martin V. In 1419 he did the statue of St. Matthew for Or San Michele, and in 1424 he finished the first of the Baptistery gates, having between-whiles erected the tomb of Fra Leonardo di Stagio Dati.

Three years after this he erected the tomb of Lodovico degli Obizzi, and in the same year he began the second of the Baptistery gates. He did not, however, confine his attention to them alone, executing concurrently the tomb of Bartolommeo Valori, the two bas-reliefs of the Siena Baptistery, the shrine of San Zenobio, another shrine for Saints Proto, Giacinto, and Nimesio, and a mitre for Pope Eugenius IV. In 1452 he completed his second pair of Baptistery gates, and on the 1st of November, 1455, he died and was buried at Santa Croce.