, each muscle a joy as great as sight of stars or
flowers. Much that is repulsive in the pictures of the Pollajuoli and
Andrea del Castagno, the leaders in this branch of realism, is due to
admiration for the newly studied mechanism of the human form. They seem to
have cared but little to select their types or to accentuate expression,
so long as they were able to portray the man before them with
fidelity.[165] The comeliness of average humanity was enough for them; the
difficulties of reproducing what they saw, exhausted their force. Thus the
master-works on which they staked their reputation show them emulous of
fame as craftsmen, while only here and there, in minor paintings for the
most part, the poet that was in them sees the light. Brunelleschi told
Donatello the truth when he said that his Christ was a crucified
_contadino_. Intent on mastering the art of modelling, and determined
above all things to be accurate, the sculptor had forgotten that something
more was wanted in a crucifix than the careful study of a robust
peasant-boy.

A story of a somewhat later date still further illustrates the dependence
of the work of art upon the model in Renaissance Florence. Jacopo
Sansovino made the statue of a youthful "Bacchus" in close imitation of a
lad called Pippo Fabro. Posing for hours together naked in a cold studio,
Pippo fell into ill health, and finally went mad. In his madness he
frequently assumed the attitude of the "Bacchus" to which his life had
been sacrificed, and which is now his portrait. The legend of the painter
who kept his model on a cross in order that he might the more minutely
represent the agonies of death by crucifixion, is but a mythus of the
realistic method carried to its logical extremity.

Piero della Francesca, a native of Borgo San Sepolcro, and a pupil of
Domenico Veneziano, must be placed among the painters of this period who
advanced their art by scientific study. He carried the principles of
correct drawing and solid modelling as far as it is possible for the
genius of man to do, and composed a treatise on perspective in the vulgar
tongue. But these are not his only titles to fame. By dignity of
portraiture, by loftiness of style, and by a certain poetical solemnity of
imagination, he raised himself above the level of the mass of his
contemporaries. Those who have once seen his fresco of the "Resurrection"
in the hall of the Compagnia della Misericordia at Borgo San Sepolcro,
will ne