this would apply still more to the exquisite relief, which remains _in
situ_, though unprotected by the niche. In the side-lighted Bargello,
the St. George is crowded into a shallow niche (with plenty of highly
correct detail) and is seen to the utmost disadvantage; but no
incongruity of surroundings, no false relations of light can destroy
the profound impression left by this statue, which was probably
completed about 1416, in Donatello's thirtieth year. Vasari was
enthusiastic in its praise. Bocchi wrote a whole book about it,[34] in
which we might expect to find valuable information; but the interest
of this ecstatic eulogy is limited. Bocchi gives no dates, facts or
authorities; nothing to which modern students can turn for accurate or
specific knowledge of Donatello. Cinelli says the St. George was held
equal to the rarest sculpture of Rome,[35] and well it might be. The
St. George was made for the Guild of Armourers; he is, of course,
wearing armour, and the armour fits him, clothes him. It is not the
clumsy inelastic stuff which must have prevented so many soldiers from
moving a limb or mounting a horse. In this case the lithe and muscular
frame is free and full of movement, quite unimpeded by the defensive
plates of steel. He stands upright, his legs rather apart, and the
shield in front of him, otherwise he is quite unarmed; the St. George
in the niche is alert and watchful: in the bas-relief he manfully
slays the dragon. The head is bare and the throat uncovered; the face
is full of confidence and the pride of generous strength, but with no
vanity or self-consciousness. Fearless simplicity is his chief
attribute, though in itself simplicity is no title to greatness: with
Donatello, Sophocles and Dante would be excluded from any category of
greatness based on simplicity alone. St. George has that earnest and
outspoken simplicity with which the mediæval world invested its
heroes; he springs from the chivalry of the early days of Christian
martyrdom, the greatest period of Christian faith. Greek art had no