And this is equally true of the “Saint George” of Or San Michele, or, to use a clearer example, the nude bronze “David,” now in the Bargello at Florence. Technically, Donatello’s “David” can be compared with any nude male figure, let us say the beautiful bronze “Narcissus” found at Pompeii, and now in the Naples Museum. It is sculptured “in the round.” It is complete in itself. It proves that at last the Italian sculptor is on the high road for complete success. But in sentiment it is utterly un-Hellenic. It possesses none of those external resemblances to Greek statuary which we detect in the sculpture of Canova or Thorvaldsen, for instance. Truth to tell, the effort to trace evidences of a direct traffic between one great art and another is based upon a total misapprehension. No great artist can “lift” any considerable idea from a work produced in an entirely different mental and emotional atmosphere. What really happened was that a wave of enthusiasm for Hellenic art and literature broke over Italy. The sculptors shared in the humanizing effects of the realization of the true greatness of Greek culture. One cannot point to the treatment of a fold of drapery here, or to the pose of a torso there, and refer it to a Greek original. But in the Italian sculpture of the fifteenth century we can trace a breaking away from ideals which had held sway for centuries. Inspired by the revelation of what liberty of thought and action had done for the Greek, the Italian no longer prostrated himself before the idols of Catholic dogma and scholasticism. Before Donatello’s death the appreciation of classic culture was no longer confined to a few wealthy dilettanti, as had been the case at Pisa a century earlier. Admiration for the productions of the Attic philosophers and artists threatened to become a religious force capable of engulfing Christianity. The consequences were tremendous. Consider, for instance, the immense difference between the educational methods and ideals. Compare those which operated during the later years of Donatello’s life with those of the earlier age, when education was entirely in the hands of the Roman Church. Take a typical Italian schoolmaster, such as Vittorino of Feltre. Picture his typical Renaissance school, “The House of Joy,” on the shores of the Mantuan Lake. The spot was hallowed by the memory that it had been the birthplace of Virgil. Nature had lavished upon it avenues of planes and acacias. But dominating all was the grand aim of Vittorino, “I want to teach my pupils how to think, not to split hairs.” [Illustration: DONATELLO DAVID Bargello, Florence]