Chapter 4

There remain a few minor works for the Cathedral which require notice. In October 1421 an unfinished figure by Ciuffagni was handed over to Donatello and Il Rosso. It is probable that Dr. Semper is correct in thinking that this may be the statue on the East side of the Cathedral hitherto ascribed to Niccolo d'Arezzo, though it can hardly be the missing Joshua. We have here a middle-aged man with a long beard, his head inclined forward and supported by his upraised hand with its forefinger extended. Donatello was fond of youth, but not less of middle age. With all their power these prophets are middle-aged men who would walk slowly and whose gesture would be fraught with mature dignity. Donatello did not limit to the very young or the very old the privilege of seeing visions and dreaming dreams. Two other statues by Donatello have perished. These are Colossi,[28] ordered probably between 1420 and 1425, and made of brick covered with stucco or some other kind of plaster. They stood outside the church, on the buttress pillars between the apsidal chapels. One of them was on the north side, as an early description mentions the "_Gigante sopra la Annuntiata_,"[29] that is above the Annunciation on the Mandorla door. The perishable material of these statues was selected, no doubt, owing to the difficulty and expense of securing huge monoliths of marble. In this case one must regret their loss, as the distance from which they would be seen would amply justify their heroic dimensions. But the idea of Colossi, which originated in Egypt and the East, is to astonish, and to make the impression through the agency of bulk. The David by Michael Angelo is great in spite of its unwieldiness. Michael Angelo himself was under no illusions about these Colossi. His letter criticising the proposal to erect a colossal statue of the Pope on the Piazza of San Lorenzo is in itself a delightful piece of humour, and ridiculed the conceit with such pungency that the project was abandoned. Finally, Donatello made two busts of prophets for the Mandorla door. The commission is previous to May 1422, when it is noted that Donatello was to receive six golden florins for his work. They are profile heads carved in relief upon triangular pieces of marble, which fill two congested architectural corners. They look like the result of a whim, and at first sight one would think they were ordered late in the history of the door to supplement or replace something unsatisfactory. But this is not the case. Half corbel and half decoration, they are curious things: one shows a young man, the other an older bearded man. Both have long hair drawn back by a fillet, and in each case one hand is placed across the breast. They have quite a classical look, and are the least interesting as well as the least noticeable of the numerous sculptures made for the Cathedral by Donatello. The Domopera evidently appreciated his talent. To this day, besides these busts and the two small prophets, there survive at least nine marble figures made for the Duomo, some of them well over life size. There were also the Colossi, and it will be seen later on that the Domopera gave him further commissions for bronze doors, Cantoria, altar and stained glass; he also was employed as an architectural expert. Years of Donatello's life were spent on the embellishment of Santa Maria del Fiore, a gigantic task which he shared with his greatest predecessors and his most able contemporaries. The task, indeed, was never fully accomplished. The Campanile is not crowned by the spire destined for it by Giotto: the façade has perished and the interior is marred by the errors of subsequent generations. But the Cathedral of Florence must nevertheless take high rank among the most stately churches of Christendom.

[Footnote 28: They were standing as late as 1768. Baldinucci, p. 79.]

[Footnote 29: Memoriale, 1510.]

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[Sidenote: Or San Michele, St. Peter and St. Mark.]

