The origin of Pisa is very ancient, and is involved in obscurity. The Romans believed it to date from the days of Troy, and also gave a legendary account of its foundation by colonists from' Greece. Strabo mentions it as one of the bravest of the Etruscan cities. From Polybius we learn that in 225 b.c. it was already the friend of the Romans; and later it became their ally and was defended by them from the ferocious onslaughts of the Ligurian and Apuan tribes. Thus the Romans acquired great power over the city, and finally subjected it to their rule. In Caesar’s time according to some writers, in that of Augustus according to others, they established a military colony there. Nevertheless, excepting some inscriptions, sarcophagi, statues, and columns, very few remains of Roman buildings have been discovered in Pisa. Little is known of the history of Pisa during the barbarian invasions, but it is an ascertained fact that it was one of the first towns to regain its independence. Under the Byzantine dominion Pisa, like many other of the maritime cities of Italy, profited by the weakness of the Government at Constantinople to reassert its strength. And even during the first years of the harsh Lombard rule the need recognized by these oppressors of defending the Italian coast from the attacks of the Greeks was favourable to the development of the Pisan navy. Few particulars are extant concerning the real condition of the town; but we occasionally find Pisa mentioned, almost as though it were an independent city, at moments when Italy was overwhelmed by the greatest calamities. According to Amari’s happy expression, “it was already independent by sea, while still enslaved on land.” Its prosperity notably declined after the re-estab-iishment of the Lombard rule and under the Franks. It again began to flourish under the marquises of Tuscany, who governed it in the name of the emperor.

In 1003 we find records of a war between Pisa and Lucca, which, according to Muratori, was the first waged between Italian cities in the Middle Ages. But the military development and real importance of Pisa in the 11th century must be attributed to the continuous and desperate struggle it maintained against the tide of Saracenic invasion from Sicily. And, although the numerous legends and fables of the old chroniclers disguise the true history of this struggle, they serve to attest the importance of Pisa in those days. In 1004 the Saracens forced the gates and sacked a quarter of the town; and in 1011 they renewed the attack. But the Pisans repulsed them and assumed the offensive in Calabria, Sicily, and even in Africa. Still more memorable was the expedition afterwards undertaken by the united forces of Pisa and Genoa against Mogâhid, better known in the Italian chronicles as Mugeto. This Moslem chief had made himself master of Sardinia, and was driven thence by the allied fleets in 1015. Again invading the island, he was again attacked and defeated by the same adversaries, leaving a brother and son, or, as some authorities aver, a wife and son, prisoners in their hands. Sardinia continued to be governed by native magistrates, who were like petty sovereigns, but were now subject to the sway of Pisa. This was the primary cause of the jealousy of the Genoese, and of the wars afterwards made by them upon Pisa and carried on until its power was crushed. Meanwhile the Pisans flourished more and more, and continued hostilities against the Saracens. In 1062 their ships returned from Palermo laden with spoil. Thus it is not surprising that Pisa should already have hadJts own code of laws {Consuetudini di Mare), which m 1075 were approved by Gregory VII., and in 1081 confirmed by a patent from the emperor Henry IV., that supplies the first authentic notice of the existence of consuls in mediaeval Italy. The oldest of Pisan statutes still extant is the Breve dei Consoli di Mare of 1162.

