We see at once in our picture that St. Dominick is the elder of the two men. There was really a difference of twenty years in their ages, but the artist has made it less. It is as if each, upon seeing the other approach, had hastened forward with outstretched hands. They stand now face to face with interlocked arms in mutual contemplation. It is a moment of perfect understanding. With widely different ideas of ways and means, they have at heart a single common aim. Both are called to the same great work, and each feels strengthened by the contact. The profile of St. Francis shows the sensitive lines of his face. Tradition tells us that he was a man of more than average height, with black eyes, and soft sonorous voice. His expression here is serene, as one would expect of the gentle friar who called all the beasts his brethren, and talked with the birds as familiar companions. St. Dominick has a more strenuous countenance, and is perhaps more deeply moved than the other. He leans forward and peers into St. Francis's face with an expression of great tenderness. One is reminded of a beautiful verse in one of the Hebrew psalms (the eighty-fifth), "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." The artistic qualities of this relief place it among the best works by Andrea della Robbia. Only a skilful artist could have rendered the draperies with such grace and simplicity. They have been compared with the draperies of the painters Raphael and Bartolommeo. It is said that the faces were left unglazed in order that all the lines of the modelling might be preserved. [Footnote 33: The lives of both saints are related in _The Golden Legend_. In Caxton's translation (Temple Classics) see volume iv., p. 172, for St. Dominick, and volume v., p. 215, for St. Francis. Mrs. Jameson's _Legends of the Monastic Orders_ contains an admirable account of the character and work of the two men. _The Little Flowers of St. Francis_ is a series of legends collected about two hundred years after his death. There is an English translation by Abby Langdon Alger. Sabatier's _Life of St. Francis_ is an exhaustive biography.] [Footnote 34: A tradition that St. Francis and St. Dominick met in Florence, on the site of the present Loggia of S. Paolo, accounts for the placing of this bas-relief there. See the Misses Horner's _Walks in Florence_, vol. i., p. 448.] [Footnote 35: The reader who is familiar with the typical figure of St. Francis in sacred art may miss the sign of the wound print (the stigmata) in his hand. Here Andrea is historically accurate, as the vision of St. Francis occurred four years after the confirmation of the Order.] IX ST. GEORGE BY DONATELLO