[Footnote 15: Bargello David.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Alinari_

JEREMIAH

CAMPANILE, FLORENCE]


[Sidenote: Jeremiah and the Canon of Art.]

The Jeremiah, for instance, which is in the niche adjacent to the
still more astonishing Zuccone (looking westwards towards the
Baptistery), is a portrait study of consummate power. It is the very
man who wrote the sin of Judah with a pen of iron, the man who was
warned not to be dismayed at the faces of those upon whose folly he
poured the vials of anger and scorn; he is emphatically one of those
who would scourge the vices of his age. And yet this Jeremiah has his
human aspect. The strong jaw and tightly closed lips show a decision
which might turn to obstinacy; but the brow overhangs eyes which are
full of sympathy, bearing an expression of sorrow and gentleness such
as one expects from the man who wept for the miserable estate of
Jerusalem--_Quomodo sedet sola civitas!_

Tradition says that this prophet is a portrait of Francesco Soderini,
the opponent of the Medici; while the Zuccone is supposed to be the
portrait of Barduccio Cherichini, another anti-Medicean partisan.
Probabilities apart, much could be urged against the attributions,