concerned this is not impossible, though the early Renaissance motives
long retained their popularity. There is, however, one detail showing
that the base must be at least twenty-five years older than the niche.
The arms of the various quarters of Florence are carved upon the
frieze of the base. Among these shields we notice one bearing "on a
field semee of fleurs-de-lys, a label, above all a bendlet dexter."
These are not Italian arms. They were granted in 1452 to Jean, Comte
de Dunois, an illegitimate son of the Duc d'Orleans. His coat had
previously borne the bendlet sinister, but this was officially turned
into a bendlet dexter, to show that the King had been pleased to
legitimise him in recognition of his services to Joan of Arc. Jean was
a contemporary of Donatello, and the coat may have been placed among
the other shields as a compliment to France. Certainly no quarter of a
town could use a mark of cadency below a bendlet, and Florence was
more careful than most Italian towns to be precise in her heraldry.
Numbers of stone shields bearing the arms of Florentine families were
placed upon the palace walls. When high up and protected by the broad
eaves they have survived; but, as a rule, those which were exposed to
the weather, carved as they usually were in soft stone, have
perished.[86] Bocchi mentions that Donatello made coats-of-arms for
the Becchi, the Boni and the Pazzi. Others have been ascribed to him,
namely, the Stemma of the Arte della Seta, from the Via di Capaccio,
that on the Gianfigliazzi Palace, the shield inside the courtyard of
the Palazzo Davanzati, and that on the Palazzo Quaratesi, all in
Florence. These have been much repaired, and in some cases almost
entirely renewed. The shield on the eastern side of the old Martelli
Palace (in the Via de' Martelli, No. 9) is, perhaps, coeval with
Donatello, but it is insignificant beside the shield preserved inside
the present palace. This coat-of-arms, which is coloured according to
the correct metals and tinctures, is one of the finest extant
specimens of decorative heraldry. It is a winged griffin rampant, with
the tail and hindlegs of a lion. The shield is supported by the stone
figure of a retainer, cut in very deep relief, as the achievement was
to be seen from the street below. But the shield itself rivets one's
attention. This griffin can be classed with the Stryge, or the
Etruscan Chimaera as a classic example of the fantastic monsters which
were