without caring to
realise more obviously striking effects, and that this was their way of
meeting the requirements of sculpture considered as a Christian art. The
melody of their design, meanwhile, is like the purest song-music of
Pergolese or Salvator Rosa, unapproachably perfect in simple outline, and
inexhaustibly refreshing.

Though it is possible to characterise the style of these sculptors by some
common qualities observable in their work, it should rather be the aim of
criticism to point out their differences. Antonio Rossellino, for example,
might be distinguished by his leaning toward the manner of Ghiberti, whose
landscape backgrounds he has adopted in the circular medallions of his
monumental sculpture. A fine perception of the poetic capabilities of
Christian art is displayed in Rossellino's idyllic treatment of the
Nativity--the adoration of the shepherds, the hush of reverential
stillness in the worship Mary pays her infant son.[101] To the qualities
of sweetness and tranquillity rare dignity is added in the monument of the
young Cardinal di Portogallo.[102] The sublimity of the slumber that is
death has never been more nobly and feelingly portrayed than in the supine
figure and sleeping features of this most beautiful young man, who lies
watched by angels beneath a heavy-curtained canopy. The genii of eternal
repose modelled by Greek sculptors are twin-brothers of Love, on whom
perpetual slumber has descended amid poppy-fields by Lethe's stream. The
turmoil of the world is over for them; they will never wake again; they do
not even dream. Sleep is the only power that still has life in them. But
the Christian cannot thus conceive the mystery of the soul "fallen on
sleep." His art must suggest a time of waiting and a time of waking; and
this it does partly through the ministration of attendant angels, who
would not be standing there on guard if the clay-cold corpse had no
futurity, partly by breathing upon the limbs and visage of the dead a
spirit as of life suspended for a while. Thus the soul herself is imaged
in the marble "most sweetly slumbering in the gates of dreams."

What Vespasiano tells us of this cardinal, born of the royal house of
Portugal, adds the virtue of sincerity to Rossellino's work, proving there
is no flattery of the dead man in his sculpture.[103] "Among his other
admirable virtues," says the biographer, "Messer Jacopo di Portogallo
determined to preserve his virginity, though he was