In Bologna is an interesting crucifix probably carved in the eighth 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 his designs and methods proves his immense originality.  By profession he was an architect.  Of his pulpit in Siena Charles Eliot Norton speaks with much appreciation.  Alluding to the lions used as bases to its columns, he says:  “These are the first realistic representations of living animals which the mediaeval revival of art has produced; and in vivacity and energy of rendering, and in the thoroughly artistic treatment