In 1099 the Pisans joined in the second crusade, proved their valour at the capture of Jerusalem, and derived many commercial advantages from it; for within a short time they had banks, consuls, warehouses, and privileges of all kinds in every Eastern port. Thus, while the commune of Pisa was still under the rule of the marquises of Tuscany, all negotiations with it were carried on as with an independent state officially represented by the archbishop and consuls. The aristocrats were the dominant party, and filled the highest offices of the republic, which, in the 12 th century, rose to great power, both on sea and land, by its wars with the Lucchese, Genoese, and Moslems. In 1110 Pisa made peace with Lucca after six years of continuous hostilities. And between 1114 and 1116 it achieved a still greater enterprise. The Pisan fleet of three hundred sail, commanded by the archbishop Pietro Moriconi, attacked the Balearic Isles, where as many as 20,000 Christians were said to be held captive by the Moslems, and returned loaded with spoil and with a multitude of Christian and Moslem prisoners. The former were set at liberty or ransomed, and among the latter was the last descendant of the reigning dynasty. The chief eunuch who had governed Majorca perished in the siege. Immediately afterwards the fourteen years’ war with Genoa broke out. The two republics contested the dominion of the sea, and both claimed supreme power over the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. A papal edict awarding the supremacy of Corsica to the Pisan church proved sufficient cause for the war, which went on from 1118 to 1132. Then Innocent II. transferred the supremacy over part of Corsica to the Genoese church, and compensated Pisa by grants in Sardinia and elsewhere. Accordingly, to gratify the pope and the emperor Lothair II., the Pisans entered the Neapolitan territory to combat the Normans. They aided in the vigorous defence of the city of Naples, and twice attacked and pillaged Amalfi, in 1135 and 1137, with such effect that the town never regained its prosperity. It has been said that the copy of the Pandects then taken by the Pisans from Amalfi was the first known to them, but in fact they were already acquainted with those laws. The war with Genoa never came to a real end. Even after the retaking of Jerusalem by the Moslems (1187) the Pisans and Genoese again met in conflict in the East, and performed many deeds of valour. They were always ready to come to blows, and gave still more signal proofs of their enmity during the Sicilian war in behalf of the emperor Henry VI. From that moment it was plain that there could be no lasting peace between these rival powers until the one or the other should be crushed. The greatness and wealth of the Pisans at this period of their history is proved by the erection of the noble buildings by which their city is adorned. The foundations of the cathedral were laid in 1063, and its consecration took place in 1118; the baptistery was begun in 1152, and the campanile (the famous leaning tower) in 1174. And all three magnificent structures were mainly the work of Pisan artists, who gave new life to Italian architecture, as they afterwards renewed the art of sculpture.

It is asserted by some writers, especially by Tronci, that in the 12 th century Pisa adopted a more democratic form of government. But in fact the chief authority was still vested in the nobles, who, both in Pisa and in Sardinia, exercised almost sovereign power. They formed the real strength of the republic, and kept it faithful to the empire and the Ghibelline party. The Guelf and popular element which constituted the force and prosperity of Florence was hostile to Pisa, and led to its downfall. The independence of the former city was of much later origin, only dating from the death of Countess Matilda (1115), but it rapidly rose to an ever-increasing power, and to inevitable rivalry with Pisa. Owing to the political and commercial interests binding Florence to the Roman court, the Guelf element naturally prevailed there, while the growth of its trade and commerce necessarily compelled that state to encroach on waters subject to Pisan rule. And, although Pisa had hitherto been able to oppose a glorious resistance to Genoa and Lucca, it was not so easy to continue the struggle when its enemies were backed by the arms and political wisdom of the Florentines, who were skilled in obtaining powerful allies. The chroniclers ascribe the first war with Florence, which broke out in 1222, to a most ridiculous motive. The ambassadors of the rival states in Rome are said to have quarrelled about a lapdog. This merely shows that there were already so many general and permanent reasons for war that no special cause was needed to provoke it. In 1228 the Pisans met and defeated the united forces of Florence and Lucca near Barga in the Garfagnana, and at the same time they despatched fifty-two galleys to assist Frederick II. in his expedition to the East. Shortly after this they renewed hostilities with the Genoese on account of Sardinia. The judges who governed the island were always at strife, and, as some of them applied to Pisa and some to Genoa for assistance against one another, the Italian seas were once more stained with blood, and the war burst out again and again, down to 1259, when it terminated in the decisive victory of the Pisans and the consolidation of their supremacy in Sardinia. But meanwhile Florence had made alliance with Genoa, Lucca, and all the Guelf cities of Tuscany against its Ghibelline rival. The pope had excommunicated Frederick II. and all his adherents. And, as a crowning disaster, the death of Frederick in 1250 proved a mortal blow to the Italian Ghibelline cause. Nevertheless the Pisans were undaunted. Summoning Siena, Pistoia, and the Florentine exiles to their aid, they boldly faced their foe, but were defeated in 1254. Soon after this date we find the old aristocratic government of Pisa replaced by a more popular form. Instead of the consuls there were now twelve elders (anziani') ∙, besides the podestà, there was a captain of the people; and there was a general council as well as a senate of forty members. The rout of the Tuscan Guelfs on the field of Montaperto (1260) restored the fortunes of Pisa. But the battle of Benevento (1266), where Manfred fell, and the rout of Tagliacozzo (1268), sealing the ruin of the house of Hohenstauffen in Italy and the triumph of that of Anjou, were fatal to Pisa. For the republic had always sided with the empire and favoured Conradin, whose cruel end struck terror into the Ghibelline faction. The pope hurled an edict against the Pisans and tried to deprive them of Sardinia, while their merchants were driven from Sicily by the Angevins. The internal condition of the city was affected by these events. Owing to the increasing influence of the Guelf and popular side, to which the more ambitious nobles began to adhere for the furtherance of personal aims, the aristocratic Ghibelline party was rapidly losing ground. The first man to step to the front at this moment was Count Ugolino della Gherardesca of the powerful house of that name. He had become the virtual head of the republic, and, in order to preserve its independence and his own sway, inclined to the Guelfs and the popular party, in spite of the Ghibelline traditions of his race. He was supported by his kinsman Giovanni Visconti, judge of Gallura; but almost all the other great families vowed eternal hatred against him, and proclaimed him a traitor to his party, his country, and his kin. So in 1274 he and Visconti were driven into exile. Both then joined the Florentines, took part in the war against their native city, and laid waste its surrounding territories. In 1276 the Pisans were compelled to agree to very grievous terms,—to exempt Florentine merchandise from all harbour dues, to yield certain strongholds to Lucca, and to permit the return of Count Ugolino, whose houses they had burnt, and whose lands they had confiscated. Thus the count again became a powerful leader in Pisa. Visconti, however, was dead.

