's David
might be the young lord; Verrocchio's, his page. Here we see the new
spirit, the Renaissance, at work, for though religion called it into
being and the Church continued to be its patron, it rapidly divided
into two halves, and while the painters were bringing all their
genius to glorify sacred history, the scholars were endeavouring to
humanize it. In this task they had no such allies as the sculptors,
and particularly Donatello, who, always thinking independently and
vigorously, was their best friend. Donatello's David fought also more
powerfully for the modern spirit (had he known it) than ever he could
have done in real life with such a large sword in such delicate hands;
for by being the first nude statue of a Biblical character, he made
simpler the way to all humanists in whatever medium they worked.

Michelangelo was not often tender. Profoundly sad he could be: indeed
his own head, in bronze, at the Accademia, might stand for melancholy
and bitter world-knowledge; but seldom tender; yet the Madonna and
Child in the circular bas-relief in this ground-floor room have
something very nigh tenderness, and a greatness that none of the
other Italian sculptors, however often they attempted this subject,
ever reached. The head of Mary in this relief is, I think, one of the
most beautiful things in Florence, none the less so for the charming
head-dress which the great austere artist has given her. The Child
is older than is usual in such groups, and differs in another way,
for tiring of a reading lesson, He has laid His arm upon the book:
a pretty touch.

Michelangelo's Bacchus, an early work, is opposite. It is a remarkable
proof of his extraordinary range that the same little room should
contain the David, the Madonna, the Brutus, and the Bacchus. In
David one can believe, as I have said, as the young serious stalwart
of the Book of Kings. The Madonna, although perhaps a shade too
intellectual--or at any rate more intellectual and commanding than
the other great artists have accustomed us to think of her--has a
sweet gravity and power and almost domestic tenderness. The Brutus
is powerful and modern and realistic; while Bacchus is steeped in the
Greek spirit, and the little faun hiding behind him is the very essence
of mischief. Add to these the fluid vigour of the unfinished relief
of the Martyrdom of S. Andrew, No. 126, and you have five examples of
human accomplishment that would be enough without the other