are very
beautiful. At first he used but few colors, but later he increased their
number, and was able to produce a combined effect of painting and relief
that is very pleasing.

These works were used for altar-pieces, medallions on exteriors,
fountains, wall decoration, and a great variety of purposes. Twelve
medallions representing the months, which are in the South Kensington
Museum, are said to have been made by Luca to decorate a writing cabinet
for one of the Medici.

Luca worked with his nephew, Andrea, who had four sons; and when Luca
died his secrets belonged to them, and made their fortunes. They were
occupied eleven years in making a frieze to a hospital in Pistoja; it
represented the Seven Acts of Mercy. One of them went to France and
decorated the Chateau of Madrid for Francis I. Pope Leo X. employed
another to pave the Loggie of the Vatican with Robbia tiles, and these
wares, in one form and another, were used in numberless ways, both
useful and decorative.

The Robbia family was followed by other workers in glazed ware, and
during about a century it was a prominent feature in art, and then was
gradually given up.

The most noted pupil of Donatello was ANDREA DEL VEROCCHIO (1432-1488).
He was born at Florence, and was early apprenticed to a goldsmith called
Verocchio, from whom the sculptor took his surname. It is said that this
name came from the fact that the elder Verocchio had remarkable
exactness of sight.

Neither the metal works nor the paintings which Verocchio did remain,
and after about 1466 he devoted himself entirely to sculpture. It is
difficult to associate him with Donatello; his execution is finished
like most sculptors who were also metal-workers; his nude parts are true
to nature, but not graceful or attractive, and his draperies are in
small folds, which give a tumbled, crumpled effect rather than that of
the easy, graceful falling of soft material.

His best works are a David in the Museum of the Bargello, Florence; a
bronze Genius pressing a Dolphin to itself on a fountain in the court of
the Palazzo Vecchio (Fig. 87); an equestrian statue of Colleoni before
the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo, Venice (Fig. 88); and a group of St.
Thomas examining the Wounds of Christ at the Church of Or San Michele,
Florence. This last work is in his best and latest manner; the
expression is powerful, but the drapery is still very faulty.

[Illustration: FIG. 87.--BOY WITH DOLPHIN. _By Verocch