prompt return. However, after being fined he got home, was reconciled
to the Chapter, and ultimately received high honours from the city.
His font is an interesting example of transition; the base is much
more Gothic than the upper part. The base or font proper is a large
hexagonal bason decorated with six bronze reliefs and a bronze
statuette between each--Faith, Hope, Charity, Justice, Prudence, and
Strength. The reliefs are scenes from the life of the Baptist. From
the centre of the font rises the tall Renaissance tabernacle with five
niches, in which Jacopo placed marble statues of David and the four
major prophets, one of which suggested the San Petronio of Michael
Angelo. A statue of the Baptist surmounts the entire font. In spite of
the number of people who co-operated with Jacopo, the whole
composition is harmonious. Donatello made the gilded statuettes of
Faith and Hope. The former, looking downwards, has something of
Sienese severity. Hope is with upturned countenance, joining her hands
in prayer; charming alike in her gesture and pose. Two instalments for
these figures are recorded in 1428. The authorities had been lax in
paying for the work, and we have a letter[88] asking the Domopera for
payment, Donatello and Michelozzo being rather surprised--"_assai
maravigliati_"--that the florins had not arrived. The last of these
bronze Virtues, by Goro di Neroccio, was not placed on the font till
1431. Donatello also had the commission for the _sportello_, the
bronze door of the tabernacle. But the authorities were dissatisfied
with the work and returned it to the sculptor, though indemnifying him
for the loss.[89] This was in 1434, the children for the upper cornice
having been made from 1428 onwards. The relief, which was ordered in
1421, was finished some time in 1427. It is Donatello's first relief
in bronze, and his earliest definitive effort to use a complicated
architectural background. The incident is the head of St. John being
presented on the charger by the kneeling executioner. Herod starts