This was the moment chosen by Genoa for a desperate and decisive struggle with her perpetual rival. For some years the hostile fleets continued to harass each other and engage in petty skirmishes, as if to measure their strength and prepare for a final effort. On the 6th August 1284 the great battle of Meloria took place. Here seventy-two Pisan galleys engaged eighty-eight Genoese, and half the Pisan fleet was destroyed. The chroniclers speak of 5000 killed and 11,000 prisoners; and, although these figures must be exaggerated, so great was the number of captives taken by the Genoese as to give rise to the saying—“To see Pisa, you must now go to Genoa.” This defeat crushed the power of Pisa. She had lost her dominion over the sea, and the Tuscan Guelfs again joined in attacking her by land. Count Ugolino had taken part in the battle of Meloria and was accused of treachery. At the height of his country’s disasters, he sought to confirm his own power by making terms with the Florentines, by yielding certain castles to Lucca, and by neglecting to conclude negotiations with the Genoese for the release of the prisoners, lest these should all prove more or less hostile to himself. This excited a storm of opposition against him. The archbishop Ruggieri, having put himself at the head of the nobles, was elected podestà by the Lanfranchi, Sismondi, and Gualandi, and a section of the popular party. The city was plunged into civil war. The great bell of the commune called together the adherents of the archbishop; the bell of the people summoned the partisans of the count. After a day’s fighting (1st July 1288) the count, his two sons, and his two nephews were captured in the Palazzo del Popolo (or town hall), and cast into a tower belonging to the Gualandi and known as the “Tower of the Seven Streets.” Here they were all left to die of hunger. Their tragic end was afterwards immortalized in the Divina Commedia. The sympathies of Dante Alighieri, the Florentine patriot and foe of Rome, were naturally in favour of the victims of an aristoβratic prelate, opposed to all reconciliation with Florence.

The Florentines were now allied with Lucca and Genoa, and a few of their vessels succeeded in forcing an entry into the Pisan port, blocked it with sunken boats, and seized its towers. Their own internal dissensions of 1293 put a stop to the campaign, but not before they had concluded an advantageous peace. They and all the members of the Guelf league were freed from all imposts in Pisa and its port. In addition to these privileges the Genoese also held Corsica and part of Sardinia; and throughout the island of Elba they were exempted from every tax. They likewise received a ransom of 160,000 lire for their Pisan prisoners. These were no longer numerous, many having succumbed to the hardships and sufferings of all kinds to which they had been exposed.

