certain distances and heights, has seldom been better ap plied than it is in the S. Mark of Orsanmichele. These were not the sole difficulties of his practise which Donatello encountered and overcame. In the faces of the pulpit of Prato, on the round surface of which gay infants dance, he shows his mastery in the lowest relief; and thus appears to be, of all Italian artists, the ablest in this most difficult branch. It may be admitted that he went to the extreme of flatness; still, he is all but unique in the effort, and in the success which attends it. Were it worth while to add this example to foregoing ones, the student would only be strengthened in the conviction that Greek models yielded inexhaustible fruits to the genius and energy of Donatello. If we contemplate other works, we shall see that he derived advantage equally great from the study of animal nature. The statue of Gattamelatta at Padua, not merely displays the master’s power in limn ing the human form, but reveals his ability in rendering that of the horse. Donatello, in fact, shares with Verrocchio the honour of having, in equestrian statues, made a nearer approach to the antique than any Italian sculptor of sub sequent or previous times. We have thus illustrated by a few remarkable examples the qualities of a great sculptor. Some of his defects have been incidentally touched upon. We must complete the impartial enumeration of others. Donatello was seldom select; and he frequently indulged in the slovenly fault of reproducing square and vulgar forms, in which the excess of life in the action of muscles or limbs was insufficient to make the spectator forget the unnoble nature of the being represented. Too frequently form, rustic in mould and in strength, revealed a sacrifice of idealism to details. A grand feature in the art revived by Giotto was its intense gravity of religious feeling. We have noted the gradual disappearance of that feature in the lapse of years, as the revival of letters introduced the study of extinct languages and of pagan philosophy. Many artists, however, continued to treat exclusively religious subjects; and of these Ghiberti was one. Donatello, on
