The numerous religious institutions show of themselves how important a field was offered to ecclesiastical architecture. At the most flourishing period of German architecture, Sta. Maria Novella furnishes the first example of the endeavour to obtain as wide and slight an arching to the vault as possible, by employing antique pilasters, composed of semi-columns and pillar corners. This attempt has met with comparative success in Sta. Maria del Fiore, in which plain pillars adorned with more developed capitals composed of acanthus leaves have been used, while for the gigantic central nave of Sta. Croce the vaulting is relinquished, and the open principle of the Christian basilica of Rome adopted. The same plan is also to be seen in San Miniato al Monte. If, however, the management of the material in Sta. Maria del Fiore exhibits extraordinary skill, a certain baldness was, on the other hand, scarcely to be avoided; and this forms a contrast with the awkwardly set cupola of the choir and transept—a fault, perhaps, less to be charged upon the first architect than is generally assumed. The exterior marble facing of the first two of these churches was similar to that of San Giovanni, but displayed a greater tendency to picturesque effect, which was increased by the additions of later times. The marble was supplied from native quarries, those of Prato and the Maremma, and after 1343 particularly from Carrara.[24] The craft of the painter was and remained combined with that of the architect, as a fine art, distinguished in fact only by the employment of different materials. That same painter, to whom art history—which in the fifteenth century was just awakening, and in the next, although not yet critical, reached descriptive perfection—has given, following tradition, a higher position than belongs to him, painted both with the brush and with coloured _pastilles_, and his most distinguished pupil adorned the city with its most graceful architecture. Dante has extolled them both, the one as a setting and the other as a rising star. The legend derives the ancient family name of Borgo Allegri from the popular rejoicing which accompanied Charles of Anjou on his way to inspect the great Madonna picture in the studio of Giovanni Cimabue, which now adorns the church of Sta. Maria Novella. It was Giotto di Bondone who broke through the narrow circle of typical painting in the Byzantine style, and, both in single figures of Madonnas and Saints and in grand historico-allegorical compositions, opened a way to freer spiritual development, in which he was followed by a large school. Although, as was natural, considering the large number of its followers, its original principles did not continue unmodified, this school in all essentials became the authority for the fourteenth century. No new creative peculiarity, however, was evinced, and constant repetition of the same motive can be observed in form of face, drapery, architecture, and colouring. The admiration that