Chap. IV. SCULPTURE IN CENTRAL ITALY. 115 Lucca, and other towns, examples of the twelfth and thir teenth centuries were numerous. With the assistance of these it may be possible to satisfy the following inquiries. Firstly: Was not Niccola the sole representative of the greatness of sculpture in the middle of the thirteenth century in central Italy? Secondly: Was not the art of Pistoia, Lucca, and Pisa one from which no good culti vation was to be expected? The earliest sculptures of Pistoia are those of Gruamons, who carved scriptural scenes of the rudest kind on the chief portal of S. Andrea 1 and on the architrave of the lateral portal of San Gio vanni Fuorcivitas. Both are inscribed, — the latter with the words: “Gruamons magister bonus fee. hoc opus.” but the epithet “bonus” applied to one so poor is a telling comment on the art of the time. Cotemporary with Gruamons was one who, in 1167, executed in relief the Saviour in the midst of the apostles on the architrave of the chief portal of S. Bartolommeo in Pantano. This rude work is inscribed “ Rudolf (?) no. S.P anni Domni. MCLXVII.” At S. Andrea again, the reliefs on the pilasters of the chief portal, representing incidents from the new testa ment, are the defective work of one signing himself “Magister Enricus me fecit.” Equally rude with the sculptors of Pistoia in the twelfth century were those of Lucca, one of whom, Biduinus, executed in low relief a subject on the architrave of the portal of the ex-church of San Salvadore, which he in scribed with the words: “Biduvino me fecit hoc opus.” in style as defective as the latin of the inscription. The period in which Biduino lived is revealed in the bas-re liefs cited by Morrona, at San Cassiano near Pisa. 2 He was an artist of the close of the twelfth century, and 1 The date 1166 and the sculp- j Pisa Illustrata. Livorno. 8°. 1812. tor’s name are inscribed. Both Vol. II. p. 33. are correctly given in Morrona. ] 2 Signed: “Hoc opus quod cernis 8*
