and Isaac, with its row of fir trees. It has been explained by the
purists that the sculptor stretched the bounds of plastic art too
far and made bronze paint pictures; but most persons will agree to
ignore that. Of the charm of Ghiberti's mind the border gives further
evidence, with its fruits and foliage, birds and woodland creatures,
so true to life, and here fixed for all time, so naturally, that if
these animals should ever (as is not unlikely in Italy where every
one has a gun and shoots at his pleasure) become extinct, they could
be created again from these designs.

Ghiberti, who enjoyed great honour in his life and a considerable
salary as joint architect of the dome with Brunelleschi, died three
years after the completion of the second doors and was buried in
S. Croce. His place in Florentine art is unique and glorious.

The broken porphyry pillars by these second doors were a gift from
Pisa to Florence in recognition of Florence's watchfulness over Pisa
while the Pisans were away subduing the Balearic islanders.

The bronze group over Ghiberti's first doors, representing John
the Baptist preaching between a Pharisee and a Levite, are the
work (either alone or assisted by his master Leonardo da Vinci)
of an interesting Florentine sculptor, Giovanni Francesco Rustici
(1474-1554), who was remarkable among the artists of his time in
being what we should call an amateur, having a competence of his own
and the manners of a patron. Placing himself under Verrocchio, he
became closely attached to Leonardo, a fellow-pupil, and made him his
model rather than the older man. He took his art lightly, and lived,
in Vasari's phrase, "free from care," having such beguilements as a
tame menagerie (Leonardo, it will be remembered, loved animals too and