As we have said, the sculpture of Italy was quite different from that of the more northern countries of Europe. One great reason for this was that individualism in art was a strong power in Italy much earlier than in more northern countries. In Germany the early sculptors of the Middle Ages did not put their names upon their works; they practised their art as a religious service, and their pious devotion made them forget themselves. Not so in Italy: there each artist wished to be known in his works, and regarded them as works of art, done for the sake of art, and not as acts of piety. One result of this difference was that the northern sculptures had more of deep feeling and profound thought in them, while the Italian works had more perfection of form. In Italy sculpture held the second place in the decoration of churches. Painting was preferred before it, and in spite of the influence of the Gothic style, which extended south of the Alps, the Italians would not give up their large wall-spaces and the splendid Christian paintings which were their glory. They built their edifices with this end in view, and as the same person was frequently an architect, painter and sculptor, he knew how to arrange his plans so as to suit his ideas of the merits of each art. So it happened that the principal works which the sculptors did for the church were separate objects, such as altar-pieces, fonts, pulpits, and tombs. It rarely occurred that whole fronts of churches were covered with sculptures, as in Germany or France, and there were few richly sculptured portals of churches in Italy. The material mostly used for Italian sculpture was fine white marble, which was very rarely colored; sometimes a little gilding was used; but as a rule painting and sculpture were not united, as they had been north of the Alps. However, the sculptors of Italy had a wider range in art than in other lands; for being less devoted to the service of the church, they were employed for more secular works. It is true that the separate statues of the Madonna were very numerous, and that tomb-sculpture was important; but added to these there were civil monuments to show forth the glory of the cities and their great men, and there were public fountains and other sculptures which told of the splendor and fame of each one of the many petty powers into which the whole country was divided. The council-halls of the free cities were very fine, and gave great opportunity to Italian artists to give variety to their works, and the sculptors very early excelled in reliefs, which told historical stones with great clearness.