The circumstances in Constantinople were not more favourable. During the early years of the Eastern Empire Greek and Roman sculpture never lacked appreciation. Constantine made his new capital an immense museum of classical art. But when the Byzantine artist sought to express the ideals of Christendom by means of sculpture he failed. All Byzantine art tended to become more and more abstract and symbolical. It finally became completely divorced from naturalism—the only sure ground upon which a sculptor can stand. At the same time Christian thought and feeling, which the Byzantine artist might have expressed, passed under the control of a Church which would not recognize the rights of any artist. No other explanation of the absence of a vigorous school of sculpture during the Dark Ages is required than the recital of the following decision of the Council of the Church at Nicæa. It refers to painting. A similar decree issued by the Empress Theodora, however, forbade any sculpture save low relief. Sculpture in the round was denounced as entirely pagan. The Nicæan decree may, therefore, be accepted as applying to any art effort. It ran: “The composition of the figures is not the invention of the painters but the law and tradition of the Catholic Church.... Nor is this purpose and tradition the part of the painter (for his is only the craft) but is due to the ordination and disposition of Our Father.” Principles such as these ruled until about the tenth century, when circumstances led to their gradual decay and the consequent rise of a new school of sculpture. We shall see that this found a wealth of material in Christian myths and personalities which had suggested nothing to the craftsmen of Rome and Byzantium. PART III THE SCULPTURE OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CHAPTER VIII THE GOTHIC SCULPTORS AND THE RISE OF ITALIAN SCULPTURE AT PISA. (1000 A.D. TO 1350 A.D.) The period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of communal life in the Netherlands, Normandy, and Lombardy, saw sculpture at a lower ebb than at any time for 1200 years. Such buildings as Santa Sophia in the Eastern Empire and the basilicas of Ravenna in the Western, stand to witness that the artistic sense itself was still alive. But no great political or social force called forth the craftsmanship of the sculptor. As the Dark Ages drew to a close, however, a change came about. Mankind once more sought to find expression for its deepest imaginations and beliefs through sculptured marble and bronze.