In 1312 the arrival of the emperor Henry VII. gladdened the hearts of the Pisans, but his sudden death in 1313 again overthrew their hopes. He was interred at Pisa, and Uguccione della Faggiuola remained as imperial lieutenant, was elected podestà and captain of the people, and thus became virtual lord of the city. As a Ghibelline chief of valour and renown, he was able to restore the military prestige of the Pisans, who under his command, captured Lucca and defeated the Florentines at Montecatini on the 29th August 1315. So tyrannical, however, was his rule that in 1316 he was expelled by the popular fury. But Pisa’s freedom was for ever lost. He was succeeded by other lords or tyrants, of whom the most renowned was Castruccio Castracane, a political and military adventurer of much the same stamp as Uguccione himself. With the help of Louis the Bavarian, Castruccio became lord of Lucca and Pisa, and was victorious over the Florentines; but his premature death in 1328 again left the city a prey to the conflicts of opposing factions. New lords, or petty tyrants, rose to power in turn during this period of civil discord, but the military valour of the Pisans was not yet extinguished. By sea they were almost impotent—Corsica and Sardinia were lost to them for ever; but they were still formidable by land. In 1341 they besieged Lucca in order to prevent the entry of the Florentines, to whom the city had been sold for 250,000 florins by the powerful Mastino della Scala. Aided by their Milanese, Mantuan, and Paduan allies, they gave battle to their rivals, put them to rout at Altopascio (2nd October), and then again excluded them from their port. Thereupon the Florentines obtained Porto Talamone from Siena and established a navy of their own. By this means they were enabled to capture the island of Giglio, and, attacking the Pisan harbour, carried off its chains, bore them in triumph to Florence, and suspended them in front of the baptistery, where they remained until 1848. Then, in pledge of the brotherhood of all Italian cities, they were given back to Pisa, and placed in the Campo Santo.

The war was now carried on by the free companies with varying fortune, but always more or less to the hurt of the Pisans. In 1369 Lucca was taken from them by the emperor Charles IV.; and afterwards Giovan Galeazzo Visconti, known as the count of Virtù, determined to forward his ambitious designs upon the whole of Italy by wresting Pisa from the Gambacorti. For at this time the conflicts of the Raspanti faction, headed by the Gherardesca, with the Bergolini led by the Gambacorti, had left the latter family masters of the city. At Visconti’s instigation Piero Gambacorti, the ruler of the moment, was treacherously assassinated by Jacopo d’Appiano, who succeeded him as tyrant of Pisa, and bequeathed the state to his son Gherardo. The latter, a man of inferior ability and daring, sold Pisa to the count of Virtù, receiving in exchange 200,000 florins, Piombino, and the islands of Elba, Pianosa, and Monte Cristo. Thus in 1399 Visconti took possession of Pisa, and left it to his natural son Gabriele Maria Visconti, who was afterwards expelled from its gates. But even during this century of disaster the Pisans continued to cherish the fine arts. In the year 1278 they had entrusted the erection of their fine Campo Santo to Niccola and Giovanni Pisano, by whom the architectural part of it was completed towards the end of the century. In the following year the first artists of Italy were engaged in its decoration, and Orcagna painted his celebrated frescos on its walls. Others were afterwards supplied by Benozzo Gozzoli and men of lesser note, and the labour of ornamentation was only discontinued in 1464.

Meanwhile, in 1406, the Florentines ςpade another attack upon Pisa, besieging it simultaneously by sea and land. Owing to the starving condition of its defenders, and aided by the treachery of Giovanni Gambacorti, they entered the city in triumph on the 9th October, and sought to “crush every germ of rebellion and drive out its citizens by measures of the utmost harshness and cruelty.” Such were the orders sent by the Ten of War to the representatives of the Florentine Government in Pisa, and such was then the established policy of every Italian state. Consequently for a long time there was a continual stream of emigration from Pisa. The Medici pursued a humaner course. In 1472 Lorenzo the Magnificent tried to restore the ancient renown of the Pisan university. To that end he filled it with celebrated scholars, and, leaving only a few chairs of letters and philosophy in Florence, compelled the Florentines to resort to Pisa for the prosecution of their studies. But nothing could now allay the inextinguishable hatred of the conquered people. When Charles VIII. made his descent into Italy in 1494, and came to Sarzana on his way to Tuscany, he was welcomed by the Pisans with the greatest demonstrations...

Andrea Pisano had two sons, Nino and Tommaso,—both, especially the former, sculptors of considerable ability. Nino was very successful in his statues of the Madonna and Child, which are full of human feeling and soft loveliness,—a perfect embodiment of the Catholic ideal of the Divine Mother. Andrea’s chief pupil was Andrea di Cione, better known as Orcagna (j.v.). Balduccio di Pisa, another, and in one branch (that of sculpture) equally gifted pupil, executed the wonderful shrine of S. Eustorgio at Milan—a most magnificent mass of sculptured figures and reliefs.

