Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/276

This page needs to be proofread.

546 Sculpture in the Renaissance Period. the ideal Christian warrior, ready calmly to face suffering and death. Better known than any of these, however, is his statue of Gattamelata at Padua, and the so-called Zuccone (bald-head), a portrait of Fra Barduccio Cheri- chini, in one of the niches of the Campanile, Florence. Three beautiful original carvings in marble, in very low relief, by Donatello, of Christ in the Sepulchre, supported by Angels, the Delivering of the Keys to St. Peter, and the Shrine of a female Saint, as well as a cast of the St. George, are in the South Kensington Museum. Luea della Robbia, another great Florentine sculptor (1400 — 1482), who is supposed to have invented the process of enamelling terra-cotta, nourished at this period. He is principally known for his works in terra-cotta, in high or low relief — many specimens of which are to be studied in the South Kensington Museum, — and for the groups of Singers in marble, executed for the cathedral of Florence, and now in the Royal Gallery of that city. Part of the frieze of the interior of the Renaissance Court at the Crystal Palace is a cast of this famous work. Both Delia Robbia and Ghiberti adhered to some extent to the mediaeval style ; but they combined it with a simplicity of feeling, a dignity of execution, and a truth of conception peculiarly their own. The illustration (Fig. 103) is from a medallion by Luca della Robbia, representing the Virgin worshipping her Divine Son. Of Donatello' s numerous followers, Andrea Verrocchio (1432 — 1488) was the chief. His most famous work is the bronze equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Coleoni (Fig. 104), in the piazza of the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice. At the close of the fifteenth century ornamental sculp-