Much of Niccola's biography reads like a legend in his pages--the popular and oral tradition of a great man, whose panegyric it was more easy in the sixteenth century to adorn with rhetoric than to chronicle the details of his life with scrupulous fidelity.

A well-founded conviction of Vasari's frequent inaccuracy has induced recent critics to call in question many hitherto accepted points about the nationality and training of Pisano.

The discussion, of their arguments I leave for the appendix, contenting myself at present with relating so much of Vasari's legend as cannot, I think, reasonably be rejected.[58] Before the sculptor appeared in Niccola Pisano, he was already a famous architect; and it must always be remembered that he and his school subordinated the plastic to the constructive arts.

It was not until the year 1233, or 1237, according to different modern calculations, that he executed his first masterpiece in sculpture.[59] This was a "Deposition from the Cross," in high relief, placed in a lunette over one of the side doors of S.Martino at Lucca.

The noble forms of this group, the largeness of its style, the breadth of drapery and freedom of action it displays, but, above all, the unity of its design, proclaimed that a new era had begun for art.