In the room leading from that which is memorable for Pollaiuolo’s youth in armour is a collection of medals by all the best medallists, beginning, in the first case, with Pisanello.  Here are his Sigismondo Malatesta, the tyrant of Rimini, and Isotta his wife; here also is a portrait of Leon Battista Alberti, who designed and worked on the cathedral of Rimini as well as upon S. Maria Novella in Florence.  On the other side of this case is the medal commemorating the Pazzi conspiracy.  In other cases are pretty Italian ladies, such as Julia Astalla, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, with her hair in curls just as in Ghirlandaio’s frescoes, Costanza Rucellai, Leonora Altoviti, Maria Poliziano, and Maria de’ Mucini.

And so we come to the della Robbias, without whose joyous, radiant art Florence would be only half as beautiful as she is.  Of these exquisite artists Luca, the uncle, born in 1400, was by far the greatest.  Andrea, his nephew, born in 1435, came next, and then Giovanni.  Luca seems to have been a serious, quiet man who would probably have made sculpture not much below his friend Donatello’s had not he chanced on the discovery of a means of colouring and glazing terra-cotta.  Examples of this craft are seen all over Florence both within doors and out, as the pages of this book indicate, but at the Bargello is the greatest number of small pieces gathered together.  I do not say there is anything here more notable than the Annunciation attributed to Andrea at the Spedale degli Innocenti, while of course, for most people, his putti on the facade of that building are the della Robbia symbol; nor is there anything finer than Luca’s work at Impruneta; but as a collection of sweetness and gentle domestic beauty these Bargello reliefs are unequalled, both in character and in volume.  Here you see what one might call Roman Catholic art—­that is, the art which at once gives pleasure to simple souls and symbolizes benevolence and safety—­carried out to its highest power.  Tenderness, happiness, and purity are equally suggested by every relief here.  Had Luca and Andrea been entrusted with the creation of the world it would be a paradise.  And, as it is, it seems to me impossible but that they left the world sweeter than they found it.  Such examples of affection and solicitude as they were continually bringing to the popular vision must have engendered kindness.

I have noted as especially beautiful in the first room Nos. 4, 6, 12, 23, by Andrea; and 10 and 21, by Luca.  These, by the way, are the Bargello ascriptions, but the experts do not always agree.  Herr Bode, for example, who has studied the della Robbias with passionate thoroughness, gives the famous head of the boy, which is in reproduction one of the best-known works of plastic art, to Luca; but the Bargello director says Andrea.  In Herr Bode’s fascinating monograph, “Florentine Sculptors of the Renaissance,” he goes very carefully into the differences between the uncle and the nephew, master and pupil.  In