culptor's intellect
must be reinforced by keen eyes and a steady hand: of all artists,
Nature finds him most vulnerable. Donatello's last work shows the
fatigue of hand and eye, though the intellect never lost its ardent
and strenuous activity. There was no petulance or meanness in his old
age, no decadence; he merely grew old, and his personality was great
until the end.

[Footnote 238: Properly speaking, they are ambones. They stand in the
west end of the nave of the church close to the junction of the
transepts.]

[Footnote 239: 7, xii. 1547. "_... Donato non fece mai la piu brutta
opera_," &c. Letter printed in Bottari, i. 70.]

[Footnote 240: It is probable that these famous horses were mere
wrecks in the fifteenth century. At any rate, Lafreri's engraving of
1546 shows one of them without breast or forelegs, the remainder of
the horse being nothing but a large pillar of brick. Herr von Kaufmann
has an admirable statuette of Donatello's latter period modelled from
the horses on the San Lorenzo frieze. _Cf._ also Mantegna in the
Madonna di San Zeno, Verona.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Alinari_

END PANEL OF PULPIT

SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE]

[Sidenote: Donatello's Influence on Sculpture.]

The influence of Donatello on his three greatest contemporaries was
small. Jacopo della Quercia always retained his own massive style.
Luca della Robbia and Ghiberti--the Euphuist of Italian
sculpture--were scarcely affected by the sterner principles of
Donatello. All four men were, in fact, exponents of distinct and
independent ideas, and handed on their traditions to separate groups
of successors. Nanni di Banco and Il Rosso were, however, impressed
by Donatello's monumental work, while other sculptors, such as Simone
Fiorentino, Vecchietta, Michelozzo, Andrea del Aquila and Buggiano
(besides much anonymous talent) were largely influenced by him. It is
owing to the fact that Donatello was the most influential man of his
day that so many "schoolpieces" exist.[241] The influence on his
successors is less easily determined, except so far as concerns the
men who worked for him at Padua, together with Riccio, the most
skilful bronze caster of his day, who indirectly owed a good deal to
Donatello. But Urbano da Cortona and his colleagues produced little
original work after their return from Padua: their training seems to
have merged their individuality into the dominant style of Donatello;