ectorum_."[69]
Finally, like Ciuffagni,[70] he is called _aurifex_, goldsmith.[71]
Cellini mentions Donatello's success in painting,[72] and Gauricus,
who wrote early in the sixteenth century, says that the favourite
maxim inculcated by Donatello to his pupils was "_designate_"--"Draw:
that is the whole foundation of sculpture."[73] The only pictorial
work that has survived is the great stained-glass Coronation of the
Virgin in the Duomo. Ghiberti submitted a competitive cartoon and the
Domopera had to settle which was "_pulchrius et honorabilius pro
ecclesia_." Donatello's design was accepted,[74] and the actual
glazing was carried out by Bernardo Francesco in eighteen months.[75]
The background is a plain blue sky, and the two great figures are the
centre of a warm and harmonious composition. The window stands well
among its fellows as regards colour and design, but does not help us
to solve difficult problems connected with Donatello's drawings.
Numbers have been attributed to him on insufficient foundation.[76]
The fact is that, notwithstanding the explicit statements of Borghini
and Vasari that Donatello and Michael Angelo were comparable in
draughtsmanship, we have no authenticated work through which to make
our inductions. A large and important scene of the Flagellation in the
Uffizzi,[77] placed within a complicated architectural framework, and
painted in green wash, has some later Renaissance features, but
recalls Donatello's compositions. In the same collection are two
extremely curious pen-and-ink drawings which give variants of
Donatello's tomb of John XXIII. in the Baptistery. The first of them
(No. 660) shows the Pope in his tiara, whereas on the tomb this symbol
of the Papacy occupies a subordinate place. The Charity below carries
children, another variant from the tomb itself. The second study (No.
661) gives the effigy of a bareheaded knight in full armour lying to
the left, and the basal figures also differ from those on the actual
tomb. These drawings are certainly of the fifteenth century, and even
if not directly traceable to Donatello himself, are important from
their relation to the great tomb of the Pope, for which Donatello was
responsible. But we have no right to say that even these are
Donatello's own work. In fact, drawings on paper by Donatello would
seem inherently improbable. Although he almost drew in marble when
working in _stiacciato_, the lowest kind of relief, he was essentially
a mod