plundered by her Popes.  Statues were used as missiles; her marble was exported all over the world—­to the Cathedrals of Orvieto and Pisa, even to the Abbey Church of Westminster.  Suger, trying to get marble columns for his church, looked longingly at those in the baths of Diocletian, a natural and obvious source, though happily he stole them elsewhere.[115] The vandalism proceeded at an incredible pace.  Pius II. issued a Bull in 1462 to check it; in 1472 Sixtus IV. issued another.  Pius, however, quarried largely between the Capitol and the Colosseum.  The Forum was treated as an ordinary quarry which was let out on contract, subject to a rental equivalent to one-third of the output.  But in 1433, and still more during the first visit, there was comparatively little sculpture which would lead Donatello to classical ideas.  Poggio, writing just before Donatello’s second visit, says he sees almost nothing to remind him of the ancient city.[116] He speaks of a statue with a complete head as if that were very remarkable—­almost the only statue he mentions at all.  Ghiberti describes two or three antique statues with such enthusiasm that one concludes he was familiar with very few.  In fact, before the great digging movement which enthralled the Renaissance, antique sculpture was rare.  But little of Poggio’s collection came from Rome:  Even Lorenzo de’ Medici got most of his from the provinces.  A century later Sabba del Castiglione complains of having to buy a Donatello owing to the difficulty of getting good antiques.[117] Rome had been devastated by cupidity and neglect as much as by fire and sword.  “Ruinarum urbis Romae descriptio” is the title of one of Poggio’s books.  Alberti says that in his time he had seen 1200 ruined churches in the city.[118] Bramantino made drawings of some of them.[119] Pirro Ligorio, an architect of some note, gives his recipe for making lime from antique statues—­so numerous had they become.  But much remained buried before that time, sotterrate nelle Rovine d’Italia,[120] and Vasari explains that Brunellesco was delighted with a classical urn at Cortona, about which Donatello had told him, because such a thing was rare in those times, antique objects not having been dug up in such quantities as during his own day.[121] But the passion for classical learning developed quickly, and was followed by the desire for classical art.  Dante had scarcely realised the art of antiquity, though more was extant in 1300 than in 1400.  Petrarch, who was more sympathetic towards it, could scarcely translate an elementary inscription.  From the growing desire for knowledge came the search for tangible relics:  but love of classical art was founded on sentiment and tradition.  As regards the sculptors themselves, their art was less influenced by antiquity than were the arts of poetry, oratory and prose.  While Rossellino, Desiderio, Verrocchio and Benedetto da Maiano maintained their individuality, the indigenous literature of Tuscany waned.  Sculpture retained