From the earliest times there used to be a church dedicated to St. Michael, which stood within the _orto_, the garden named after the saint. The church was, however, removed in the thirteenth century and was replaced by an open _loggia_, which was used for a corn market and store. In the following century the open arches of the _loggia_ were built up, again making a church of the building, in which a venerated Madonna, for which Orcagna made the tabernacle, was preserved. The companies and merchant guilds of Florence undertook to present statues to decorate the external niches of the building. Besides Donatello, Ghiberti, Verrocchio, Gian Bologna and Nanni di Banco were employed; and there are also some admirable medallions by Luca della Robbia. Donatello made four statues--St. Peter, St. Mark, St. Louis and St. George. He was to have made St. Phillip as well, but the shoemakers who ordered the statue could not afford to pay Donatello's price and the work was entrusted to Nanni di Banco. Two only of Donatello's statues are left at Or San Michele, the St. Louis being now in Santa Croce, while the St. George has been placed in the Bargello. All these statues were put into niches of which the base is not more than eight feet from the ground, and being intended to be seen at a short distance are carved with greater attention to detail and finish than is the case with the prophets on the Campanile. St. Peter is probably the earliest in date, having been made, judging from stylistic grounds, between 1407 and 1412. This statue shows a doubt and hesitation which did not affect Donatello when making the little prophets for the Mandorla door. The head is commonplace and inexpressive; the pose is dull, and the drapery with its crimped edges ignores the right leg. There is, however, nothing blameworthy in the statue, but, on the other hand, there is nothing showing promise or deserving praise. Had it been made by one of the _macchinisti_ of the time it would have lived in decent obscurity without provoking comment. In fact the statue does not owe its appearance in critical discussions to its own merits, but to the later achievement of the sculptor. Thus only can one explain Bocchi's opinion that "living man could not display truer deportment than we find in the St. Peter."[30] One of the figures from the Cathedral façade now in the Louvre, an apostle or doctor of the Church, shows whence Donatello derived his prosy idea, though the St. Peter is treated in a less archaic manner. The St. Mark is much more successful: there is conviction as well as vigour and greater skill. Michael Angelo exclaimed that nobody could disbelieve the Gospel when preached by a saint whose countenance is honesty itself. The very drapery--_il prudente costume e religioso_--[31] was held to contribute to Michael Angelo's praise. The grave and kindly face, devout and holy,[32] together with a certain homeliness of attitude, give the St. Mark a character which would endear him to all. He would not inspire awe like the St. John or indifference like St. Peter. He is a very simple, lovable person whose rebuke would be gentle and whose counsel would be wise. In 1408 the _Linaiuoli_, the guild of linen-weavers, gave their order to select the marble, and in 1411 the commission was given to Donatello, having been previously given to Niccolo d'Arezzo, who himself became one of Donatello's guarantors. The work had to be finished within eighteen months, and the heavy statue was to be placed in the niche at the sculptor's own risk. The statement made by Vasari that Brunellesco co-operated on the St. Mark is not borne out by the official documents. It is interesting to note that the guild gave Donatello the height of the figure, leaving him to select the corresponding proportions. The statue was to be gilded and decorated.[33] A further commission was given to two stone-masons for the niche, which was to be copied from that of Ghiberti's St. Stephen. These niches have been a good deal altered in recent times, and the statues are in consequence less suited to their environment than was formerly the case. Judging from the plates in Lasinio's book, the accuracy of which has not been contested, it appears that the niches of St. Eligius and St. Mark have been made more shallow, while the crozier of the former and the key in St. Peter's hand are not shown at all, and must be modern restorations.

[Footnote 30: Cinelli ed., p. 66.]

[Footnote 31: Bocchi, 1765 ed., p. 128.]

[Footnote 32: _Spira il volto divozione e Santità_, Cinelli, p. 66.]

[Footnote 33: Gualandi, "Memorie," Series 4, p. 106.]

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[Sidenote: St. Louis.]

