Under these influences, the sculptors who were engaged upon the decoration of Gothic cathedrals in Italy found themselves called upon to add a beauty to their work which was not required in North-west Europe. In their search for this beauty, the harmonious naturalism lacking in the plastic arts prior to the thirteenth century was attained. Craftsmen from Byzantium and architects and masons from the North came to such a town as Pisa to educate a band of local artists. They, too, drank deep at the well of Hellenic genius. The sculptors of Italy still worked under the inspiration of the Catholic Church. But, fired by the achievements of Greece, their work displayed a natural grace far in advance of the realistic fables in stone which the Northern artist fashioned or the symbolic pictures which the Byzantium craftsman produced. Niccola Pisano (1205-1278 A.D.) was the greatest Italian architect of his day and the wealth of his native town early furnished him with opportunities for exercising his skill both as an architect and as a sculptor. From Pisa, Niccola’s reputation spread through Italy. As a sculptor he was influenced strongly by Græco-Roman art. Being intended for Gothic buildings, his sculptural work has many of the characteristics of the French style, but it shows the clearest signs of classical feeling. It is true that he crowds the space he has to fill with a multitude of figures, where the taste of the Greek would have suggested a simpler scheme. His figures and drapery are heavy when compared with the graceful forms of the Hellenic artists. But all Niccola Pisano’s later work proves how thoroughly he appreciated, and how earnestly he strove to attain, the stately beauty that pervaded the art of Hellas. Giovanni, a son of Niccola Pisano, worked between 1270 and 1330 A.D. Giovanni Pisano, like his father, was a brilliant architect. As a sculptor, however, he lacked Niccola’s sense of beauty, and he clung too closely to the fantastic exaggerations of the Gothic artists. He abandoned the ideal of tranquillity and self-restraint which his father had learnt from the Hellenic example. But his technical skill was so great and his efforts to give a passionate realization of the scriptural scenes were so sincere that Giovanni’s best work shows a force lacking in the sculptures of Niccola Pisano. On the whole, the works of Giovanni prove that the influence of Niccola was not very potent. This seems to be due to the fact that to the time of his death the taste for sculpture was not general. It was rather eclectic. It appealed to few beyond the ranks of the aristocrats.