sculptors.  How fine and free and spirited Bertoldo could be, alone, we shall see at the Bargello.  The S. Lorenzo pulpits are very difficult to study:  nothing wants a stronger light than a bronze relief, and in Florence students of bronze reliefs are accustomed to it, since the most famous of all—­the Ghiberti doors—­are in the open air.  Only in course of time can one discern the scenes here.  The left pulpit is the finer, for it contains the “Crucifixion” and the “Deposition,” which to me form the most striking of the panels.

The other piece of sculpture in the church itself is a ciborium by Desiderio da Settignano, in the chapel at the end of the right transept—­an exquisite work by this rare and playful and distinguished hand.  It is fitting that Desiderio should be here, for he was Donatello’s favourite pupil.  The S. Lorenzo ciborium is wholly charming, although there is a “Deposition” upon it; the little Boy is adorable; but one sees it with the greatest difficulty owing to the crowded state of the altar and the dim light.  The altar picture in the Martelli chapel, where the sympathetic Donatello monument (in the same medium as his “Annunciation” at S. Croce) is found—­on the way to the Library—­is by Lippo Lippi, and is notable for the pretty Virgin receiving the angel’s news.  There is nice colour in the predella.

As I have said in the first chapter, we are too prone to ignore the architect.  We look at the jewels and forget the casket.  Brunelleschi is a far greater maker of Florence than either Donatello or Michelangelo; but one thinks of him rather as an abstraction than a man or forgets him altogether.  Yet the S. Lorenzo sacristy is one of the few perfect things in the world.  What most people, however, remember is its tombs, its doors, and its reliefs; the proportions escape them.  I think its shallow easy dome beyond description beautiful.  Brunelleschi, who had an investigating genius, himself painted the quaint constellations in the ceiling over the altar.  At the Pazzi chapel we shall find similar architecture; but there extraneous colour was allowed to come in.  Here such reliefs as were admitted are white too.

The tomb under the great marble and porphyry table in the centre is that of Giovanni di Bicci, the father, and Piccarda, the mother, of Cosimo Pater, and is usually attributed to Buggiano, the adopted son of Brunelleschi, but other authorities give it either to Donatello alone or to Donatello with Michelozzo:  both from the evidence of the design and because it is unlikely that Cosimo would ask any one else than one of these two friends of his to carry out a commission so near his heart.  The table is part of the scheme and not a chance covering.  I think the porphyry centre ought to be movable, so that the beautiful flying figures on the sarcophagus could be seen.  But Donatello’s most striking achievement here is the bronze doors, which are at once so simple and so strong and so surprising by the activity of the virile and spirited holy men, all converting each other, thereon depicted.  These doors could not well be more different from Ghiberti’s, in the casting of which Donatello assisted; those in such high relief, these so low; those so fluid and placid, and these so vigorous.