The bronze statue of Judith was probably made shortly before Donatello’s journey to Padua.  It is his only large bronze group, and its faults are accentuated by the most unfortunate position it occupies in the lofty Loggia de’ Lanzi.  It was meant to be the centrepiece of some large fountain.  The triangular base, and the extremities of the mattress on which Holofernes sits, have spouts from which the water would issue, though the bronze is not worn away by the action of water.  As we see the statue now, it looks small and dwarfed.  In a courtyard it would look far more imposing, and when it came from Donatello’s workshop, placed upon a pedestal designed for it, its present incongruities would have been absent.  For instance, the feet of Holofernes would have been upheld by something from below, as the marks in the bronze indicate.  With all its disadvantages, the statue is extremely interesting.  Judith stands over Holofernes.  With her left hand she holds him up by clutching his hair:  her right arm is uplifted, in which she holds the sword.  The action seems arrested during a moment of suspense:  one doubts if the sword will ever fall.  Judith, who was the ideal of courage and beauty, seems to hesitate; there is nothing to show that her arm is meant to descend, except her inexorable face—­and even that is full of sadness and regrets.  It is more dramatic that this should be so.  Cellini’s Perseus close by has already committed his murder.  The crisis has passed, the blood spurts from the severed head and trunk of the Medusa; so we have squalid details instead of the overpowering sense of impending tragedy.  With Cellini there was no room for mystery:  no imagination could be left to the spectator. “Celui qui nous dict tout nous saousle et nous degouste.” Holofernes is an amazing example of Donatello’s power.  He is a really drunken man:  we see it in the comatose fall of the limbs, in the drooping features, the languid inanition of the arms.  The veins throb in his hands and feet:  the spine has ceased to be rigid, and were it not for the support of Judith’s hands buried in his hair, he would topple over inanimate.  The treatment of the bronze is successful and its patina is admirable.  Judith’s drapery, it is true, has a restless crackling appearance.  It is furrowed into small and rather fussy folds, almost suggesting, like the figures of the Parthenon pediment, the pleats of wetted linen on a lay figure.  Judith’s arm is overweighted by the heavy sleeve.  There are, however, pleasing details, especially the band of embroidery over her breast decorated with the flying putti; and her veil, Michael Angelesque in its way, is treated with skill and distinction.  The base consists of three bronze reliefs joined into a triangle, separated at each angle by a narrow bronze plaque, beyond which is a curved pilaster giving extra support to the figures above.  These reliefs are bacchic in idea and Renaissance in execution.  Children dance, play and sleep around the mask from