and we have a letter[88] asking the Domopera for
payment, Donatello and Michelozzo being rather surprised--"_assai
maravigliati_"--that the florins had not arrived. The last of these
bronze Virtues, by Goro di Neroccio, was not placed on the font till
1431. Donatello also had the commission for the _sportello_, the
bronze door of the tabernacle. But the authorities were dissatisfied
with the work and returned it to the sculptor, though indemnifying him
for the loss.[89] This was in 1434, the children for the upper cornice
having been made from 1428 onwards. The relief, which was ordered in
1421, was finished some time in 1427. It is Donatello's first relief
in bronze, and his earliest definitive effort to use a complicated
architectural background. The incident is the head of St. John being
presented on the charger by the kneeling executioner. Herod starts
back dismayed at the sight, suddenly realising the purport of his
action. Two children playing beside him hurriedly get up; one sees
that in a moment they, too, will be terror-stricken. Salome watches
the scene; it is very simple and very dramatic. The bas-relief of St.
George releasing Princess Sabra, the Cleodolinda of Spencer's Faerie
Queen, is treated as an epic, the works having a connecting bond in
the figures of the girls, who closely resemble each other. Much as one
admires the _elan_ of St. George slaying the dragon, this bronze
relief of Siena is the finer of the two; it is more perfect in its
way, and Donatello shows more apt appreciation of the spaces at his
disposal. The Siena plaque, like the marble relief of the dance of
Salome at Lille, to which it is analogous, has a series of arches
vanishing into perspective. They are not fortuitous buildings, but are
used by the sculptor to subdivide and multiply the incidents. They
give depth to the scene, adding a sense of the beyond. The Lille
relief has a wonderful background, full of hidden things, reminding
one of the mysterious etchings of Piranesi.

[Footnote 88: 9. v. 1427. Milanesi, ii. 134.]

[Footnote 89: Lusini, 28.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Alinari_

TOMB OF COSCIA, POPE JOHN XXIII.

BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE]

[Illustration: _Alinari_

EFFIGY OF POPE JOHN XXIII.

BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE]

[Sidenote: Michelozzo and the Coscia Tomb.]

For ten years Donatello was associated with Michelozzo,[90] who began
as assistant and finally entered into a partnership wh