tues. Donatello found the form, some passing face or
figure in the street, and rapidly impressed it with his ideal.
Raffaelle found his ideal, and waited for the bodily form wherewith to
clothe it. "In the absence of good judges and handsome women"--that is
to say, models, he paused, as he said in one of his letters to
Castiglione. One feels instinctively that with his Gothic bias
Donatello would not have minded. He did not ask for applause, and at
the period of St. George classical ideas had not introduced the
professional artist's model. Life was still adequate, and the only
model was the subject in hand. The increasing discovery of classical
statuary and learning made the later sculptors distrust their own
interpretation of the bodily form, which varied from the primitive
examples. Thus they lost conviction, believing the ideal of the
classicals to surpass the real of their own day. The result was
Bandinelli and Montorsoli, whose world was inhabited by pompous
fictions. They neither attained the high character of the great
classical artists nor the single-minded purpose of Donatello. Their
ideal was based on the unrealities of the Baroque.

[Footnote 40: "Melanges d'Histoire," p. 248.]

[Footnote 41: Introduction, i. 122.]

[Footnote 42: "Vita de' Architetti," 53.]

[Footnote 43: _Ibid._ 151.]

[Footnote 44: "Discourses," 1778, p. 237.]

[Footnote 45: "Qua propter si primas et secundarias et subsecundarias
vulgaris Ytalie variationes calculare velimus, in hoc minimo mundi
angulo, non solum ad millenam loquele variationem venire contigerit,
sed etiam at magis ultra."--De Vulg. Eloq. Lib., I., cap. x. sec. 8.]

[Footnote 46: 23, iv. 1448.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Alinari_

ANNUNCIATION

SANTA CROCE, FLORENCE]

[Sidenote: The Crucifix and Annunciation.]

Donatello loved to characterise: in one respect only did he typify.
Where there was most character there was often least beauty. This is
illustrated by two works in Santa Croce, the Christ on the Cross and
the Annunciation. They differ in date, material, and conception, but
may be considered together. As to the exact date of the former many
opinions have been expressed. Vasari places it about 1401, Manetti
about 1405, Schmarsow 1410, Cavalucci 1416, Bode 1431, Marcel Reymond
1430-40. It is quite obvious that the crucifix is the product of
rather a timid and uncertain technique, and does not show the verve
and decisi