self-conscious positions affected by the schoolboy.  The Bargello David is a case in point.  His hands are idle, they have really nothing to do, and their position is arbitrary in consequence.  It is all a descent from the Gothic, where we find much that is inharmonious and paradoxical, and a frequent lack of concord between the component parts.  St. George, standing erect in his niche, holds the shield in front of him, its point resting on the ground.  But, notwithstanding the great progress made by Donatello in modelling these hands—­(so much indeed that one might almost suspect the bigger hands of contemporary statues to be faithful portraits of bigger hands)—­one feels that the shield does not owe its upright position to the constraint of the hands.  They do not reflect the outward pressure of the heavy shield, which could almost be removed without making it necessary to modify their functions or position.  It was reserved for Michael Angelo to achieve the unity of purpose and knowledge needed in portraying the human hand.  He was the first among Italian sculptors to render the relation of the hand to the wrist, the wrist to the forearm, and thence to the shoulder and body.  In the fifteenth century nobody fully understood the sequence of muscles which correlates every particle of the limb, and Donatello could not avoid the halting and inconclusive outcome of his inexperience.

[Footnote 27:  Discourses, 1778, p. 116.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote:  Minor Works for the Cathedral.]

There remain a few minor works for the Cathedral which require notice.  In October 1421 an unfinished figure by Ciuffagni was handed over to Donatello and Il Rosso.  It is probable that Dr. Semper is correct in thinking that this may be the statue on the East side of the Cathedral hitherto ascribed to Niccolo d’Arezzo, though it can hardly be the missing Joshua.  We have here a middle-aged man with a long beard, his head inclined forward and supported by his upraised hand with its forefinger extended.  Donatello was fond of youth, but not less of middle age.  With all their power these prophets are middle-aged men who would walk slowly and whose gesture would be fraught with mature dignity.  Donatello did not limit to the very young or the very old the privilege of seeing visions and dreaming dreams.  Two other statues by Donatello have perished.  These are Colossi,[28] ordered probably between 1420 and 1425, and made of brick covered with stucco or some other kind of plaster.  They stood outside the church, on the buttress pillars between the apsidal chapels.  One of them was on the north side, as an early description mentions the “Gigante sopra la Annuntiata,"[29] that is above the Annunciation on the Mandorla door.  The perishable material of these statues was selected, no doubt, owing to the difficulty and expense of securing huge monoliths of marble.  In this case one must regret their loss, as the distance from which they