Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/90

76 character, a sort of Ser Ciappelletto, so to speak,— laid a plan for the abstraction of the holy girdle. This being discovered, the criminal suffered death for his sacrilege, at the hands of justice. But the people of Prato, alarmed for the safety of the girdle, resolved to build a strong and suitable receptacle for its better security. They accordingly summoned Giovanni, who was then getting old, and, by his counsels, they built a. They also greatly enlarged the church, from the designs of the same artist, covering the outside with black and white marble, as they did also with the campanile, which may be still seen At length, having now become very old, Giovanni Pisano expired in the year 1320, after having produced many works, both in sculpture and architecture, over and above those here enumerated. And, of a truth, we owe much gratitude both to himself and his father Niccola, seeing that, in times wholly destitute of any good ideas in design, and from the midst of profound darkness, they cast no small light on all pertaining to art; for that age, therefore, they were truly excellent. Giovanni was honourably interred in the Campo Santo, and in the same tomb with his father. He left many scholars who gained considerable repute after his death ; but, a sculptor and architect of Siena, was more particularly distinguished among them. He built the, in the Duomo of Pisa, and which is richly decorated in marble. Lino also erected the baptismal font of the same cathedral, inscribing his name among its ornaments.

Nor is it any cause of wonder that Niccola and Giovanni should have executed so large a number of works ; for, beside that both lived to a good old age, they were, at that time, the first masters in Europe, and there were few