Donatello | Page 5

to the
spirit of the main building, while it has been left to our own generation
to complete Santa Croce and the Cathedral. The latter, it is true, once
had a façade, which, though never finished, was ambitiously planned.
A large section of it was, however, erected in Donatello's time, but was
removed for no reason which can be adequately explained, except that
on the occasion of a royal marriage it was thought necessary to destroy
what was contrived in the maniera tedesca, substituting a sham painted
affair which was speedily ruined by the elements. The ethics of
vandalism are indeed strange and varied. In this case vanity was
responsible. It was superstition which led the Sienese, after incurring
defeat by the Florentines, to remove from their market-place the
famous statue by Lysippus which brought them ill-luck, and to bury it
in Florentine territory, so that their enemies might suffer instead.
Ignorance nearly induced a Pope to destroy the "Last Judgment" of
Michael Angelo, whose colossal statue of an earlier Pontiff, Julius II.,
was broken up through political animosity. One wishes that in this last
case there had been some practical provision such as that inserted by
the House of Lords in the order for destroying the Italian Tombs at
Windsor in 1645, when they ordained that "they that buy the tombs
shall have liberty to transport them beyond the seas, for making the
best advantage of them." The vandalism which dispersed Donatello's
work could not even claim to be utilitarian, like that which so nearly
caused the destruction of the famous chapel by Benozzo Gozzoli in the
Riccardi Palace (for the purposes of a new staircase);[2] neither was it
caused by the exigencies of war, such as the demolition of the
Monastery of San Donato, a treasure-house of early painting, razed to
the ground by the Florentines when awaiting the siege of 1529. The
Cathedral façade was hastily removed, and only a fraction of the
statuary has survived. Two figures are in the Louvre; another has been
recently presented to the Cathedral by the Duca di Sermoneta, himself a
Caetani, of Boniface VIII., a portrait-statue even more remarkable than
that of the same Pope at Bologna. Four more figures from the old
façade, now standing outside the Porta Romana of Florence, are
misused and saddened relics. They used to be the major prophets, but

on translation were crowned with laurels, and now represent Homer,
Virgil, Dante and Petrarch. Other statues are preserved inside the
Cathedral. Before dealing with these it is necessary to point out how
difficult it is to determine the authorship and identity of the surviving
figures. In the first place, our materials for reconstructing the design of
the old façade are few. There were various pictures, some of which in
their turn have perished, where guidance might have been expected.
But the representations of the Cathedral in frescoes at San Marco, Santa
Croce, the Misericordia and Santa Maria Novella help us but little. Up
to the eighteenth century there used to be a model in the Opera del
Duomo: this also has vanished, and we are compelled to make our
deductions from a rather unsatisfactory drawing made by Bernardo
Pocetti in the sixteenth century. It shows the disposition of statuary so
sketchily that we can only recognise a few of the figures. But we have a
perfect idea of the general style and aim of those who planned the
façade, which would have far surpassed the rival frontispieces of Siena,
Pisa and Orvieto. We are met by a further difficulty in identifying the
surviving statues from the fact that the contracts given to sculptors by
the
Chapter do
not always specify the personage to be represented. Moreover, in many
cases the statues have no symbol attribute or legend, which usually
guide our interpretation of mediæval art. Thus Donatello is paid pro
parte solutionis unius figure marmoree;[3] or for figuram
marmoream.[4] Even when an obvious and familiar explanation could
be given, such as Abraham and Isaac, the accounts record an instalment
for the figure of a prophet with a naked boy at his feet.[5]
[Footnote 2: Cinelli, p. 22.]
[Footnote 3: 23, xii. 1418.]
[Footnote 4: 12, xii. 1408.]
[Footnote 5: 30, v. 1421.]

* * * * *
[Illustration: Alinari
JOSHUA
CATHEDRAL, FLORENCE]
[Sidenote: The Daniel and Poggio.]
Nine large marble figures for the Cathedral are now accepted as the
work of Donatello. Others may have perished, and it is quite possible
that in one at least of the other statues Donatello may have had a
considerable share. With the exception of St. John the Baptist and St.
John the Evangelist, all these statues are derived from the Old
Testament--Daniel, Jeremiah and Habbakuk, Abraham and the marble
David in the Bargello, together with the two figures popularly called