The St. Louis is made of bronze. The reputation of this admirable figure has been prejudiced by a ridiculous bit of gossip seriously recorded by Vasari, to the effect that, having been reproached for making a clumsy figure, Donatello replied that he had done so with set purpose to mark the folly of the man who exchanged the crown for a friar's habit. Vasari had to enliven his biographies by anecdotes, and their authenticity was not always without reproach. In view of his immense services to the history of art one will gladly forgive these pleasantries; but it is deplorable when they are solemnly quoted as infallible. One author says: "... _impossibile a guardare quel goffo e disgraziato San Lodovico senza sentire una stretta al cuore_." This is preposterous. The statue has faults, but they do not spring from organic error. The Bishop is overweighted with his thick vestments, and his mitre is rather too broad for the head; the left hand, moreover, is big and Donatellesque. But the statue, now placed high above the great door of Santa Croce, is seen under most unfavourable conditions, and would look infinitely better in the low niche of Or San Michele. Its proportions would then appear less stumpy, and we would then be captivated by the beauty of the face. It has real "beauty"; the hackneyed and misused term can only be properly applied to Donatello's work in very rare cases, of which this is one. The face itself is taken from some model, which could be idealised to suit a definite conception, and in which the pure and symmetrical lines are harmonised with admirable feeling. Every feature is made to correspond, interrelated by some secret necessary to the art of portraiture. The broad brow and the calm eyes looking upwards are in relation with the delicately chiselled nose and mouth, while the right hand, which is outstretched in giving the blessing, is rendered with infinite sentiment and grace. St. Louis, in short, deserves high commendation, as, in spite of errors, it achieves something to which Donatello seldom aspired; and it has the further interest of being his earliest figure in bronze, a material in which some of his most renowned works were executed. The whole question of Donatello's share in the actual casting will be considered at a later stage. It will be enough to say at this point that the St. Louis, which was probably finished about 1425, was cast with the assistance of Michelozzo.

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[Sidenote: St. George.]

The St. George is the most famous of Donatello's statues, and is generally called his masterpiece. The marble original has now been taken into the Museum, and a bronze cast replaces it at Or San Michele. The cause of this transfer is understood to be a fear that the statue would be ruined by exposure, although one would think that this would apply still more to the exquisite relief, which remains _in situ_, though unprotected by the niche. In the side-lighted Bargello, the St. George is crowded into a shallow niche (with plenty of highly correct detail) and is seen to the utmost disadvantage; but no incongruity of surroundings, no false relations of light can destroy the profound impression left by this statue, which was probably completed about 1416, in Donatello's thirtieth year. Vasari was enthusiastic in its praise. Bocchi wrote a whole book about it,[34] in which we might expect to find valuable information; but the interest of this ecstatic eulogy is limited. Bocchi gives no dates, facts or authorities; nothing to which modern students can turn for accurate or specific knowledge of Donatello. Cinelli says the St. George was held equal to the rarest sculpture of Rome,[35] and well it might be. The St. George was made for the Guild of Armourers; he is, of course, wearing armour, and the armour fits him, clothes him. It is not the clumsy inelastic stuff which must have prevented so many soldiers from moving a limb or mounting a horse. In this case the lithe and muscular frame is free and full of movement, quite unimpeded by the defensive plates of steel. He stands upright, his legs rather apart, and the shield in front of him, otherwise he is quite unarmed; the St. George in the niche is alert and watchful: in the bas-relief he manfully slays the dragon. The head is bare and the throat uncovered; the face is full of confidence and the pride of generous strength, but with no vanity or self-consciousness. Fearless simplicity is his chief attribute, though in itself simplicity is no title to greatness: with Donatello, Sophocles and Dante would be excluded from any category of greatness based on simplicity alone. St. George has that earnest and outspoken simplicity with which the mediæval world invested its heroes; he springs from the chivalry of the early days of Christian martyrdom, the greatest period of Christian faith. Greek art had no crusader or knight-errant, and had to be content with Harmodius and Aristogeiton. Even the Perseus legend, which in so many ways reminds one of St. George, was far less appreciated as an incident by classical art than by the Renaissance; and even then not until patron and artist were growing tired of St. George. M. Reymond has pointed out the relation of Donatello's statue to its superb analogue, St. Theodore of Chartres Cathedral. "_C'est le souvenir de tout un monde qui disparaît._"[36] Physically it may be so. The age of chivalry may be passed in so far that the prancing steed and captive Princess belong to remote times which may never recur. But St. George and St. Theodore were not merely born of legend and fairy tale; their spirit may survive in conditions which, although less romantic and picturesque, may still preserve intact the essential qualities of the soldier-saint of primitive times. The influence of the St. George upon contemporary art seems to have been small. The Mocenigo tomb, which has already been mentioned, has a figure on the sarcophagus obviously copied from the St. George; and elsewhere in this extremely curious example of plagiarism we find other figures suggested by Donatello's statues. The little figure in the Palazzo Pubblico at Pistoja is again an early bit of piracy. In the courtyard of the Palazzo Quaratesi in Florence, built by Brunellesco between 1425 and 1430, an early version of the head of St. George was placed in one of the circular panels above the pillars. It is without intrinsic importance, being probably a cast, but it shows how early the statue was appreciated. A more important cast is that of the bas-relief now in London, which has a special interest from having been taken before the original had suffered two or three rather grievous blows.[37] Verrocchio made a drawing of the St. George,[38] and Mantegna introduced a similar figure into his picture of St. James being led to execution.[39] But Donatello's influence cannot be measured by the effect of St. George. In this particular case his work did not challenge competition; its perfection was too consummate to be of service except to the copyist. In some ways it spoke the last word; closed an episode in the history of art--[Greek: eschatos tou idiou genous].

