[Footnote 60: All three in Bargello.]

[Footnote 61: See p. 185.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Alinari_

SAN GIOVANNINO

PALAZZO MARTELLI, FLORENCE]

[Illustration: _Alinari_

ST. JOHN BAPTIST, MARBLE

BARGELLO]

[Sidenote: Early Figures of St. John.]

Another important statue in the Martelli palace is that of St. John
the Baptist. Besides being the earliest patron of Florence, St. John
was the titular saint of every Baptistery in the land. This accounts
for the frequency with which we find his statues and scenes from his
life, particularly in Tuscany. With Donatello he was to some extent a
speciality, and we can almost trace the sculptor's evolution in his
presentment of the Baptist, beginning with the chivalrous figure on
the Campanile and ending with the haggard ascetic of Venice. We have
St. John as a child in the Bargello, as a boy in Rome, as a stripling
in the Martelli palace. On the bell-tower he is grown up, in the Frari
he is growing older, and at Siena he is shown as old as Biblical
history would permit. The St. John in the Casa Martelli, _oltra tutti
singolare_,[62] was so highly prized that it was made an heirloom,
with penalties for such members of the family who disposed of it. This
St. John is a link between the Giovannino and the mature prophet. He
is, as it were, dazed, and sets forth upon his errand with
open-mouthed wonder. He has a strain of melancholy, and seems rather
weakly and hesitating. But there is no attempt after emaciation. The
limbs are well made, and as sturdy as one would expect, in view of the
unformed lines of the model: the hands also are good. As regards the
face, one notices that the nose and mouth are rather crooked, and that
the eyes diverge: not, indeed, that these defects are really
displeasing, since they are what one sometimes finds in living youth.
Another Baptist which has hitherto escaped attention is the small
marble figure, about four feet high, which stands in a niche over the
sacristy door of San Giovanni Fiorentino in Rome. It was placed there
a few years ago, when, owing to the prevalent mania of rebuilding, it
became necessary to demolish the little oratory on the Corso which
belonged to the Mother Church close by. The statue was scarcely seen
in its old home: how it got there is unknown. The church itself was
not founded by the Florentines until after Donatello's death, and this
statue looks as if it had been made bef