rn joint.

There is yet another explanation of this bas-relief, which I have
somewhere read, but cannot now recall--more's the pity, because it is the
true one, as I remember, and one accounting for the presence of the
female saint who is standing by, evidently invisibly. Perhaps some
reader who knows Number Four will send it to me for a next edition.

It is worth noting that there is in Innsbruck, on the left bank of the
Inn, a blacksmith's shop, on the front of which is a very interesting
bas-relief of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, representing Saint
Peter or Eligius with the horse in a smithy.

There is another statue on the exterior of this church, that of Saint
Philip, by the sculptor Nanni de Banco, concerning which and whom I find
an anecdote in the _Facetie Diverse_, A.D. 1636:

"Now, it befell in adorning the church of Or' San Michele in
Florence, that _I Consoli d'Arte_ (Art Directors of Florence) wanting
a certain statue, wished to have it executed by Donatello, a most
excellent sculptor; but as he asked fifty _scudi_, which was indeed a
very moderate price for such statues as he made, they, thinking it
too dear, refused him, and gave it to a sculptor _mediocre e
mulo_--indifferent and mongrel--who had been a pupil of Donatello;
nor did they ask him the price, supposing it would be, of course,
less. Who, having done his best, asked for the work eighty scudi.
Then the Directors in anger explained to him that Donatello, a
first-class sculptor, had only asked fifty; but as he refused to
abate a single _quattrino_, saying that he would rather keep the
statue, the question was referred to Donatello himself, who at once
said they should pay the man _seventy_ scudi. But when they reminded
him that he himself had only asked fifty, he very courteously
replied, 'Certainly, and being a master of the art, I should have
executed it in less than a month, but that poor fellow, who was
hardly fit to be my pupil, has been more than half a year making it.'

"By which shrewd argument he not only reproached them for their
meanness and his rival for incapacity, but also vindicated himself as
an artist."

This is the story as popularly known. In it Nanni is called Giovanni,
and it is not true that he was an unworthy, inferior sculptor, for he was
truly great. There is another legend of Or' San Michele, which is thus
given by Pasca