[Footnote 34: "Eccelenza della Statua del San Giorgio di Donatello," 1571.]

[Footnote 35: Bellezze, 1677, p. 67.]

[Footnote 36: "La Sculpture Florentine," vol. ii. p. 91.]

[Footnote 37: Victoria and Albert Museum, 7607, 1861.]

[Footnote 38: Uffizzi, frame 49.]

[Footnote 39: Eremitani, Padua, about 1448-50.]

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[Sidenote: Donatello and Gothic Art.]

The relation of St. George and other Italian works of this period, both in sculpture and painting, to the Gothic art of France cannot be ignored, although no adequate explanation has yet been given. St. George, the Baptists of the Campanile and in Rome, and the marble David are intensely Franco-Gothic, and precisely what one would expect to find in France. The technical and physical resemblance between the two schools may, of course, be a coincidence; it may be purely superficial. But St. Theodore might well take his place outside Or San Michele, while the St. George (in spite of the difference in date) would be in complete ethical harmony with the statues on the portals of Chartres. Even if they cannot be analysed, the phenomena must be stated. Donatello may have spontaneously returned to the principles which underlay the creation of the great statuary of France, the country of all others where a tremendous school had flourished. But what these fundamental principles were it is impossible to determine. It is true there had always been agencies at work which must have familiarised Italy with French thought and ideas. From the time of the dominant French influence in Sicily down to the Papal exile in France--which ended actually while Donatello was working on these statues, one portion or another of the two countries had been frequently brought into contact. The Cistercians, for instance, had been among the most persistent propagators of Gothic architecture in Italy, though nearly all their churches (of which the ground-plans are sometimes identical with those of French buildings) are situated in remote country districts of Italy, and being inaccessible are little known or studied nowadays. France, however, was herself full of Italian teachers and churchmen, who may have brought back Northern ideas of art, for they certainly left small traces of their influence on the French until later on; their presence, at any rate, records intercourse between the two countries. A concrete example of the relation between the two national arts is afforded by the fact that Michelozzo was the son of a Burgundian who settled in Florence. Michelozzo was some years younger than Donatello, and it is therefore quite out of the question to assume that the St. George could have been due to his influence: he was too young to give Donatello more than technical assistance. In this connection one must remember that French Gothic, though manifested in its architecture, was of deeper application, and did not confine its spirit to the statuary made for the tall elongated lines of its cathedrals. What we call Gothic pervaded everything, and was not solely based on physical forms. Indeed, whatever may be the debt of Italian sculpture to French influence, the Gothic architecture of Italy excluded some of the chief principles of the French builders. It was much more liberal and more fond of light and air. Speaking of the exaggerated type of Gothic architecture, in which everything is heightened and thinned, Renan asks what would have happened to Giotto if he had been told to paint his frescoes in churches from which flat spaces had entirely disappeared. "Once we have exhausted the grand idea of infinity which springs from its unity, we realise the shortcomings of this egoistic and jealous architecture, which only exists for itself and its own ends, _régnant dans le désert_."