ugh to the great man himself. The bulk of these reliefs
of the Madonna and Child are in stucco, terra-cotta, carta pesta and
gesso--cheap malleable materials which were easily and rapidly worked:
the reliefs were manufactured in great numbers for the market. Then
again, well-known works were cast, and small differences in colour and
finish often gave them the semblance of original work. Vasari says
that almost every artist in Florence possessed a cast of Pollaiuolo's
battle-piece.[221] Such facsimiles are eagerly sought after nowadays,
and are treated as genuine works of the sculptor. It must also be
remembered that during the last decades there has been a systematic
multiplication of these reliefs, and that forgeries can be found in
most of the great collections of Europe. The first difficulty
encountered in trying to discept between Donatello and his school, is
that authenticated examples from which to make our inductions are very
rare. Donatello certainly made Madonnas in relief: Vasari mentions
half a dozen; Neroccio, the Sienese sculptor, possessed _una Madonna
di gesso di Donatello_.[222] There are Madonnas on the tombs of Pope
John and Cardinal Brancacci. The latter shows no trace of Donatello's
craft, and the former is of indifferent merit, and was certainly not
made by Donatello alone. There are two Madonnas at Padua, one the
large altar statue, the other a tiny relief three inches in diameter
on one of the bronze Miracle panels. The sources of stylistic data are
therefore most scanty. One may say generally that in the authenticated
Virgins as well as in the other heads of women, Donatello makes a
marked nasal indenture, thus separating him from those later men who
drew their heads with the classical profile, showing a straight and
continuous line from the forehead down the nose. But even this cannot
be pressed too far. As regards the Christ, Donatello seems to preserve
the essence and immaturity of childhood. His treatment of the Child is
never hieratic, and it is always full of warm human sentiment. The
Paduan relief, for instance, is almost a _genre_ representation of a
mother and child, domestic and intimate, with nothing but the halos to
indicate the higher meaning of the theme. Having said so much, we come
to the other Madonnas which are assigned on various grounds to
Donatello: those known as the Madonnas Pazzi, Orlandini, Siena
Cathedral, Pietra Piana; the London oval, the Madonna of the Rose,
the Capell