To the improvement of sculpture succeeded that of mosaic, through the efforts of another Tuscan, belonging to the order of minor friars, named Fra Jacopo, or Fra Mino da Turrita, from a place in the territory of Siena. It is not known whether he was instructed in his art by the Romans or by the Greek workers in mosaic,[36] but it is well ascertained that he very far surpassed them. On examining what remains of his works in Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, one can hardly be persuaded that it is the production of so rude an age, did not history constrain us to believe it. It appears probable that he took the ancients for his models, and deduced his rules from the more chaste specimens of mosaic, still remaining in several of the Roman churches, the design of which is less crude, the attitudes less forced, and the composition more skilful, than were exhibited by the Greeks who ornamented the church of San Marco, at Venice. Mino surpassed them in every thing. From 1225, when he executed, however feebly, the mosaic of the tribune of the church of San Giovanni, at Florence, he was considered at the head of the living artists in mosaic.[37] He merited this praise much more by his works at Rome, and it appears that he long maintained his reputation. Vasari has not been sufficiently just to the fame of Turrita, in noticing him only casually in the life of Tafi, but the verses he recites, and the commissions he mentions, demonstrate how greatly Turrita was esteemed by his contemporaries. It is maintained that he was also a painter, but this is a mistake which will be cleared up in the Sienese school, and both there and elsewhere I shall question the authority of any author who either greatly commends or underrates him.