ded of his
well-paid tomb. The monument, a master work of Donatello and his
collaborator, was duly erected. The oxen and the contractors, it
appears, had floundered through the mud of Valdichiana, and
struggled up the mountain-slopes of Montepulciano. But when the
church, which this triumph of art adorned, came to be repaired, the
miracle of beauty was dismembered. The sculpture for which Aragazzi
spent his thousands of crowns, which Donatello touched with his
immortalising chisel, over which the contractors vented their curses
and Bruni eased his bile; these marbles are now visible as mere
_disjecta membra_ in a church which, lacking them, has little to
detain a traveller's haste.

On the left hand of the central door, as you enter, Aragazzi lies,
in senatorial robes, asleep; his head turned slightly to the right
upon the pillow, his hands folded over his breast. Very noble are
the draperies, and dignified the deep tranquillity of slumber. Here,
we say, is a good man fallen upon sleep, awaiting resurrection. The
one commanding theme of Christian sculpture, in an age of Pagan
feeling, has been adequately rendered. Bartolommeo Aragazzi, like
Ilaria led Carretto at Lucca, like the canopied doges in S. Zanipolo
at Venice, like the Acciauoli in the Florentine Certosa, like the
Cardinal di Portogallo in Samminiato, is carved for us as he had
been in life, but with that life suspended, its fever all smoothed
out, its agitations over, its pettinesses dignified by death. This
marmoreal repose of the once active man symbolises for our
imagination the state into which he passed four centuries ago, but
in which, according to the creed, he still abides, reserved for
judgment and re-incarnation. The flesh, clad with which he walked
our earth, may moulder in the vaults beneath. But it will one day
rise again; and art has here presented it imperishable to our gaze.
This is how the Christian sculptors, inspired by the majestic calm
of classic art, dedicated a Christian to the genius of repose. Among
the nations of antiquity this repose of death was eternal; and being
unable to conceive of a man's body otherwise than for ever
obliterated by the flames of funeral, they were perforce led back to
actual life when they would carve his portrait on a tomb. But for
Christianity the rest of the grave has ceased to be eternal.
Centuries may pass, but in the end it must be broken. Therefore art
is justified in showing us the man himself in an i