As we have seen, a new class of patrons had arisen in Italy with fresh ambitions and ideals. In Florence, for instance, the mercantile class had gradually ousted the German nobles who had ruled in fief of the Emperor. By 1283 the wealthier guilds had established a form of government delegating all power to members of their own class. Under this Florence became more and more powerful. By 1406 Pisa was captured, and the last stronghold of the feudal party in Tuscany had fallen. During the last years of the fourteenth century Florence had prospered greatly. Trade developed. The manufacture of silk and wool brought a large measure of material prosperity. The pride of the burghers in their city increased correspondingly. The erection of the Baptistery gates must be regarded as only a single instance of a general tendency. All over Italy the case was the same. The appreciation of sculpture was no longer confined to a few score merchants and princes, as had been the case at Pisa. It had spread from the cloister and castle to the market square and the Guildhall. The result of similar circumstances in the earlier history of sculpture will be remembered. In fifth-century Greece a keen appreciation of sculpture had been developed among a burgher population. Just as the proceeds of the commissions for athletic sculptures provided livelihoods for the budding artists of Greece, so the orders of the Florentine burghers offered at least a competence to a struggling Italian sculptor with a belief in the possibilities of his particular art. What the commission for the Baptistery gates did for Ghiberti, similar commissions did for Jacopo della Quercia, Donatello and the rest. In dwelling upon the importance of such material considerations as these, we are in no way depreciating the zeal of either the Italian or the Hellenic sculptor, by his old patrons, the Guild of Merchants. It was followed by a long series of similar commissions. The Guild of Moneychangers realizing the credit which attached to its rival, desired Ghiberti to furnish a companion figure, “Saint Matthew,” which was in its place by 1422. Finally, the Guild of Wool Merchants employed Ghiberti to produce a “St. Stephen” for a third niche.