ollow-eyed,
with prominent cheek bones and strong jaws, this animated, half-length
statue of the hero bears the stamp of a good likeness; but when or by
whom it was made, I do not know.

Far more noteworthy than Colleoni's own monument is that of his
daughter Medea. She died young in 1470, and her father caused her
tomb, carved of Carrara marble, to be placed in the Dominican Church
of Basella, which he had previously founded. It was not until 1842
that this most precious masterpiece of Antonio Amadeo's skill was
transferred to Bergamo. _Hic jacet Medea virgo._ Her hands are
clasped across her breast. A robe of rich brocade, gathered to the
waist and girdled, lies in simple folds upon the bier. Her throat,
exceedingly long and slender, is circled with a string of pearls.
Her face is not beautiful, for the features, especially the nose,
are large and prominent; but it is pure and expressive of vivid
individuality. The hair curls in crisp short clusters, and the ear,
fine and shaped almost like a Faun's, reveals the scrupulous fidelity
of the sculptor. Italian art has, in truth, nothing more exquisite
than this still sleeping figure of the girl, who, when she lived, must
certainly have been so rare of type and lovable in personality. If
Busti's Lancinus Curtius be the portrait of a humanist, careworn with
study, burdened by the laurel leaves that were so dry and dusty--if
Gaston de Foix in the Brera, smiling at death and beautiful in
the cropped bloom of youth, idealise the hero of romance--if
Michelangelo's Penseroso translate in marble the dark broodings of a
despot's soul--if Della Porta's Julia Farnese be the Roman courtesan
magnificently throned in nonchalance at a Pope's footstool--if
Verocchio's Colleoni on his horse at Venice impersonate the pomp
and circumstance of scientific war--surely this Medea exhales the
flower-like graces, the sweet sanctities of human life, that even in
that turbid age were found among high-bred Italian ladies. Such power
have mighty sculptors, even in our modern world, to make the mute
stone speak in poems and clasp the soul's life of a century in some
five or six transcendent forms.

The Colleoni, or Coglioni, family were of considerable antiquity and
well-authenticated nobility in the town of Bergamo. Two lions' heads
conjoined formed one of their canting ensigns; another was borrowed
from the vulgar meaning of their name. Many members of the house held
important office during the t