utiful and masterly than
those by the known. Look, for example, at the fleur-de-lis over the
door; at the Madonna and Child next it, on the right; at the girl's
head next to that; at the baby girl at the other end of the room;
and at the older boy and his pendant. But one does not need to come
here to form an idea of the wealth of good sculpture. The streets
alone are full of it. Every palace has beautiful stone-work and an
escutcheon which often only a master could execute--as Donatello
devised that for the Palazzo Pazzi in the Borgo degli Albizzi. On the
great staircase of the Bargello, for example, are numbers of coats
of arms that could not be more beautifully designed and incised.

In the room leading from that which is memorable for Pollaiuolo's
youth in armour is a collection of medals by all the best medallists,
beginning, in the first case, with Pisanello. Here are his Sigismondo
Malatesta, the tyrant of Rimini, and Isotta his wife; here also is
a portrait of Leon Battista Alberti, who designed and worked on the
cathedral of Rimini as well as upon S. Maria Novella in Florence. On
the other side of this case is the medal commemorating the Pazzi
conspiracy. In other cases are pretty Italian ladies, such as Julia
Astalla, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, with her hair in curls just as in
Ghirlandaio's frescoes, Costanza Rucellai, Leonora Altoviti, Maria
Poliziano, and Maria de' Mucini.

And so we come to the della Robbias, without whose joyous, radiant
art Florence would be only half as beautiful as she is. Of these
exquisite artists Luca, the uncle, born in 1400, was by far the
greatest. Andrea, his nephew, born in 1435, came next, and then
Giovanni. Luca seems to have been a serious, quiet man who would
probably have made sculpture not much below his friend Donatello's had
not he chanced on the discovery of a means of colouring and glazing
terra-cotta. Examples of this craft are seen all over Florence both
within doors and out, as the pages of this book indicate, but at the
Bargello is the greatest number of small pieces gathered together. I
do not say there is anything here more notable than the Annunciation
attributed to Andrea at the Spedale degli Innocenti, while of course,
for most people, his putti on the facade of that building are the
della Robbia symbol; nor is there anything finer than Luca's work
at Impruneta; but as a collection of sweetness and gentle domestic
beauty these Bargello reliefs are unequalled, bot