softness and ease of them is complete,--though only sketched with a few
dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's drawing, and
Botticelli's;--Donatello's carving and Luca's. But if you see nothing
in _this_ sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, _of_ theirs. Where
they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern trick
with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a word, is French, or
American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; but what is Florentine,
and for ever great--unless you can see also the beauty of this old man
in his citizen's cap,--you will see never.

There is more in this sculpture, however, than its simple portraiture
and noble drapery. The old man lies on a piece of embroidered carpet;
and, protected by the higher relief, many of the finer lines of this
are almost uninjured; in particular, its exquisitely-wrought fringe and
tassels are nearly perfect. And if you will kneel down and look long at
the tassels of the cushion under the head, and the way they fill the
angles of the stone, you will,--or may--know, from this example alone,
what noble decorative sculpture is, and was, and must be, from the days
of earliest Greece to those of latest Italy.

"Exquisitely sculptured fringe!" and you have just been abusing
sculptors who play tricks with marble! Yes, and you cannot find a
better example, in all the museums of Europe, of the work of a man who
does _not_ play tricks with it--than this tomb. Try to understand
the difference: it is a point of quite cardinal importance to all your
future study of sculpture.

I _told_ you, observe, that the old Galileo was lying on a piece
of embroidered carpet. I don't think, if I had not told you, that you
would have found it out for yourself. It is not so like a carpet as all