The value of this new direction given to sculpture for the arts of Italy, especially for painting, cannot be exaggerated.

Without Giovanni's intervention, the achievement of Niccola might possibly have been as unproductive of immediate results as the Tuscan Romanesque, that mediaeval effort after the Renaissance, was in architecture.[62] The Gothic element, so cautiously adopted by Niccola, is used with sympathy and freedom by his son, whose masterpiece, the pulpit of S.
Andrea at Pistoja, might be selected as the supreme triumph of Italian Gothic sculpture.

The superiority of that complex and consummate work of plastic art over the pulpit of the Pisan Baptistery, in all the most important qualities of style and composition, can scarcely be called in question.

Its only serious fault is an exaggeration of the height of the pillars in proportion to the size of the hexagon they support.

Like the pulpits of the Baptistery, of the Duomo of Pisa, and of the Duomo of Siena, it combines bas-reliefs and detached statues, carved capitals, and sculptured lions, in a maze of marvellous invention; but it has no rival in the architectonic effect of harmony, and the masterly feeling for balanced masses it displays.