Sig. Merzario asserts that no school of art indigenous to Pisa existed there before the building of the Duomo. He might almost have said before the time of Niccolò, for so far was the half-mythical Buschetto from being a Pisan, that the world has for eight centuries been arguing where he came from! To arrive at Niccolò it is necessary to start from Buschetto. Who was Buschetto? Whence came he? Vasari, in his ignorance of monumental Latin, says, "From Dulichium," and thus the idea was promulgated that he was a Greek. But the inscription (given on next page) on Pisa cathedral says nothing of the kind. It is a flowery eloquence which Cavalier Del Borgo reads as comparing him for genius to Ulysses, Duke of Dulichium, and for skill to Dædalus. Cicognara judges from his name that he was Italian. Most probably Buschetto was a nickname, "little bush," given him either from a shock head of hair, or derived from _Buscare_, to thrash or flog. It is quite possible, though the proofs are not very strong, that he may have been of Greek extraction, descended from some of the Byzantine members of the guild of whom we have spoken before. BUSKET.[159] JACE ... HIC .... INGENIOR͞U DULICHIO ... PREVALUISSE DUCI[160] MENIB' JLIACIS CAUTUS DEDIT ILLE RUIN͞A HUJUS AB ARTE VIRI MENIA MIRA VIDES. CALLIDITATE SUA NOCUIT DUX INGENIOS UTILIS ISTE FUIT CALLIDITATE SUA. NIGRA DOM' LABERINTUS ERAT TUA DEDALE LAUS͞E AT SUA BUSKET͞U SPLENDIDA TEMPLA PROBANT. N̄ HABET EXPLU NIVEO[161] DE MARMORE TEMPL͞U QUOD FIT BUSKETI PRORSUS AB INGENIO. RES SIBI COMISSAS TEMPLI C͞U LEDERET HOSTIS PROVIDUS ARTE SUI FORTIOR HOSTE FUIT. MOLISET IMMENSE PELAGI QUAS TRAXIT AB IMO FAMA COLUMNARUM TOLLIT AD ASTRA VIRUM EXPLENDIS A FINE DECEM DE MENSE DIEBUS SEPTEMBRIS GAUDENS DESERIT EXILIUM. The partisans of the Grecian theory hold much to a MS. said to be now in the archives of the Vatican,--but which Milanesi asserts cannot be found,--which says that the Pisans "_Buschetum ex Grecia favore Constantinopolitani Imperatoris obtinuerunt_." Morrona also suspects this to be apocryphal; but even if it be genuine, the Pisans may only have asked for one of the Italian architects who were working in large numbers in the East under the Emperors, and building Lombard churches on Oriental ground. It was only in 1170 that Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, begged Comnenus to send him back some architects, and the Italian sculptor Olinto was among them. It may well be true, as Sig. Merzario says, that no school existed at Pisa before the Duomo was begun. But soon after that, we certainly find the usual organization of _laborerium_ and _Opera_.