Chap. IV. PROGRESS OF SCULPTURE. 153 the state to which it had been reduced previous to Nic- cola, and the changes which it underwent in his hands. It is evident that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as in earlier ages, sculptors existed in every part of Italy, but that, having lost the true idea of form, they had preserved merely the traditions of Christian composition. In the South of Italy however, a vein of the imitative antique had extended and still derived life, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from a source which elsewhere had been clearly exhausted. That classicism, suddenly transported to Central Italy by Niccola, should naturally create wonder amongst men reduced to an almost primitive generalization of art, was only what might have been ex pected. Conventional as Niccola’s manner was, it could not but create emulation and rivalry in the study of mere form; and the examples of Pisa in this sense were of advantage to all the schools of Italy. But whilst Niccola infused a new spirit into the minds of his countrymen, he could lay no claim to the creation of Christian types. His art, had it remained unsupported by the new current of religious and political thought so sensible in the thirteenth century, would perhaps have perished without leaving a trace behind it. Mere classical imitation could not suf fice for the wants of the time; and thus it was that, whilst Niccola created on one side an emulation that was to produce the noblest fruits, he was himself convinced that, without a return to the study of nature, no progress was possible. In his attempt to graft on the conventional imitation of the antique a study of nature he failed; nor would his son and pupils have succeeded even in the measure which is visible in their works but for the examples which were created for them in another and greater school, — the Florentine. The spirit which had been roused throughout Italy by the examples and mi racles of S. Francis contributed to the development of an art based on nobler principles than those of mere imitation, and that spirit, of which Giotto was the in carnation spread with uncommon speed throughout the