There are some ten works by the master in the Bargello, together with
numerous casts of his statues and reliefs in other parts of Italy, so
that he may be studied here better than anywhere else. Looking thus on
his work more or less as a whole, it is a new influence we seem to
divine for the first time in the marble David, a little faintly,
perhaps, but obvious enough in the St. George, a Gothic influence that
appears very happily for once, in work that almost alone in Italy seems
to need just that, well, as an excuse for beauty. That marble statue of
David was made at about the same time as the St. John the Divine, for
the Duomo too, where it was to stand within the church in a chapel there
in the apse. A little awkward in his half-shy pose, the young David
stands over the head of Goliath, uncertain whether to go or stay. It is
a failure which passes into the success, the more than success of the
St. George, which is perhaps his masterpiece. Made for the Guild of
Armourers, from the first day on which it was set up it has been
beloved. Michelangelo loved it well, and Vasari is enthusiastic about
it, while Bocchi, writing in 1571,[116] devotes a whole book to it. In
its present bad light--for the light should fall not across, but from in
front and from above, as it did once when it stood in its niche at Or
San Michele--it is not seen to advantage, but even so, the life that
seems to move in the cold stone may be discerned. With a proud and
terrible impetuosity St. George seems about to confront some renowned
and famous enemy, that old dragon whom once he slew. Full of confidence
and beauty he gazes unafraid, as though on that which he is about to
encounter before he moves forward to meet it. Well may Michelangelo have
whispered "March!" as he passed by, it is the very order he awaits, the
whisper of his own heart. It is in this romantic and beautiful figure
that, as it seems to me, that new Gothic influence may be most clearly
discerned. M. Reymond, in his learned and pleasant book on Florentine
sculpture, has pointed out the likeness which this St. George of
Donatello bears to the St. Theodore of Chartres Cathedral, and though
it is impossible to deny that likeness, it seems at first almost as
impossible to explain it. It is true that many Italians were employed in
France in the building of the churches; it is equally true that
Michelozzo, the friend and assistant of Donato, was the son of a
Burgundian; but it seems as u