SIENA CATHEDRAL]

[Illustration:  W.A.  Mansell

“PAZZI” MADONNA

BERLIN]

[Sidenote:  The Madonnas.]

A whole treatise would be required to describe all the Madonnas which have been attributed to Donatello.  Within the limits of this volume the discussion must be confined to certain groups which are directly related to him, ignoring a much larger number of subordinate interest.  The tendency is to ascribe to Donatello many more than he can possibly have made—­varying inversely from the attitude of modern criticism, which has asserted that not twenty paintings by Giorgione have survived.  Hundreds of artists must have made these Madonnas, of which only a small minority are in bronze or marble.  Many names of sculptors are recorded to whom we can only attribute one or two works; the remainder being generically ascribed to the school of some great man, and often enough to the great man himself.  The bulk of these reliefs of the Madonna and Child are in stucco, terra-cotta, carta pesta and gesso—­cheap malleable materials which were easily and rapidly worked:  the reliefs were manufactured in great numbers for the market.  Then again, well-known works were cast, and small differences in colour and finish often gave them the semblance of original work.  Vasari says that almost every artist in Florence possessed a cast of Pollaiuolo’s battle-piece.[221] Such facsimiles are eagerly sought after nowadays, and are treated as genuine works of the sculptor.  It must also be remembered that during the last decades there has been a systematic multiplication of these reliefs, and that forgeries can be found in most of the great collections of Europe.  The first difficulty encountered in trying to discept between Donatello and his school, is that authenticated examples from which to make our inductions are very rare.  Donatello certainly made Madonnas in relief:  Vasari mentions half a dozen; Neroccio, the Sienese sculptor, possessed una Madonna di gesso di Donatello.[222] There are Madonnas on the tombs of Pope John and Cardinal Brancacci.  The latter shows no trace of Donatello’s craft, and the former is of indifferent merit, and was certainly not made by Donatello alone.  There are two Madonnas at Padua, one the large altar statue, the other a tiny relief three inches in diameter on one of the bronze Miracle panels.  The sources of stylistic data are therefore most scanty.  One may say generally that in the authenticated Virgins as well as in the other heads of women, Donatello makes a marked nasal indenture, thus separating him from those later men who drew their heads with the classical profile, showing a straight and continuous line from the forehead down the nose.  But even this cannot be pressed too far.  As regards the Christ, Donatello seems to preserve the essence and immaturity of childhood.  His treatment of the Child is never hieratic, and it is always full of warm human sentiment.  The