Through Andrea Pisano the style of Niccola was extended to Venice. There is reason to believe that he instructed Filippo Calendario, to whom we should ascribe the sculptured corners of the Ducal Palace. Venice, however, invariably exercised her own controlling influence over the arts of aliens; so we find a larger, freer, richer, and more mundane treatment in these splendid carvings than in aught produced by Pisan workmen for their native towns of Tuscany.
Nino, the sculptor of the "Madonna della Rosa," the chief ornament of the Spina chapel, and Tommaso, both sons of Andrea da Pontadera, together with Giovanni Balduccio of Pisa, continued the traditions of the school founded by Niccola. Balduccio, invited by Azzo Visconti to Milan, carved the shrine of S. Peter Martyr in the church of S. Eustorgio, and impressed his style on Matteo da Campione, the sculptor of the shrine of S. Augustine at Pavia.[[75]] These facts, though briefly stated, are not without significance. Travellers who have visited the churches of Pavia and Milan, after studying the shrine, or arca as Italians call it, of S. Dominic at Bologna, must have noticed the ascendency of Pisan style in these three Lombard towns, and have felt how widely Niccola's creative genius was exercised. Traces of the same influence may perhaps be observed in the tombs of the Scaligers at Verona.[[76]]
The most eminent pupil of Andrea Pisano, however, was a Florentine—the great Andrea Arcagnuolo di Cione, commonly known as Orcagna. This man, like the more illustrious Giotto, was one among the earliest of those comprehensive, many-sided natures produced by Florence for her everlasting glory. He studied the goldsmith's craft under his father, Cione, passing the years of his apprenticeship, like other Tuscan artists, in the technical details of an industry that then supplied the strictest method of design. With his brother, Bernardo, he practised painting. Like Giotto, he was no mean poet;[[77]] and like all the higher craftsmen of his age, he was an architect. Though the church of Orsammichele owes its present form to Taddeo Gaddi, Orcagna, as capo maëstro after Gaddi's death, completed the structure; and though the Loggia de' Lanzi, long ascribed to him by writers upon architecture, is now known to be the work of Benci di Cione, yet Orcagna's Loggia del Bigallo, more modest but not less beautiful, prepared the way for its construction. Of his genius as a painter, proved by the frescoes in the Strozzi chapel, I shall have to speak hereafter. As a sculptor he is best known through the tabernacle of Orsammichele, built to enshrine the picture of the Madonna by Ugolino da Siena.[[78]]
In this monument Orcagna employed carved bas-reliefs and statuettes, intaglios and mosaics, incrustations of agates, enamels, and gilded glass patterns, with a sense of harmony so refined, and a mastery over each kind of workmanship so perfect, that the whole tabernacle is an epitome of the minor arts of mediæval Italy. The subordination of sculpture to architectural effect is noticeable; and the Giottesque influence appears even more strongly here than in the gate of Andrea Pisano. This influence Orcagna received indirectly through his master in stone carving; it formed, indeed, the motive force of figurative art during his lifetime. The subjects of the "Annunciation," the "Nativity," the "Marriage of the Virgin," and the "Adoration of the Three Kings," framed in octagonal mouldings at the base of the tabernacle, illustrate the domination of a spirit distinct both from the neo-Romanism of Niccola and the Gothicism of Giovanni Pisano. That spirit is Florentine in a general sense, and specifically Giottesque. Charity, again, with a flaming heart in her hand, crowned with a flaming brazier, and suckling a child, is Giottesque not only in allegorical conception but also in choice of type and treatment of drapery.
While admiring the tabernacle of Orsammichele, we are reminded that Orcagna was a goldsmith to begin with, and a painter. Sculpture he practised as an accessory. What the artists of Florence gained in delicacy of execution, accuracy of modelling, and precision of design by their apprenticeship to the goldsmith's trade, was hardly perhaps sufficient to compensate for loss of training in a larger style. It was difficult, we fancy, for men so educated to conceive the higher purposes of sculpture. Contented with elaborate workmanship and beauty of detail, they failed to attain to such independence of treatment as may be reached by sculptors who do not carry to their work the preconceptions of a narrower handicraft. Thus even Orcagna's masterpiece may strike us not as the plaything of a Pheidian genius condescending for once to "breathe through silver," but of a consummate goldsmith taxing the resources of his craft to form a monumental jewel.[[79]]
The façade of Orvieto was the final achievement of the first or architectural period of Italian sculpture. Giotto, Andrea Pisano, and Orcagna, formed the transition to the second period. To find one characteristic title for the style of the fifteenth century is not easy, since it was marked by many distinct peculiarities. If, however, we choose to call it pictorial, we shall sufficiently mark the quality of some eminent masters, and keep in view the supremacy of painting at this epoch. A great public enterprise at Florence brings together in honourable rivalry the chief craftsmen of the new age, and marks the advent of the Renaissance. When the Signory, in concert with the Arte de' Mercanti, decided to complete the bronze gates of the Baptistery in the first year of the fifteenth century, they issued a manifesto inviting the sculptors of Italy to prepare designs for competition. Their call was answered by Giacomo della Quercia of Siena, by Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo di Cino Ghiberti of Florence, and by two other Tuscan artists of less note. The young Donatello, aged sixteen, is said to have been consulted as to the rival merits of the proofs submitted to the judges. Thus the four great masters of Tuscan art in its prime met before the Florentine Baptistery.[[80]] Giacomo della Quercia was excluded from the competition at an early stage; but the umpires wavered long between Ghiberti and Brunelleschi, until the latter, with notable generosity, feeling the superiority of his rival, and conscious perhaps that his own laurels were to be gathered in the field of architecture, withdrew his claim. In 1403, Ghiberti received the commission for the first of the two remaining gates. He afterwards obtained the second; and as they were not finished until 1452, the better part of his lifetime was spent upon them. He received in all a sum of 30,798 golden florins for his labour and the cost of the material employed.
