r Donatello
executed that work almost wholly with bold studies and with no
smoothness of finish, to the end that it might show up much better from
a distance, as it does, than that of Luca, which, although it is wrought
with good design and diligence, is nevertheless so smooth and highly
finished that the eye, by reason of the distance, loses it and does not
grasp it well, as it does that of Donatello, which is, as it were, only
sketched.

[Illustration: TOMB OF BISHOP FEDERIGHI

(_After_ Luca della Robbia. _Florence: S. Trinita_)

_Alinari_]

To this matter craftsmen should pay great attention, for the reason that
experience teaches us that all works which are to be viewed from a
distance, whether they be pictures, or sculptures, or any other similar
thing whatsoever, have more vivacity and greater force if they are made
in the fashion of beautiful sketches than if they are highly finished;
and besides the fact that distance gives this effect, it also appears
that very often in these sketches, born in a moment from the fire of
art, a man's conception is expressed in a few strokes, while, on the
contrary, effort and too great diligence sometimes rob men of their
force and judgment, if they never know when to take their hands off the
work that they are making. And whosoever knows that all the arts of
design, not to speak only of painting, are similar to poetry, knows also
that even as poems thrown off by the poetic fire are the true and good
ones, and better than those made with great effort, so, too, the works
of men excellent in the arts of design are better when they are made at
one sitting by the force of that fire, than when they go about
investigating one thing after another with effort and fatigue. And he
who has from the beginning, as he should have, a clear idea of what he
wishes to do, ever advances resolutely and with great readiness to
perfection. Nevertheless, seeing that all intellects are not of the same
stamp, there are some, in fact, although they are rare, who cannot work
well save at their leisure; and to say nothing of the painters, it is
said that the most reverend and most learned Bembo--among the
poets--sometimes laboured many months, perchance even years, at the
making of a sonnet, if we can believe those who affirm it; wherefore it
is no great marvel that this should happen sometimes to some of the
masters of our arts. But for the most part the rule is to the contrary,
as it has been said ab