In a like degree, though not for the same reason, sculpture in Italy remained subordinate to architecture, until such time as the neo-Hellenism of the full Renaissance produced a crowd of pseudo-classic statues, destined to take their places—­not in churches, but in the courtyards of palaces and on the open squares of cities.  The cause of this fact is not far to seek.  In ancient Greece the temple had been erected for the god, and the statue dwelt within the cella like a master in his house.  Christianity forbade an image of the living God; consequently the Church had another object than to roof the statue of a deity.  It was the meeting-place of a congregation bent on worshipping Him who dwells not in houses made with hands, and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain.  The vast spaces and aerial arcades of mediaeval architecture had their meaning in relation to the mystic apprehension of an unseen power.  It followed of necessity that the carved work destined to decorate a Christian temple could never be the main feature of the building.  It existed for the Church, and not the Church for it.[74]

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