Returning to the art of the early Renaissance, we have to mention two great names, already referred to—Giotto in painting, and Niccola Pisano in sculpture, who may be justly called the harbingers of the new era of Italian art. The latter was the first to go to the antique for his inspiration and style in sculpture. It appears—according to Vasari—that in Pisa there had been accumulated a great collection of antique sculpture—the spoils of war—and among them a sarcophagus, on which the "Hunt of Meleager and the Calydonian boar "was wrought with great skill, which was placed for ornament on the façade of the Cathedral: this and other antique remains in the city were studied to great advantage by Niccola, to the great improvement of his style. One fine work of his, executed in the spirit of the antique, was the pulpit for the Church of San Giovanni in Pisa, on which are great numbers of figures, representing the Universal Judgment. For the Cathedral of Siena he also executed a similar work with subjects from various passages in the life of Christ. On this pulpit he had the assistance of Arnolfo and Lapo, his pupils, and probably also that of his son Giovanni. These works proved the great turning-point in sculpture, from the archaic productions of the Middle Ages to an era of better things, although in execution they left much to be desired. Giotto was not only the great painter who first invested his works with poetry, feeling, and expression, but was also a skilful architect, as his fine Campanile, or bell-tower, in his native city of Florence bears witness. Dante and Petrarch were his friends, the former especially so; the portrait of Dante by Giotto still exists in the Chapel of the Podesta at Florence. Brunellesco, as we learn from Vasari, was one of the most interesting of men, and one of the most capable artists of his time, a man of acute genius and ready resource. In the early Renaissance period architecture was studied by nearly all sculptors and painters, and many, as we have seen, were apprenticed in their youth as goldsmiths. Brunellesco was no exception to this rule, for we find that he was a clever goldsmith and worker in niello. The greatest work of his life was the building of the cupola or dome of the Cathedral of Florence—he was the only architect of his day that was found able to do it. The Cathedral was the work of the Florentine architect, Arnolfo di Lapo, the foundations of which were laid in the year 1298. Brunellesco also built the sacristy and dome on the Church of San Lorenzo, which was decorated with sculpture by Donatello, and was the architect of the Pitti Palace, besides many other works. He gained his knowledge of the construction of domes in Rome, more particularly from that of the Pantheon, having drawn from and made models of the domes of all that was worth copying of the ancient remains at Rome, in company with his friend Donatello, the sculptor.