y of this unique carving was utterly wasted, since the
technical treatment of the marble was wholly unsuited to its
_emplacement_. The amazing beauty of the sculpture and the unsurpassed
skill of Phidias were never fully revealed until its home had been
changed from Athens to Bloomsbury.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Alinari_

THE ZUCCONE

CAMPANILE, FLORENCE]

[Sidenote: The Zuccone, "Realism" and Nature.]

The Zuccone is one of the eternal mysteries of Italian art. What can
have been Donatello's intention? Why give such prominence to this
graceless type? Baldinucci called it St. Mark.[21] Others have been
misled by the lettering on the plinth below the statue "David Rex":
beneath the Jeremiah is "Salomon Rex."[22] These inscriptions
belonged, of course, to the kings which made way for Donatello's
prophets. The Zuccone must belong to the series of prophets; it is
fruitless to speculate which. Cherichini may have inspired the
portrait. Its ugliness is insuperable. It is not the vulgar ugliness
of a caricature, nor is it the audacious embodiment of some hideous
misshapen creature such as we find in Velasquez, in the Gobbo of
Verona, or in the gargoyles of Notre Dame. There is no deformity about
it, probably very little exaggeration. It is sheer uncompromising
ugliness; rendered by the cavernous mouth, the blear eyes, the flaccid
complexion, the unrelieved cranium--all carried to a logical
conclusion in the sloping shoulders and the simian arms. But the
Zuccone is not "revenged of nature": there is nothing to "induce
contempt." On the other hand, indeed, there is a tinge of sadness and
compassion, objective and subjective, which gives it a charm, even a
fascination. _Tanto e bella_, says Bocchi, _tanto e vera, tanto e
naturale_, that one gazes upon it in astonishment, wondering in truth
why the statue does not speak![23] Bocchi's criticism cannot be
improved. The problem has been obfuscated by the modern jargon of art.
Donatello has been charged with orgies of realism and so forth. There
may be realism, but the term must be used with discretion: nowadays
it generally connotes the ugly treatment of an ugly theme, and is
applied less as a technical description than as a term of abuse.
Donatello was certainly no realist in the sense that an ideal was
excluded, nor could he have been led by realism into servile imitation
or the multiplication of realities. After a certain point the true