rancesco
Sforza would, through their statues, have marked three distinct phases in
the growth of art. The final effort of Italian sculpture to express human
activity in the person of a mounted warrior has perished. In this sphere
we possess nothing which, like the tombs of S. Lorenzo in relation to
sepulchral statuary, completes a series of development.

If Donatello founded no school, this was far more the case with Ghiberti.
His supposed pupil, Antonio del Pollajuolo, showed no sign of Ghiberti's
influence, but struck out for himself a style distinguished by almost
brutal energy and bizarre realism--characteristics the very opposite to
those of his master. If the bronze relief of the "Crucifixion" in the
Bargello be really Pollajuolo's, we may even trace a leaning to Verocchio
in his manner. The emphatic passion of the women recalls the group of
mourners round the death-bed of Selvaggia Tornabuoni in Verocchio's
celebrated bas-relief. Pollajuolo, like so many Florentine artists, was a
goldsmith, a painter, and a worker in niello, before he took to sculpture.
As a goldsmith he is said to have surpassed all his contemporaries, and
his mastery over this art influenced his style in general. What we chiefly
notice, however, in his choice of subjects is a frenzy of murderous
enthusiasm, a grimness of imagination, rare among Italian artists. The
picture in the Uffizzi of "Hercules and Antaeus" and the well-known
engraving of naked men fighting a series of savage duels in a wood, might
be chosen as emphatic illustrations of his favourite motives. The fiercest
emotions of the Renaissance find expression in the clenched teeth,
strained muscles, knotted brows, and tense nerves, depicted by Pollajuolo
with eccentric energy. We seem to be assisting at some of those combats _a
steccato chiuso_ wherein Sixtus IV. delighted, or to have before our eyes
a fray between Crocensi and Vallensi in the streets of Rome.[95] The same
remarks apply to the terra-cotta relief by Pollajuolo in the South
Kensington Museum. This piece displays the struggles of twelve naked men,
divided into six pairs of combatants. Two of the couples hold short chains
with the left hand, and seek to stab each other with the right. In the
case of another two couples the fight is over, and the victor is insulting
his fallen foe. In each of the remaining pairs one gladiator is on the
point of yielding to his adversary. There are thus three several moments
of duel to the