[Illustration: _Alinari_

CANTORIA (DETAIL)

FLORENCE]

[Sidenote: The Cantoria.]

The Cantoria, or organ-loft, of the Florentine Cathedral was ordered
soon after Donatello's return from Rome, and was erected about 1441.
It was placed over one of the Sacristy doors, corresponding in
position with Luca della Robbia's cantoria on the opposite side of the
choir. The ill-fortune which dispersed the Paduan altar and
Donatello's work for the facade likewise caused the removal of this
gallery. Late in the seventeenth century a royal marriage was
solemnised, for which an orchestra of unusual numbers was required,
and the two _cantorie_ were removed as inadequate. The large brackets
remained _in situ_ for some time, but were afterwards taken away also.
The two galleries have now been re-erected at either end of the chief
room of the Opera del Duomo. But the size of the galleries is
considerable, and they occupy so much of the end walls to which they
are fixed, that it is impossible to see the sides or outer panels of
either cantoria. In the case of Luca's gallery, the side panels have
been replaced by facsimiles, and the originals can be minutely
examined, being only four or five feet from the ground, and very
suggestive they are. As the side panels of Donatello's gallery are
equally invisible in their present position they might also be brought
down to the eye level. Comparison with Luca's work would then be still
more simplified. But though in a trying light, and too low down, the
sculpture shows that it was Donatello who gave the more careful
attention to the conditions under which the work would be seen. The
delicacy and grace of Luca's choir make Donatello's boys look coarse
and rough-hewn. But in the dim Cathedral, where Donatello's children
would appear bold and vivacious, the others would look insipid and
weak. Moreover, the lower tier of Luca's panels beneath the projection
and enclosed by the broad brackets, would have been in such a subdued
light that some of the heads in low-relief would have been scarcely
emphasised at all. In reconstructing Donatello's gallery an error has
been made by which a long band of mosaic runs along the whole length
of the relief, above the children's heads. M. Reymond has pointed out
that the ground level should have been raised in order to prevent what
Donatello would undoubtedly have avoided, namely, a blank and
meaningless stretch of mosaic.[142] M. Reymond's brilliant
suggestio