PISANO, Giovanni (c. 1250-1330), son of Niccola Pisano (see below), born about 1250, was but little inferior to his father either as an architect or a sculptor. Together with Arnolfo del Cambio and other pupils, he developed and extended into other parts of Italy the renaissance of sculpture which in the main was due to the extraordinary talent of that distinguished artist. After he had spent the first part of his life at home as a pupil and fellow-worker of Niccola, the younger Pisano was summoned between 1270 and 1274 to Naples, where he worked for Charles of Anjou on the Castel Nuovo. One of his earliest independent performances was the Campo Santo at Pisa, finished about 1283; along with this he executed various pieces of sculpture over the main door and inside the cloister. The richest in design of all his works (finished about 1286) is in the cathedral of Arezzo,—a magnificent marble high altar and reredos, adorned both in front and at the back with countless figures and reliefs—mostly illustrative of the lives of St Gregory and St Donato, whose bones are enshrined there. The actual execution of this was probably wholly the work of his pupils. In 1290 Giovanni was appointed architect or “capo maestro” of the new cathedral at Siena, in which office he succeeded Lorenzo Maitani, who went to Orvieto to build the less ambitious but equally magnificent duomo which had just been founded there. The design of the gorgeous façade of that duomo has been attributed to him, but it is more probable that he only carried out Maitani’s design. , According to Vasari, Giovanni and other pupils of Niccola also executed the bas-reliefs on the west front of Orvieto, but this assertion is unsupported by any documentary evidence. At Perugia, Gioy⅛nni built the church of S. Domenico in 1304, but little of the original structure remains. The north transept, however, still contains his beautiful tomb of Benedict XI., with a sleeping figure of the pope, guarded by angels who draw aside the curtain (see woodcut).

Above is a sculptured plinth supporting canopied figures of the Madonna and other saints. The whole composition is framed by a high cusped and gabled arch, on twisted columns, enriched with glass mosaic in the style of the Cosmati. The general design is like the earlier tomb of Cardinal de Braye at Orvieto, the work of Giovanni’s fellow-pupil, Arnolfo del Cambio.

One of Giovanni’s most beautiful architectural works is the little chapel of S. Maria della Spina, on the banks of the Arno in Pisa; the actual execution of this gem-like chapel, and the sculpture with which it is adorned, was mostly the work of his pupils. This exquisite little building has recently been pulled down and rebuilt, under the pretext of “restoration.”

The influence of his father Niccola is seen strongly in all

Giovanni’s works, but especially in the pulpit of S. Andrea at Pistoia, executed about 1300. In design it resembles that in the Pisan bàptistery; but the reliefs are less severely classical, and more full of vivid dramatic power and complicated motives. Another pulpit, designed on the same lines, was made by him for the nave of Pisa cathedral between 1310 and 1311. Only fragments of this now exist, but it is in course of restoration. The last part of Giovanni’s life was spent at Prato, near Florence, where with many pupils he worked at the cathedral till his death about 1330.

PISANO, Niccola. (c. 1206-1278), one of the chief sculptors and architects of mediaeval Italy, was born about 1206. Though he called himself Pisanus, from Pisa, where most of his life was spent, he was not a Pisan by birth. There are two distinct accounts of his parentage, both derived mainly from existing documents. According to one of these he is said to have been the son of “Petrus, a notary of Siena;” but this statement is very doubtful, especially as the word “Siena” or “de Senis” appears to be a conjectural addition. Another document among the archives of the Sienese cathedral calls him son of “Petrus de Apulia.” Crowe and Cavalcaselle, as well as the majority of modern writers, accept the latter statement, and believe that he not only was a native of the province of Apulia in southern Italy, but also that he gained there his early instruction in the arts of sculpture and architecture. Those on the other hand who, with most of the older writers, prefer to accept the theory of Niccola’s origin being Tuscan suppose that he was a native of a small town called Apulia near Lucca. As is the case with the biographies of so many of those artists who lived long before Vasari’s own time, that author’s account of Niccola is quite untrustworthy. There is no doubt that in the century preceding Niccola Pisano’s birth Apulia, and the southern provinces generally, were more advanced in the plastic art than any part of northern Italy—witness especially the magnificent architecture and sculpture in the cathedrals of Salerno, Bari, Amalfi, Ravello, and many others, in which still exist bronze doors, marble pulpits, and other works of art of great merit, dating from the 11th and 12th centuries,—a period when northern Italy produced very little art-work of any real beauty. That the young Niccola Pisano saw and was influenced by these things cannot be denied, but Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in their eagerness to contradict the old traditions, go very much too far when they deny the story, told by Vasari, of Niccola’s admiration for and keen study of the remains of ancient Roman sculpture which were then beginning to be sought for and appreciated. In Niccola Pisano’s works it is somewhat difficult to trace the direct influence of Apulian art, while in many of them, especially the panel-reliefs of his Pisan pulpit (see figure), classical feeling is apparent in every fold of the drapery, in the modelling of the nude, and in the dignified reserve of the main lines of the composition.

