Florentines, also deserve their share of praise. Petrarch's sonnets and Boccaccio's stories firmly established the primacy to which Dante had raised the Tuscan idiom. The revival of sculpture also began before the middle of the thirteenth century. Here the great leader is Niccolo Pisano (1206-78?). There has been a dispute as to his birthplace. Some say he came from Southern Italy and learned his art there. If this theory is true, Frederick's kingdom has the honour of having revived sculpture as well as literature; but it is more likely that Niccolo came from some village in Tuscany, and early went to Pisa, where he got his designation _Pisano_. The first certain record of his work is an inscription on the pulpit in the Baptistery at Pisa, which states that he completed the pulpit in 1260. Pisa was then at the height of her glory, in the happy years before her fatal conflict with Genoa; she had built the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, and the Baptistery, and now wished to beautify them within. Niccolo's pulpit shows both imitation of the classic and observation of nature. He had before him bits of ancient sarcophagi, which had been built into the wall of the Cathedral: his Madonna bears traces of the Phaedra of the sarcophagus, one of his three Wise Men resembles a young Greek, and his modelling in general has a touch of classic freedom, dignity, and repose. In his conception of the scenes Niccolo adhered to ecclesiastical tradition, just as Dante did to ecclesiastical theology, but in his figures, in the drapery and various details, his faithfulness to reality is striking, at least when compared with the Byzantine style theretofore prevailing. The success of this pulpit was so great that a few years later he was asked to carve another for the cathedral in Siena. An envoy came on purpose, and in the Baptistery of Pisa a contract was drawn up in which it was agreed that Niccolo should go to Siena and stay till the work was done, taking three assistants, and also his young son Giovanni, at half pay, if he wished. This contract was made in 1265, the year of Dante's birth. Niccolo also worked at Bologna, Perugia, Pistoia, probably at Lucca and almost certainly in many other places. This was the period of the free development of the communes after the death of Frederick II, and Niccolo's popularity is proof of widespread prosperity and interest in art. Niccolo's son Giovanni (1250-1328?) inherited his father's genius; and his work, especially his masterpiece, a pulpit at Pistoia, shows how fast art was developing. Giovanni, in his eagerness to express the animation and passion of life, neglected the classic and went directly to nature, at least in desire if not in execution. This passionate interest in life is the very quality that gives Dante's "Inferno" its intense vividness. These two Pisani founded the great Tuscan school of sculpture, and influenced both painting and architecture as well.