h a baldachino. Each tier
is separated by lines which intersect the columns at right angles. The
task of making a monument which would not be dwarfed by these huge
plain pillars was not easy. But the tomb, which is decorated with
prudent reserve, holds its own. The effigy is bronze: all the rest is
marble. It was probably coloured, and a drawing in Ghiberti's
note-book gives a background of cherry red, with the figures
gilded.[92] Coscia lies in his mitre and episcopal robes, his head
turned outwards towards the spectator. The features are admirably
modelled with the firmness and consistency of living flesh: indeed it
is the portrait of a sleeping man, troubled, perhaps, in his dream.
The tomb was made some years after Coscia's death, and Donatello has
not treated him as a dead man. The effigy is a contrast to that of
Cardinal Brancacci, where we have the unmistakable lineaments and
fallen features of a corpse. The dusky hue of Coscia's face should be
noticed; the bronze appears to have been rubbed with some kind of dark
composition, similar in tone to that employed by Torrigiano. Below the
recumbent Pope is the sarcophagus; two delightful winged boys hold
the cartel on which the epitaph is boldly engraved. The three marble
figures in niches at the base, Faith, Hope and Charity, belong to a
different category. Albertini says that the bronze is by Donatello,
and "_li ornamenti marmorei di suoi discipuli_." Half a century later,
Vasari says that Donatello made two of them, and that Michelozzo made
the Faith, which is the least successful of the three. Modern
criticism tends to revert to Albertini, assigning all to Michelozzo,
with the presumption that Hope, which is derived from the Siena
statuette, was executed from Donatello's design. Certainly the basal
figures are without the _brio_ of Donatello's chisel; likewise the
Madonna above the effigy, which is vacillating, and may have been the
earliest work of Pagno di Lapo, a man about whom we have slender
authenticated knowledge, but whom we know to have been well employed
in and around Florence. In any case, we cannot reconcile this Madonna
with Michelozzo's sculpture. As will be seen later on, Michelozzo had
many faults, but he was seldom insipid. The Madonna and Saints on the
facade of Sant' Agostino at Montepulciano show that Michelozzo was a
vigorous man. This latter work is certainly by him, the local
tradition connecting it with one Pasquino da Montepulciano being
u