In the last years of Cosimo de’ Medici grew up a whole generation of younger sculptors. Their most important works are sepulchral monuments, which became richer and grander as time went on. Formerly people had, as a rule, been content with sarcophagi more or less decorated, like that of Noferi, the father of Palla Strozzi, who died in 1418 and is buried in the sacristy of Sta. Trinità, beneath an arch resting on elegant corbels, and on the edges of which are seen pretty genii playing. Twenty or thirty years later these simple monuments were still the most usual, even for men of importance. Neri Capponi lies in the church of the Santo Spirito in a marble coffin bearing on the front his portrait in relief between two genii; Orlando de’ Medici rests in that of the SS. Annunziata in a sarcophagus ornamented with his coat of arms, and occupying with rich architectural accessories the whole side of a chapel. These were both works of Simone, whom tradition makes a brother of Donatello.[142] But talented artists soon attempted greater things. Desiderio da Settignano (so called after the pleasantly situated little village, two miles east of the city, where Michel Angelo was nursed by a stonemason’s wife) was a pupil of Donatello, and thus came into contact with the Medici, who employed him in San Lorenzo. In the Strozzi palace may be seen his fine thoughtful marble bust of Marietta, daughter of Filippo Strozzi the elder and Fiammetta Adimari. His masterpiece is the monument of Carlo Marsuppini in Sta. Croce, a figure of the dead man resting on the sarcophagus in a niche crowned by a lunette, with a Madonna in relief.[143] Notwithstanding some overloading in the accessories, it shows what he might have become had he not died in 1464, at the early age of thirty-six. The sarcophagus, resting on lions’ claws and richly adorned with flowers, leaves, and streaming ribands, is one of the most beautiful productions of decorative sculpture. Desiderio had many emulators, to whom we owe some of the finest monuments of this kind. Among them were the brothers Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino. The former, who worked a good deal out of Florence as architect to the Popes, does not seem to have been employed by the Medici. The only thing he is said to have done for them is a marble fountain, decorated with children and dolphins, in one of the courts of their palace; and of its fate nothing is known. But the city contains excellent works by both, exhibiting a similarity to Della Robbia’s style. Two of Bernardo’s works are the graceful monument to Beata Villana in Sta. Maria Novella, and that of Leonardo Bruni in Sta. Croce.[144] The conception, proportions, and technical finish of these works entitle them to rank among the best productions of a period rich in monuments. The most perfect work of the kind, however, is that by Antonio Rossellino to the Cardinal of Portugal, in San Miniato al Monte. James of Portugal, nephew of King Alfonso V., had come in bad