For all that, Niccola was no dull copyist; though he emancipated himself from the stiffness and unreality of earlier sculpture, yet his admiration and knowledge of the physical beauty of the human form in no way detracted from the purity and religious spirit of his subjects. Though pagan in their beauty of modelling and grace of attitude, his Madonnas are as worshipful, and his saints as saintly, as those of any sculptor the world has ever seen. With true genius he opened out to the church a new field in which all the gifts of God, even purely physical ones, were made use of and adopted as types and symbols of inward purity and love—not repudiated and suppressed as snares of the evil one. Except through his works, but little is known of the history of Niccola’s life. As early as 1221 he is said to have been summoned to Naples by Frederick II., to do work in the new Castel dell’ Uovo. This fact supports the theory of his southern origin, though not perhaps very strongly, as, some years before, the Pisan Bonannus had been chosen by the Norman king as the sculptor to cast one of the bronze doors for Monreale cathedral, where it still exists. The earliest existing piece of sculpture which can be attributed to Niccola is a beautiful relief of the Deposition from the Cross in the tympanum of the arch of a side door at San Martino at Lucca; it is remarkable for its graceful composition and delicate finish of execution. The date is about 1237. In 1260, as an incised inscription records, he finished the marble pulpit for the Pisan baptistery; this is on the whole the finest of his works.

It is a high octagon, on semicircular arches, with trefoil cusps, supported by nine marble columns, three of which rest on white marble lions. In design it presents that curious combination of Gothic forms with classical details which is one of the characteristics of the mediaeval architecture of northern Italy; though much enriched with sculpture both in relief and in the round, the general lines of the design are not sacrificed to this, but the sculpture is kept subordinate to the whole. In this respect it is superior to the more magnificent pulpit at Siena, one of Niccola’s later works, w⅛ich suffers greatly from want of repose and purity of outline, owing to its being overloaded with reliefs and statuettes. Five of the sides of the main octagon have panels with subjects— the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, the Crucifixion, and the Doom, These are all, especially the first three, works of the highest beauty, and a wonderful advance on anything of the sort that had been produced by Niccola’s predecessors. The drapery is gracefully arranged in broad simple folds; the heads are full of the most noble dignity; and the sweet yet stately beauty of the Madonna could hardly be surpassed. The panel with the Adoration of the Magi is perhaps the one in which Niccola’s study of the antique is most apparent (see figure). The veiled and diademed figure of the Virgin Mother, seated on a throne, recalls the Roman Juno; the head of Joseph behind her might be that of Vulcan; while the youthful beauty of an Apollo and the mature dignity of a Jupiter are suggested by the standing and kneeling figures of the Magi. Certain figures in others of the panels are no less deeply imbued with classical feeling.

The next important work of Niccola in date is the Area di San Domenico, in the church at Bologna consecrated to that saint, who died in 1221. Only the main part, the actual sarcophagus covered with sculptured reliefs of St Dominic’s life, is the work of Niccola and his pupils. The sculptured base and curved roof with its fanciful ornaments are later additions. This “Area” was made when St Dominic was canonized, and his bones translated; it was finished in 1267, not by Niccola himself, but by his pupils. The most magnificent, though not the most beautiful, of Niccola’s works is the great pulpit in Siena cathedral (1268). It is much larger than that at Pisa, though somewhat similar in general design, being an octagon on cusped arches and columns. Its stairs, and a large landing at the top, with carved balusters and panels, rich with semi-classical foliage, are an addition of about 1500. The pulpit itself is much overloaded with sculpture, and each relief is far too crowded with figures. An attempt to gain magnificence of effect has destroyed the dignified simplicity for which the earlier pulpit is so remarkable.

