onatello's pupil Desiderio; and various
other masterpieces elsewhere. But it is the originals that chiefly
interest us, and first of these in bronze is the David, of which I
have already spoken, and first of these in marble the S. George. This
George is just such a resolute, clean, warlike idealist as one dreams
him. He would kill a dragon, it is true; but he would eat and sleep
after it and tell the story modestly and not without humour. By a
happy chance the marble upon which Donatello worked had light veins
running through it just where the head is, with the result that the
face seems to possess a radiance of its own. This statue was made for
Or San Michele, where it used to stand until 1891, when the present
bronze replica that takes its place was made. The spirited marble
frieze underneath it at Or San Michele is the original and has been
there for centuries. It was this S. George whom Ruskin took as the
head and inspiration of his Saint George's Guild.

The David is interesting not only in itself but as being the first
isolated statue of modern times. It was made for Cosimo de' Medici,
to stand in the courtyard of the Medici palace (now the Riccardi),
and until that time, since antiquity, no one had made a statue to
stand on a pedestal and be observable from all points. Hitherto modern
sculptors had either made reliefs or statues for niches. It was also
the first nude statue of modern times; and once again one has the
satisfaction of recognizing that the first was the best. At any rate,
no later sculptor has made anything more charming than this figure,
or more masterly within its limits.

After the S. George and the bronze David, the two most memorable things
are the adorable bronze Amorino in its quaint little trousers--or
perhaps not Amorino at all, since it is trampling on a snake,
which such little sprites did not do--and the coloured terra-cotta
bust called Niccolo da Uzzano, so like life as to be after a while
disconcerting. The sensitiveness of the mouth can never have been
excelled. The other originals include the gaunt John the Baptist with
its curious little moustache, so far removed from the Amorino and so
admirable a proof of the sculptor's vigilant thoughtfulness in all
he did; the relief of the infant John, one of the most animated of
the heads (the Baptist at all periods of his life being a favourite
with this sculptor); three bronze heads, of which those of the Young
Gentleman and the Roman Empe