zoned in open arabesques with the
ciphers of Sigismondo and Isotta, with coats-of-arms, emblems, and
medallion portraits, shut the chapels from the nave. Who produced all
this sculpture it is difficult to say. Some of it is very good: much
is indifferent. We may hazard the opinion that, besides Bernardo
Ciuffagni, of whom Vasari speaks, some pupils of Donatello and
Benedetto da Majano worked at it. The influence of the sculptors of
Florence is everywhere perceptible.

Whatever be the merit of these reliefs, there is no doubt that they
fairly represent one of the most interesting moments in the history of
modern art. Gothic inspiration had failed; the early Tuscan style of
the Pisani had been worked out; Michelangelo was yet far distant, and
the abundance of classic models had not overwhelmed originality. The
sculptors of the school of Ghiberti and Donatello, who are represented
in this church, were essentially pictorial, preferring low to high
relief, and relief in general to detached figures. Their style, like
the style of Boiardo in poetry, of Botticelli in painting, is specific
to Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. Mediaeval standards of
taste were giving way to classical, Christian sentiment to Pagan; yet
the imitation of the antique had not been carried so far as to efface
the spontaneity of the artist, and enough remained of Christian
feeling to tinge the fancy with a grave and sweet romance. The
sculptor had the skill and mastery to express his slightest shade of
thought with freedom, spirit, and precision. Yet his work showed no
sign of conventionality, no adherence to prescribed rules. Every
outline, every fold of drapery, every attitude was pregnant, to the
artist's own mind at any rate, with meaning. In spite of its
symbolism, what he wrought was never mechanically figurative, but
gifted with the independence of its own beauty, vital with an
inbreathed spirit of life. It was a happy moment, when art had reached
consciousness, and the artist had not yet become self-conscious. The
hand and the brain then really worked together for the procreation of
new forms of grace, not for the repetition of old models, or for the
invention of the strange and startling. 'Delicate, sweet, and
captivating,' are good adjectives to express the effect produced upon
the mind by the contemplation even of the average work of this period.

To study the flowing lines of the great angels traced upon the walls
of the Chapel