Niccola’s last great work of sculpture was the fountain in the piazza opposite the west end of the cathedral at Perugia. This is a series of basins rising one above another, each with sculptured bas-reliefs; it was begun in 1274, and completed, except the topmost basin, which is of bronze, by Niccola’s son and pupil Giovanni.

Niccola Pisano was not only pre-eminent as a sculptor, but was also the greatest Italian architect of his century; he designed a number of very important buildings, though not all which are attributed to him by Vasari. Among those now existing, the chief are the main part of the cathedral at Pistoia, the church and convent of Sta Margherita at Cortona, and Sta Trinita at Florence. The church of Sant’ Antonio at Padua has also been attributed to him, but without reason. Unfortunately his architectural works have in most cases been much altered and modernized. Niccola was also a skilled engineer, and was compelled by the Florentines to destroy the great tower, called the Guarda-morto, which overshadowed the baptistery at Florence, and had for long been the scene of violent conflicts between the Guelfs and Ghibellines. He managed skilfully so that it should fall without injuring the baptistery. Niccola Pisano died at Pisa in the year 1278, leaving his son Giovanni a worthy successor to his great talents both as an architect and sculptor.

Though his importance as a reviver of the old traditions of beauty in art has been to some extent exaggerated by Vasari, yet it is probable that he, more than any other one man, was the means of starting that “new birth” of the plastic arts which, in the years following his death, was so fertile in countless works of the most unrivalled beauty. Both Niccola and his son had many pupils of great artistic power, and these carried the influence of the Pisani throughout Tuscany and northern Italy, so that the whole art of the succeeding generations may be said to have owed the greater part of its rapid development to this one family.

On the three preceding Pisani see Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. i.. 1864; Cicognara, Storia della Scultura, 1823-24; Gaye, Kunstblatt, 1839; Riimohr, italienische Forschungen, 1827-31; Milancsi, Documenti dell' Arte and Vita di Niccola Pisano·, Vasari, Milanesi's ed., i. p. 293 and 481, 1882; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Painting in Italy, 1864-66; Gruner, Μarmor- Bildwerke der Schule der Pisaner, 1858; Leader Scott, Early Italian Sculptors, 1882; Symonds, Renaissance in Italy : Fine Arts, p. 100 sq., 1877; Dohme, Kunst und Künstler Italiens, Leipsic, 1878; Le tre porte del Battistero di Firente, 1821. (J. H. Μ.)

PISANO, Vittore (c. 1380-1456), commonly called Pisanello, the greatest of Italian medallists, was a native of San Vigilio sul Lago in the territory of Verona. Specimens of his work as a painter are still extant in Rome, Venice, Verona, and Pistoia, and entitle him to a place of some distinction in the history of that art. The National Gallery in London possesses a very fine specimen of Pisanello’s work—a panel painted with miniature-like delicacy. For his pre-eminent position as a medallist, see Numismatics, vol. xvii. p. 657. During the latter portion of his life he lived in Rome, where he enjoyed great repute.