The trial-pieces prepared by Brunelleschi and Ghiberti are now preserved in the Bargello.[[81]] Their subject is the "Sacrifice of Isaac;" and a comparison of the two leaves no doubt of Ghiberti's superiority. The faults of Brunelleschi's model are want of repose and absence of composition. Abraham rushes in a frenzy of murderous agitation at his son, who writhes beneath the knife already at his throat. The angel swoops from heaven with extended arms, reaching forth one hand to show the ram to Abraham, and clasping the patriarch's wrist with the other. The ram meanwhile is scratching his nose with his near hind leg; one of the servants is taking a thorn from his foot, while the other fills a cup from the stream at which the ass is drinking. Thus each figure has a separate uneasy action. Those critics who contend that the unrest of sixteenth-century sculpture was due to changes in artistic and religious feeling wrought by the Renaissance, would do well to examine this plate, and see how much account must be taken of the artist's temperament in forming their opinion. Brunelleschi adhered to the style and taste of the fifteenth century at its commencement; but the too fervid quality of his character impaired his work as a sculptor. Ghiberti, on the other hand, translated the calm of his harmonious nature into his composition. The angel leans from heaven and points to the ram, which is seated quietly and out of sight of the main actors. Isaac kneels in the attitude of a submissive victim, though his head is turned aside, as if attracted by the rush of pinions through the air; while Abraham has but just lifted his hand, and the sacrifice is only suggested as a possibility by the naked knife. The two servants are grouped below in conversation, one on each side of the browsing ass. This power of telling a story plainly, but without dramatic vehemence; of eliminating the painful details of the subject, and combining its chief motives into one agreeable whole, gave peculiar charm to Ghiberti's manner. It marked him as an artist distinguished by good taste.
How Delia Quercia treated the "Sacrifice of Isaac" we do not know. His bas-reliefs upon the façade of S. Petronio at Bologna, and round the font of S. John's Chapel in the cathedral of Siena, enable us, however, to compare his style with that of Ghiberti in the handling of a subject common to both, the "Creation of Eve."[[82]] There is no doubt but that Della Quercia was a formidable rival. Had the gates of the Baptistery been entrusted to his execution, we might have possessed a masterpiece of more heroic style. While smoothness and an almost voluptuous suavity of outline distinguish Ghiberti's naked Eve, gliding upheld by angels from the side of Adam at her Maker's bidding, Della Quercia's group, by the concentration of robust and rugged power, anticipates the style of Michael Angelo. Ghiberti treats the subject pictorially, placing his figures in a landscape, and lavishing attendant angels. Della Quercia, in obedience to the stricter laws of sculpture, restrains his composition to the three chief persons, and brings them into close connection. While Adam reclines asleep in a beautiful and highly studied attitude, Eve has just stepped forth behind him, and God stands robed in massive drapery, raising His hand as though to draw her into life. There is, perhaps, an excess of dramatic action in the lifted right leg of Eve, and too much of pantomimic language in the expressive hands of Eve and her Creator. The robe, again, in its voluminous and snaky coils, and the triangular nimbus of the Deity, convey an effect of heaviness rather than of majesty. Yet we feel, while studying this composition, that it is a noble and original attempt, falling but little short of supreme accomplishment. Without this antecedent sketch, Michael Angelo might not have matured the most complete of all his designs in the Sistine Chapel. The similarity between Delia Quercia's bas-relief and Buonarroti's fresco of Eve is incontestable. The young Florentine, while an exile in Bologna, and engaged upon the shrine of S. Dominic, must have spent hours of study before the sculptures of S. Petronio; so that this seed of Della Quercia's sowing bore after many years the fruit of world-renowned achievement in Rome.
Two other memorable works of Della Quercia must be parenthetically mentioned. These are the Fonte Gaja on the public square of Siena, now unhappily restored, and the portrait of Ilaria del Carretto on her tomb in the cathedral of Lucca. The latter has long been dear to English students of Italian art through words inimitable for their strength of sympathetic criticism.[[83]]