Nor was it in literature alone that the time was creative. Pictorial art had likewise its new beginning in this epoch. Cimabue, indeed, had made an effort to break with the crude traditions of the eastern school of art in the latter part of the thirteenth century; his greater pupil Giotto developed his idea in the early decades of the fourteenth century, and gathered by him, the school of painters in Florence attempted, following their master, to go to nature and to reproduce what they saw. Their effort was a crude and tentative one, judged according to the canons of the later development; but it was the beginning of great things. In architecture the effort of the time was not doomed to be content with mere beginnings: “Giotto’s tower,” the famous Campanile, still stands in evidence of the relative perfection to which this department of art had attained. All in all, then, the fourteenth century was a time of wonderful development in Italy; the clarion note of Dante has been called the voice of ten silent centuries; it told of a new phase of the Renaissance. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY During the fifteenth century Italy enjoyed a period of relative immunity from outside interference. An emperor was crowned at Rome in the early days of the century, to be sure, and there were various efforts at interference by other powers, including the coming of Charles VIII in 1494. But, as a general thing, it was the Italians themselves who competed with one another, rather than outside powers who quarrelled with Italy as a whole. The great forces were, as before, the few important cities. These were forever quarrelling one with another. Pisa became subordinate to Florence, and the latter city waxed steadily in greatness. In Milan the rule of the Visconti continued till towards the middle of the century, when, on the disappearance of the last member of that important family, the house of Sforza came to the fore and took to itself the task of dictatorship. In Naples King Ladislaus, and later Queen Joanna II, maintained regal influence and made their principality a world power. Thus in the middle of the century the four great powers were Naples, Milan, Venice, and Florence. In these wars the mercenary leaders were much in evidence. These were men to whom fighting was simply a business,--a means to a livelihood. No question of patriotism was involved in their warfare; they gave their services to the state that offered the most liberal payment in gold or its equivalent. Half a dozen of these men gained particular distinction in the fifteenth century. These were Braccio, Fortebraccio, Sforza Attendola, and his son Francesco Sforza, Carmagnola, Niccolo Piccinino, and Colleno Coleoni. These men were variously matched against one another in the important wars.