To explain this influence and the whole importance of Leonardo’s scientific work, we must rapidly sketch the state of mathematics about the year 1200. The Greeks, the most geometrical nation on the earth, had attained a high degree of scientific perfection, when they were obliged to yield to the political supremacy of Rome. From this time mathematics in Europe sunk lower and. lower, till only some sorry fragments of the science were still preserved in the cell of the studious monk and behind the counting-board of the eager merchant. Geometry was nearly forgotten; arithmetic made use of the abacus with counters, or with the nine characters the origin of which is still a matter of controversy (see Numerals); the zero was still unknown. Among the Arabs it was quite otherwise. Greek mathematics found amongst them a second home, where the science was not only preserved but came to new strength, and was recruited from India, whence in particular came the symbol “zero” and its use, which alone jenders possible numerical calculation in the modern sense of the word. Ancient astronomy as well as ancient mathematics reappeared in Europe, from the beginning of the 12th century onwards, in an Arabian dress. Two men especially recognized the worth of these sciences and made it the task of their life to propagate them amongst their contemporaries,—the German monk Jordanus Nemorarius and the Italian merchant Leonardos Pisanus. Leonardo, as we have said, travelled all round the Mediterranean gathering knowledge of every kind. He studied the geometry of Euclid, the algebra of Mohammed ibn Musa Alcharizmi; he made himself acquainted with Indian methods; he found out by himself new theories. So runs his own account; and an exact comparison of Leonardo’s works with older sources not only confirms the truth of his narrative, but shows also that he must have studied some other authors,—for instance, Alkarchi. In his Practica Geometriae plain traces of the use of the Roman “agrimensores” are met with; in his Liber Abaci old Egyptian problems occur revealing their origin by the reappearance of the very numbers in which the problem is given, though one cannot guess through what channel they came to Leonardo’s knowledge. Leonardo cannot now be regarded (as Cossali regarded him about 1800) as the inventor of that very great variety of truths for which he mentions no earlier source. But even were the predecessors to whom he is indebted mote numerous than we are inclined to believe, were he the Columbus only of a territory the existence of which was unknown to his century, the historical importance of the man would be nearly the same. We must remember the general ignorance of his age, and then fancy the sudden appearance of a work like the Liber Abaci, which fills 459 printed pages. These pages set forth the most perfect methods of calculating with whole numbers and with fractions, practice, extraction of the square and cube roots, proportion, éhain rule, finding of proportional parts, averages, progressions, even compound interest, just as in the completest mercantile arithmetics of our days. They teach further the solution of problems leading to equations of the first and second degree, to determinate and indeterminate equations, not by single and double position only, but by real algebra, proved by means of geometric constructions, and including the use of letters as symbols for known numbers, the unknown quantity being called res and its square census. We may well wonder, not that the impression caused by a work of such overwhelming character was so deep, but that it made any impression at all, and that the unprepared soil could receive the seed. The second work of Leonardo, his Practica Geometriae (1220), is still more remarkable, sinep it requires readers already acquainted with Euclid’s planimetry, who are able to follow rigorous demonstrations and feel the necessity for them. Among the contents of this book we simply mention a trigonometrical chapter, in which the words sinus versus arcus occur, the approximate extraction of cube roots shown more at large than in the Liber Abaci, and a very curious problem, which nobody would search for in a geometrical work, viz., to find a square number which remains a square number when 5 is added to it. This problem evidently suggested the first question put to our mathematician in presence of the emperor by John of Palermo, who, perhaps, was quite enough Leonardo’s friend to set him such problems only as he had himself asked for. The problem was :—To find a square number remaining so after the addition as well as the subtraction of 5. Leonardo gave as solution the numbers ll 1 ¾ 7 τ , 16 1 ¾, and 6⅛ r τ ,—the squares of 3⅛, 4⅛, and 2⅛ and the Liber Quadratorum gives the method of finding them, which we cannot discuss here. We observe, however, that the kind of problem was not new. Arabian authors already had found three square numbers of equal difference, but the difference itself had not been assigned in proposing the question. Leonardo’s method, therefore, when the difference was a fixed condition of the problem, was necessarily very different from the Arabian, and, in all probability, was his own discovery. The Flos of Leonardo turns on the second question set by John of Palermo, which required the solution of the cubic equation ≈ 3 + 2x 2 + 10ic = 20. Leonardo, making use of fractions of the sexagesimal scale, gives z=l 0 22 i 7 li 42 iii 33 iv 4 v 40 τl , after having demonstrated, by a discussion founded on the 10th book of Euclid, that a solution by square roots is impossible. It is much to be deplored that Leonardo does not give the least intimation how he found his approximative value, outrunning by this result more than three centuries. Genocchi believes Leonardo to have been in possession of a certain method called regula aurea by Cardan in the 16th century, but this is a mere hypothesis without solid foundation. In the Flos equations with negative values of the unknown quantity are also to be met with, and Leonardo perfectly understands the meaning of these negative solutions. In the Letter to Magister Theodore indeterminate problems are chiefly worked, and Leonardo hints at his being able to solve by a general method any problem of this kind not exceeding the first degree. We have enumerated the main substance of what appear to be Leonardo’s own discoveries, and the experienced reader will not hesitate to conclude that they prove him to have been one of the greatest algebraists of any time. As for the influence he exercised on posterity, it is enough to say that Luca Pacioli, about 1500, in his celebrated Summa, leans so exclusively to Leonardo’s works (at that time known in manuscript only) that he frankly acknowledges his dependence on them, and states that wherever no other author is quoted all belongs to Leonardus Pisanus. (Μ. CA. )