fountain, now in the Pitti Palace, is rather larger, being nearly
eight feet high. The decoration is opulent, and one could not date
these florid ideas before Donatello's later years. The boy at the top
dragging along a swan is Donatellesque, but with mannerisms to which
we are unaccustomed. The work is not convincing as regards his
authorship. The marble Lavabo in the sacristy of San Lorenzo is also a
doubtful piece of sculpture. It has been attributed to Verrocchio,
Donatello and Rossellino. It has least affinity to Donatello. The
detailed attention paid by the sculptor to the floral decoration, and
the fussy manner in which the whole thing is overcrowded, as if the
artist were afraid of simplicity, suggest the hand of Rossellino, to
whom Albertini, the first writer on the subject, has ascribed it.
Donatello made the Marzocco, the emblematic Lion of the Florentines,
and it has therefore been assumed that he also made its marble
pedestal. This is held to be contemporary with the niche of Or San
Michele. So far as the architectural and decorative lines are
concerned this is not impossible, though the early Renaissance motives
long retained their popularity. There is, however, one detail showing
that the base must be at least twenty-five years older than the niche.
The arms of the various quarters of Florence are carved upon the
frieze of the base. Among these shields we notice one bearing "on a
field semée of fleurs-de-lys, a label, above all a bendlet dexter."
These are not Italian arms. They were granted in 1452 to Jean, Comte
de Dunois, an illegitimate son of the Duc d'Orléans. His coat had
previously borne the bendlet sinister, but this was officially turned
into a bendlet dexter, to show that the King had been pleased to
legitimise him in recognition of his services to Joan of Arc. Jean was
a contemporary of Donatello, and the coat may have been placed among
the other shields as a compliment to France. Certainly no quarter of a
town could use a mark of cadency below a bendlet, and Florence was