vanni : among the many spoils of marbles brought by the armaments of Pisa to their city, were several antique sarcophagi, now in the Campo Santo of that town : one of these, on which the Chase of Meleager and the Calydonian boar was cut with great truth and beauty, surpassed all the others ; the nude, as well as draped figures, being perfect in design, and executed with great skill. This sarcophagus having been placed, for its beauty, by the Pisans, in that façade of the cathedral which is opposite to San Rocco, and beside the principal door of that front, was used as a tomb for the mother of the Countess Matilda, if we may credit the following words, inscribed on the marble :—
“a.d. mcxvi. Kal. Aug. obiit D. Matilda felicis memorise comitissa, quas pro anima genitricis suae D. Beatricis comitissae venerabilis in hac tumba honorabili quiescentis in multis partibus mirifice hanc dotavit ecclesiam, quarum animae requiescant in pace.” Then,“ a.d. mccciii sub dignissimo operario Burgundio Tadi occasione graduum fiendorum per ipsum circa ecclesiam supradicta tumba superius notata translata fuit, nunc de sedibus primis in ecclesiam, nunc de ecclesia in hanc locum, ut cernitis, eccellentem.”
Niccola was attracted by the excellence of this work, in which he greatly delighted, and which he studied diligently, with the many other valuable sculptures of the relics around him, imitating the admirable manner of these works with so much success, that no long time had elapsed before he was esteemed the best sculptor of his time. In those days, no sculptor of great eminence, beside Arnolfo,[1] existed in Tuscany, with the exception of Fuccio, a Florentine architect and sculptor, who built the church of Santa Maria sopra Arno, in Florence, in the year 1229, placing his name over one of the doors of the building. This artist also executed the tomb of the Queen of Cyprus, in the church of San Francesco at Assisi, a monument in marble, adorned with many figures, and particularly with the portrait of the queen herself, seated on a lion, to typify the force of mind of this princess ; who left large sums of money, at her death, for the completion of the fabric. But Niccola, having proved himself a much better master than Fuccio, was invited to Bologna in the year 1225, where he was entrusted with the execution of
- ↑ From this mode of expression, it might seem that Arnolfo had rather preceded Niccola, than been his disciple, as was the fact. — Ed. Flor. 1846.
