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282 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Chap. X. the contrary, reproduced actual imitations of the deities and emblems of antiquity; and he was so little imbued with the idea of the divinity of the Saviour that he natu rally failed when he took in hand such a subject as the crucifixion. Brunelleschi justly reproached him when he declared that his Christ was a rustic. The figure exists to this day in S. Croce of Florence, 1 and is not only a realistic imitation of a low nature, but a reproduction of an imperfect form, of a bony and muscular nude with a large head and weak chest. But Donatello was not merely at fault when called upon, as on this occasion, to display perfect ideal of form and religious feeling. He was equally unsuccessful whenever he had to reproduce any one of the less fine or placid moods into which the human frame may be thrown. His Magdalen in the Baptistery of Florence is but a suffering and emaciated shell, un feminine in every sense, and with hardly a trace of such original beauty as might be supposed to linger in a frame borne down by long anguish and penance. The extent to which Donatello could allow his cooler experience to desert him is shown in the exaggerated and grotesque groups forming the reliefs of the pulpits of S. Lorenzo at Florence. Yet in the midst of this exaggeration one marks originality, fancy, and a vehemence of passion, which seem to foreshadow the efforts of Michael Angelo in his decline. In the handling of bronze, Donatello has been described as careless or inexperienced; yet Vasari’s praise of the casting and chiselling in the Judith and Holophernes of the Loggia de’ Lanzi at Florence is undeniably correct and just. 1 In the Cappella Bardi.
