of the reposing limbs is alert. So, too,
in the Moses, with all its exaggeration and melodrama, with its aspect
of frigid sensationalism, which led Thackeray to say he would not like
to be left alone in the room with it, we find every motionless limb
imbued with vitality and the essentials of movement. The Moses
undoubtedly springs from the St. John, transcending it as Beethoven
surpassed Haydn. In spite of nearly unpardonable faults verging on
decadence, it is the greater though the less pleasing creation of the
two. The St. John surveys the world; the Moses speaks with God.

[Illustration: _Alinari_

MARBLE DAVID

BARGELLO, FLORENCE]

The fourth statue made for the Cathedral proper is contemporary with
the St. John. The marble David, ordered in 1408 and completed in 1416,
was destined for a chapel inside the church. The Town Commissioners,
however, sent a somewhat peremptory letter to the Domopera and the
statue was handed over to them. It was placed in the great hall of the
Palace, was ultimately removed to the Uffizzi, and is now in the
Bargello Museum. The David certainly has a secular look. This ruddy
youth of a fair countenance, crowned with a wreath, stands in an
attitude which is shy and perhaps awkward, and by his feet lies the
head of Goliath with the smooth stone from the brook deeply embedded
in his forehead. The drapery of the tunic is close fitting, moulded
exactly to the lines of his frame, and above it a loose cloak hangs
over the shoulders and falls to the ground with a corner of cloth
looped over one of the wrists in a familiar way.[12] It would be
idle to pretend that the David is a marked success like the St. John.
It neither attains an ideal, as in the St. George, nor is it a
profound interpretation of character like the Habbakuk or Jeremiah.
Its effect is impaired by this sense of compromise and uncertainty. It
is one of the very rare cases in which Donatello hesitated between
divergent aims and finally translated his doubts into marble.

[Footnote 12: _Cf._ Madame Andre's prophet and figures on Mandorla
door.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Statues of the Campanile.]

We must now refer to a group of statues which adorn the Campanile, the
great Bell tower designed by Giotto for the Cathedral. Not counting
the numerous reliefs, there are sixteen statues in all, four on each
side of the tower, and in themselves they epitomise early Florentine
sculpture. Donatello's