Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/87

pleted in four years, representing passages from the life of Jesus Christ, in five compartments, on five of its sides, with a Universal Judgment on the sixth, giving his utmost care to the execution, in the hope of equalling, or perhaps of surpassing, that of Orvieto, then so much lauded. And as it appeared to him that he had produced a great and beautiful work, which was true, the age considered, he inscribed the following verses around the pulpit, above the columns supporting it, on the architrave :—

“ Hoc opus sculpsit Joannes, qui res non egit inanes
  Nicolai natus · · · · meliora beatus.
  Quem genuit Pisa, doctum super omnia visa.”

About the same time, and in the same city, Giovanni constructed the holy water font for the church of St. John the Baptist. This is in marble, supported by three figures— Temperance, Prudence, and Justice—and the work being then considered very beautiful, was placed in the centre of the church as something remarkable.^[1] Moreover, before he departed from Pistoja, Giovanni gave the plans for the campanile of St. Jacopo, the principal church of that city, although the church itself had not then been commenced. This tower, which stands on the Piazza di San Jacopo, and beside the church, bears the date 1301.

Pope Benedict IX^[2] dying soon after this in Perugia, Giovanni Pisano was invited to that city, where he constructed a marble tomb for the lately departed pontiff, in the old church of San Domenico of the Preaching Friars. The figure of Pope Benedict, taken from nature, and in his pontifical habits, is extended on the sarcophagus, between two angels, which support a canopy ; the Virgin stands above, with a saint on each side of her ; many other ornaments also, in marble, are cut around the monument. In the new church of the Preaching Friars, Giovanni likewise erected a tomb, that of Messer Niccolo Guidalotti, bishop of Recanati, a native of Perugia, who was founder of the new college, called the Sapienza, in that city. In this same new church, which had been founded by

manner with those constructed by Niccola Pisano for Pisa and Siena, in white marble that is, and with six sides, all highly enriched.

1. Now in a very grievous condition, yet, not so completely ruined, says Cicognara, as some waiters have said. It is no longer in the centre of the church, but near the side door.—Ed. Flor. 1846.
2. Vasari here means Benedict XI.