tello. Their work was a sort of
_minuteria_--table ornaments, plaquettes, inkstands, and the ordinary
decoration of a sitting-room. Monumental childhood almost ceased to
exist in Italian plastic art, and, after Michael Angelo, degenerated
into stout and prosperous children lolling in clouds and diving among
the draperies which adorned the later altars and tombs. Their didactic
value was soon lost to Italian sculpture, and with it went their
inherent grace and significance. Donatello was among the first as he
was among the last seriously to apply to sculpture the words _ex ore
infantium perfecisti laudem_.

[Footnote 150: "Trattato della Pintura," Richter, i. 291.]

[Footnote 151: This open form of trouser, of which one sees a variant
on the Martelli David, was also classical. The Athis or Phrygian
shepherd usually wears something of the kind.]

[Footnote 152: Very similar classical types are in the British Museum,
No. 1147; and the Eros springing forward in the Forman Collection
(dispersed in 1899) is almost identical.]

[Footnote 153: From the Piot Collection. Figured in "Gaz. des Beaux
Arts," 1890, iii. 410.]

[Footnote 154: Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 475, 1864. A winged boy
carrying a dolphin.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Alinari_

SAN GIOVANNINO

FAENZA MUSEUM]

[Sidenote: Boys' Busts.]

It is inexplicable that modern criticism should withdraw from
Donatello all the free-standing or portrait-busts of boys, while going
to the opposite extreme in ascribing to him an enormous number of
Madonnas. We know that Donatello was passionately fond of carving
children on his reliefs: we also know that only two versions of the
Madonna can be really authenticated as his work. Why should Donatello
have made no busts of boys when it is not denied that he was
responsible for something like one hundred boys in full-length; and
how does it come about that scores of Madonnas should be attributed to
him when we only have the record of a few? There can be no doubt that
Donatello would not have rested content with children in relief or in
miniature. The very preparation of his numerous works in this category
must have led him to make busts as well, quite apart from his own
inclinations. The stylistic method of argument should not be abused:
if driven to a strict and logical conclusion it becomes misleading. It
ignores the human element in the artist. It pays no attention to his
desire