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The first work on which Giovanni di Balduccio was employed in Lombardy was the Arca of St Peter Martyr in Sant'Eustorgio in Milan. The friars demanded a Pisan monument and it was what Giovanni di Balduccio supplied. Like Nicola Pisano's Arca of St Dominic in San Domenico Maggiore, Bologna (modernized by Niccolò dell' Arca in the 15th century), the shrine rested on caryatids and carried scenes from the Saint's legend round the sides of the sarcophagus, though, in deference to the changed taste of the Trecento, the number both of the scenes and caryatids was increased.
Two novel features are the sloping lid of the sarcophagus and, above, a Virgin and Child with two Saints beneath a tabernacle adapted from that on the façade of Santa Maria della Spina. The influence of Giovanni di Balduccio's new environment is evident only in the multiplicity of statuettes above the sarcophagus and tabernacle, and in the actual carving of those parts of the monument on which Lombard sculptors were employed. Typical of the latter are the childish statuettes which intervene between the narrative reliefs. The difference between these and the suave caryatids of Giovanni di Balduccio is a measure of the latter's superiority to the artisans among whom he had come to work.
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