enthroned among worshippers; members, it may be supposed, of
Aragazzi's household. Three angelic children, supporting the child
Christ upon her lap, complete that pyramidal form of composition which
Fra Bartolommeo was afterwards to use with such effect in painting. The
other bas-relief shows a group of grave men and youths, clasping hands
with loveliest interlacement; the placid sentiment of human fellowship
translated into harmonies of sculptured form. Children below run up to
touch their knees, and reach out boyish arms to welcome them. Two young
men, with half-draped busts and waving hair blown off their foreheads,
anticipate the type of adolescence which Andrea del Sarto perfected in
his S. John. We might imagine that this masterly panel was intended to
represent the arrival of Messer Aragazzi in his home. It is a scene from
the domestic life of the dead man, duly subordinated to the recumbent
figure, which, when the monument was perfect, would have dominated the
whole composition.

Nothing in the range of Donatello's work surpasses these two bas-reliefs
for harmonies of line and grouping, for choice of form, for beauty of
expression, and for smoothness of surface-working. The marble is of
great delicacy, and is wrought to a wax-like surface. At the high altar
are three more fragments from the mutilated tomb. One is a long low
frieze of children bearing garlands, which probably formed the base of
Aragazzi's monument, and now serves for a predella. The remaining pieces
are detached statues of Fortitude and Faith. The former reminds us of
Donatello's S. George; the latter is twisted into a strained attitude,
full of character, but lacking grace. What the effect of these
emblematic figures would have been when harmonised by the architectural
proportions of the sepulchre, the repose of Aragazzi on his sarcophagus,
the suavity of the two square panels and the rhythmic beauty of the
frieze, it is not easy to conjecture. But rudely severed from their
surroundings, and exposed in isolation, one at each side of the altar,
they leave an impression of awkward discomfort on the memory. A certain
hardness, peculiar to the Florentine manner, is felt in them. But this
quality may have been intended by the sculptors for the sake of contrast
with what is eminently graceful, peaceful, and melodious in the other
fragments of the ruined masterpiece.

V.

At a certain point in the main street, rather more than half way from
the Al