[40] The churches of Umbria and Tuscany were as frames in which space was provided for all the arts; where fresco and sculpture could be welcomed with ample scope for their free and unencumbered display. Donatello was never hampered or crowded by the architecture of Florence; he was never obliged, like his predecessors in Picardy and Champagne, to accommodate the gesture and attitude of his statue to stereotyped positions dictated by the architect. His opportunity was proportionately greater, and it only serves to enhance our admiration for the French sculptors. In spite of difficulties not of their own making, they were able to create, with a coarser material and in a less favourable climate, what was perhaps the highest achievement ever attained by monumental sculpture. The Italians soon came to distrust Gothic architecture. It was never quite indigenous, and they were afraid of this "German" transalpine art. Vasari attacks "_Questa maledizione di fabbriche_," with their "_tabernacolini l'un sopra l'altro, ... che hanno ammorbato il mondo_."[41] One would expect the denunciation of Milizia to be still more severe. But he admits that "_fra tante monstruosità l'architettura gottica ha alcune bellezze_."[42] Elsewhere mentioning the architect of the Florentine Cathedral (while regretting how long the _corrotto gusto_ survived), he says, "_In questo architetto si vede qualche barlume di buona architettura, come di pittura in Cimabue suo contemporaneo_."[43] He detects some glimmer of good architecture. Sir Joshua Reynolds was cautious: "Under the rudeness of Gothic essays, the artist will find original, rational, and even sublime inventions."[44] It should be remembered that the word _Tedesca_, as applied to Gothic art, meant more than German, and could be almost translated by Northern. Italians from the lakes and the Valtellina were called _Tedeschi_, and Italy herself was inhabited by different peoples who were constantly at war, and who did not always understand each other's dialects. Dante said the number of variations was countless.[45] Alberti, who lived north of the Apennines during his boyhood, took lessons in Tuscan before returning to Florence. The word _Forestiere_, now meaning foreigner, was applied in those days to people living outside the province, sometimes even to those living outside the town. Thus we have a record of the cost of making a provisional altar to display Donatello's work at Padua--"_per demonstrar el desegno ai forestieri_."[46] No final definition of Gothic art, of the _maniera tedesca_ is possible. Some of its component parts have been enumerated: rigidity, grotesque, naturalism, and so forth; but the definition is incomplete, cataloguing the effects without analysing their cause. Whether Donatello was influenced by the ultimate cause or not, he certainly assimilated some of the effects. The most obvious example of the Gothic feeling which permeated this child of the Renaissance, is his naturalistic portrait-statues. Donatello found the form, some passing face or figure in the street, and rapidly impressed it with his ideal. Raffaelle found his ideal, and waited for the bodily form wherewith to clothe it. "In the absence of good judges and handsome women"--that is to say, models, he paused, as he said in one of his letters to Castiglione. One feels instinctively that with his Gothic bias Donatello would not have minded. He did not ask for applause, and at the period of St. George classical ideas had not introduced the professional artist's model. Life was still adequate, and the only model was the subject in hand. The increasing discovery of classical statuary and learning made the later sculptors distrust their own interpretation of the bodily form, which varied from the primitive examples. Thus they lost conviction, believing the ideal of the classicals to surpass the real of their own day. The result was Bandinelli and Montorsoli, whose world was inhabited by pompous fictions. They neither attained the high character of the great classical artists nor the single-minded purpose of Donatello. Their ideal was based on the unrealities of the Baroque.