dmiration for the French sculptors. In spite of
difficulties not of their own making, they were able to create, with a
coarser material and in a less favourable climate, what was perhaps
the highest achievement ever attained by monumental sculpture. The
Italians soon came to distrust Gothic architecture. It was never quite
indigenous, and they were afraid of this "German" transalpine art.
Vasari attacks "_Questa maledizione di fabbriche_," with their
"_tabernacolini l'un sopra l'altro, ... che hanno ammorbato il
mondo_."[41] One would expect the denunciation of Milizia to be still
more severe. But he admits that "_fra tante monstruosita
l'architettura gottica ha alcune bellezze_."[42] Elsewhere mentioning
the architect of the Florentine Cathedral (while regretting how long
the _corrotto gusto_ survived), he says, "_In questo architetto si
vede qualche barlume di buona architettura, come di pittura in Cimabue
suo contemporaneo_."[43] He detects some glimmer of good architecture.
Sir Joshua Reynolds was cautious: "Under the rudeness of Gothic
essays, the artist will find original, rational, and even sublime
inventions."[44] It should be remembered that the word _Tedesca_, as
applied to Gothic art, meant more than German, and could be almost
translated by Northern. Italians from the lakes and the Valtellina
were called _Tedeschi_, and Italy herself was inhabited by different
peoples who were constantly at war, and who did not always understand
each other's dialects. Dante said the number of variations was
countless.[45] Alberti, who lived north of the Apennines during his
boyhood, took lessons in Tuscan before returning to Florence. The word
_Forestiere_, now meaning foreigner, was applied in those days to
people living outside the province, sometimes even to those living
outside the town. Thus we have a record of the cost of making a
provisional altar to display Donatello's work at Padua--"_per
demonstrar el desegno ai forestieri_."[46] No final definition of
Gothic art, of the _maniera tedesca_ is possible. Some of its
component parts have been enumerated: rigidity, grotesque, naturalism,
and so forth; but the definition is incomplete, cataloguing the
effects without analysing their cause. Whether Donatello was
influenced by the ultimate cause or not, he certainly assimilated some
of the effects. The most obvious example of the Gothic feeling which
permeated this child of the Renaissance, is his naturalistic
portrait-sta