It is no part of my present purpose to enumerate the many works of Donatello in marble and bronze; yet some allusion to their number and variety is necessary in order to show how widely his influence was diffused through Italy.  In the monuments of Pope John XXIII., of Cardinal Brancacci, and of Bartolommeo Aragazzi, he subordinated his genius to the treatment of sepulchral and biographical subjects according to time-honoured Tuscan usage.  They were severally placed in Florence, Naples, and Montepulciano.  For the cathedral of Prato he executed bas-reliefs of dancing boys; a similar series, intended for the balustrades of the organ in S. Maria del Fiore, is now preserved in the Bargello museum.  The exultation of movement has never been expressed in stone with more fidelity to the strict rules of plastic art.  For his friend and patron, Cosimo de’ Medici, he cast in bronze the group of “Judith and Holofernes”—­a work that illustrates the clumsiness of realistic treatment, and deserves to be remembered chiefly for its strange fortunes.  When the Medici fled from Florence in 1494, their palace was sacked; the new republic took possession of Donatello’s “Judith,” and placed it on a pedestal before the gate of the Palazzo Vecchio, with this inscription, ominous to would-be despots:  Exemplum salutis publicae cives posuere.  MCCCCXCV.  It now stands near Cellini’s “Perseus” under the Loggia de’ Lanzi.  For the pulpits of S. Lorenzo, Donatello made designs of intricate bronze bas-reliefs, which were afterwards completed by his pupil Bertoldo.  These, though better known to travellers, are less excellent than the reliefs in bronze wrought by Donatello’s own hand for the church of S. Anthony at Padua.[91] To that city he was called in 1451, in order that he might model the equestrian statue of Gattamelata.  It still stands on the Piazza, a masterpiece of scientific bronze-founding, the first great portrait of a general on horseback since the days of Rome.[92] At Padua, in the hall of the Palazzo della Ragione, is also preserved the wooden horse, which is said to have been constructed by the sculptor for the noble house of Capodilista.  These two examples of equestrian modelling marked an epoch in Italian statuary.

When Donato di Nicolo di Betto Bardi, called Donatello because men loved his sweet and cheerful temper, died in 1466 at the age of eighty, the brightest light of Italian sculpture in its most promising period was extinguished.  Donatello’s influence, felt far and wide through Italy, was of inestimable value in correcting the false direction toward pictorial sculpture which Ghiberti, had he flourished alone at Florence, might have given to the art.  His style was always eminently masculine.  However tastes may differ about the positive merits of his several works, there can be no doubt that the principles of sincerity, truth to nature, and technical accuracy they illustrate, were all-important in an age that lent itself too readily to the caprices of the fancy and the puerilities of florid taste.  To regret that Donatello lacked Ghiberti’s exquisite sense of beauty, is tantamount to wishing that two of the greatest artists of the world had made one man between them.