ident touch; and the deacon's vestments, which
always take an easy and becoming fall, are decorated in a typical way
with winged children arbitrarily introduced, and looking more like the
detail of some bas-relief than a piece of embroidered ornament. St.
Justina wears the coronet as princess, and bears the palm-leaf as
martyr. She has no pronounced characteristic, the face being rather
unemotional; but the gesture of her outstretched hand is not without
an appealing dignity. The hair, like that of the Madonna, is parted in
the centre, and stands off from the forehead, and then falls in rich
tresses about her shoulders. It has not the soft and silken texture of
the Madonna's hair, which is rendered with as great a skill as one
sees in the Virgin of the Annunciation. In both these latter cases
Donatello succeeds in giving to the hair an indescribable suggestion
of something full of elasticity and lustre. But St. Justina's hair at
least grows: so many sculptors of ability failed to indicate that
needful quality. St. Procdocimus and St. Louis are of subordinate
merit, and show the work of assistants in several particulars. The
former was first Bishop of Padua and converted the father of St.
Justina to Christianity. At first sight the statue is pleasing, but on
closer examination the weaknesses, especially in the face, become
marked. There is indecision, not in the pose or general idea, but in
the details which give character to the whole conception. The features
are chiselled by a small _mesquin_ personality, and what might have
been a fine statue if carried out by Donatello has been ruined by his
assistants. The ewer which the Bishop carries is a later addition,
from the design of which one might almost argue that the statue itself
is later than the others.[196] The St. Louis, wearing his episcopal
robes above the Franciscan habit, his mitre decorated with a
fleur-de-lys of royal France, is also hammered all over, giving the
bronze the appearance of being dotted with little pin-holes. The head
is, however, marked by the grave austerity for which the St. Louis in
Santa Croce is so remarkable, and which became the typical rendering
of the saint in fifteenth-century plastic art. However much Donatello
may have allowed a free hand to his assistants in this statue, the
fine qualities of the head are attributable to a strict adherence to
his own sketch. The last of the great bronze figures is the crucifix
above the high altar. I