The Jeremiah, for instance, which is in the niche adjacent to the
still more astonishing Zuccone (looking westwards towards the
Baptistery), is a portrait study of consummate power. It is the very
man who wrote the sin of Judah with a pen of iron, the man who was
warned not to be dismayed at the faces of those upon whose folly he
poured the vials of anger and scorn; he is emphatically one of those
who would scourge the vices of his age. And yet this Jeremiah has his
human aspect. The strong jaw and tightly closed lips show a decision
which might turn to obstinacy; but the brow overhangs eyes which are
full of sympathy, bearing an expression of sorrow and gentleness such
as one expects from the man who wept for the miserable estate of
Jerusalem--_Quomodo sedet sola civitas!_

Tradition says that this prophet is a portrait of Francesco Soderini,
the opponent of the Medici; while the Zuccone is supposed to be the
portrait of Barduccio Cherichini, another anti-Medicean partisan.
Probabilities apart, much could be urged against the attributions,
which are really on a par with the similar nomenclatures of Manetti
and Poggio. The important thing is that they are undoubted
portraits, their identity being of secondary interest; the fact that a
portrait was made at all is of far greater moment to the history of
art. Later on, Savonarola (whose only contribution to art was an
unconscious inspiration of the charming woodcuts with which his
sermons and homilies were illustrated) protested warmly against the
prevailing habit of giving Magdalen and the Baptist the features of
living and well-known townsfolk.[16] The practice had, no doubt, led
to scandal. But with Donatello it marks an early stage in emancipation
from the bondage of conventionalism. Not, indeed, that Donatello was
the absolute innovator in this direction, though it is to his efforts
that the change became irresistible. Thus in these portrait-prophets
we find the proof of revolution. The massive and abiding art of Egypt
ignored the personality of its gods and Pharaohs, distinguishing the
various persons by dress, ornament, and attribute. They had their
canon of measurement, of which the length of the nose was probably the
unit.[17] The Greeks, who often took the length of the human foot as
unit, were long enslaved by their canon. Convention made them adhere
to a traditional face after they had made themselves masters of the
human form. The early figures of successful