Italian architecture at this time does not show one great figure like Niccolo Pisano, nor does it show a definite beginning of a new period. On the contrary, throughout the Middle Ages building held its own surprisingly well in comparison with the other arts. In the days of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, it carried on the Byzantine tradition at Ravenna, and for centuries the churches in Rome were built on the old basilican principle. Over a hundred years before Dante was born, and before Niccolo carved his pulpit, the Lombard style flourished in Lombardy, Tuscan Romanesque in Tuscany, and Norman Sicilian in Sicily. Before the Empire had received its _coup de grace_ the Gothic style came down from the North, and its struggle with the Romanesque seemed to typify the conflict between the German Empire and the Italian people. Nevertheless, if we confine ourselves to Tuscany, as perhaps is fair in view of the very great influence of Tuscany on all the arts, there is one man who stands out conspicuous. Arnolfo di Cambio (1232-1300?) began life as one of Niccolo's assistants at Pisa, and did so well that he was included by name in the contract for the pulpit at Siena. In Florence he built the church of Santa Croce for the Franciscans, designed the Palazzo Vecchio, and made the first plans for the Duomo; and so left a deep impress on Florence and through Florence on the world. In painting, more than in any other art or department of life, perhaps, authority had reigned supreme throughout the Middle Ages. The decadent Greek painters of Constantinople had made a series of rules, which were as autocratic as the edicts of the Emperors. Every Madonna was painted in one attitude, with her eyes opening wide in the same way, arms, legs, and body in the same constrained position, with the same wooden child in her wooden lap, and the same wooden saints about her. But gradually, side by side with the art of authority, another style, at first very simple and primitive, developed. The older style dominated mosaic work, and as mosaics were most intimately associated with the symbolic representation of sacred things, it was strongly intrenched behind all the beliefs and prejudices of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, the revolutionary spirit in Tuscany, for the leaders of the revolution which threw off the authority of the Middle Ages came from among the free men of Tuscany, prevailed in painting as well as elsewhere. The last of the masters who employed the Byzantine manner was Cimabue (1240-1302); yet Cimabue had a sense of the coming change, and showed a desire to break through the enveloping shell of Byzantine authority and portray the grace and beauty of living human beings. However mediaeval his manner seems to us, his contemporaries, eager as the Athenians for new things, perceived the novelty in it. When he was painting a Madonna for the Dominican monks in Florence, Charles of Anjou, fresh from his triumph