de’ Pazzi at Florence.[236] The Child, draped in swaddling-clothes, stands up leaning against the Virgin, who looks downwards.  Above them are four cherubs, full of character and vivacity, the whole composition being typical of Donatello, though naturally enough much of the primitive colouring has disappeared during the last four centuries.  One other group remains to be noticed, founded upon the large marble relief in the Capella Medici of Santa Croce.[237] We detect Donatello’s ideas, but no sign of his handiwork:  neither was he responsible for the composition, of which the governing feature is a total absence of his masterly occupation of space.  There are also florescent details in the halos, drapery, and so forth, which are closer to Agostino di Duccio than to Donatello.  Though not all by the same sculptor, these reliefs are most interesting and suggestive, showing the growth and activity of a small school which drew some inspiration from Donatello while preserving its own individuality.  We find an intricate treatment of a very simple idea.  As compositions, Donatello’s Madonnas were always simple.  But our knowledge of the subject is still empirical, and until the problem has been further sifted by the most severe tests of research and criticism, our opinions as to Donatello’s personal share in the array of Madonnas must remain subject to revision.

[Footnote 232:  Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 93, 1882.]

[Footnote 233:  Ibid. No. 7594, 1861.]

[Footnote 234:  One was in the Spitzer Collection, another belongs to M. Gustave Dreyfus.]

[Footnote 235:  No. 294, Davillier bequest; and in the entrance hall to the Sacristy of the Eremitani at Padua.]

[Footnote 236:  Terra-cotta No. 39a.]

[Footnote 237:  The others are Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 7624, 1861, marble.  Berlin Museum, stucco.  Madame Andre, marble, finer than the London version.  Marquise Arconati-Visconti, Paris, marble, and a rough uncoloured stucco in the Casa Bardini.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  W.A.  Mansell

MADONNA (BERLIN)

FROM SANTA MARIA MADDALENA DEI PAZZI, FLORENCE]

[Illustration:  Alinari

SIDE PANEL OF PULPIT

SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE]

[Sidenote:  The Pulpits of San Lorenzo.]

Donatello was sixty-seven when he returned from Padua.  He seems to have been unsettled during his later years, undertaking ambitious schemes which he did not execute, and hesitating whether Florence or Siena should be the home of his old age.  The bronze pulpits of San Lorenzo[238] are the most important works of this period, and they were left unfinished at his death.  Donatello was an old man, and the work bears witness to his advancing years.  Bandinelli says that the roughness of the modelling was caused by failing eyesight,[239]