The large coat-of-arms carved from grey Florentine sand- stone now in the Detroit Institute of Arts (Figs. 1-4) was first published by Wilhelm Bode in 1926 as a work by Donatello carved for the Minerbetti family:' both its authorship and the identity of the family whose arms are displayed have been debated ever since. New findings now confirm the recent proposal by Giancarlo Gentilini and Andrea Franci that the relief came from a Boni palace in Florence which was destroyed in the early nineteenth century and that the arms are those of the Boni family.2 The same provenance will also be suggested for the chimneypiece now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Finally, the document of division between Desiderio da Settignano and his brothers of 1461 is published in full for the first time (see Appendix I below), and its implications for Desiderio's workshop are discussed.3

The Marsuppini tomb in S. Croce, Florence (Fig.l9) has remained, since its installation in the basilica in c.1460-61, one of the city's most loved and celebrated monuments. Despite this attention and the contemporary fame enjoyed by Desiderio da Settignano, relatively little is known of the sculptor's life and short career, and the tomb is virtually un- documented. Desiderio's formative years, the possibility of his collaboration with other artists on this and other projects, and the importance of his style to subsequent currents in Florentine art, are the subject of published work by other commentators, and I do not intend to rehearse their arguments here.l But my recent experience of restoring the Marsuppini tomb in 1996-97 under the auspices of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure has provided an opportunity to gather new insights into Desiderio's artistic character and working methods. The identification of sculptural technique allows Desiderio's hand to be recognised and distinguished from the participation of workshop assistants, while details of the construction of the monument afford observations on the nature of his artistic imagination. The extensive remains of polychromy can now be published and a virtual reconstruction attempted. Finally, the discovery of a wall painting around and integral to the monument permits, for the first time, a proper reading of the entire ensemble.

The architect George Gilbert Scott (1811-78) is best remembered for his major London commissions of the 1860s and 1870s - the Foreign Office in Whitehall, the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, St Pancras Chambers - and for his work as a 'restorer', most notably at Westminster Abbey. By contrast, the designs he prepared for far-flung British colonies have received relatively little attention, although some of them are major works - Church of England cathedrals in Newfoundland, New Zealand and Shanghai, improvements to cathedrals in the Cape Colony (South Africa) and Sydney, New South Wales, and Scott's last important project, a convocation hall and library for the University of Bombay.1 There were also two vice-regal tomb monuments, produced in collaboration with the sculptor John Birnie Philip (1824-75), one for the Governor of Victoria, Sir Charles Hotham, who died in office at Melbourne on 31st December 1855, and the other for Charlotte, Countess Canning, Vicereine of India, who died at Calcutta on 18th November 1861. It is these monuments that form the subject of this two-part article.2

Niccolo di Giovanni Fiorentino has long been recognised as Dalmatia's major renaissance sculptor. He is first mentioned in Trogir in December 1467. Together with Andrea Alesi, in January of the following year he signed by proxy a contract for the construction and decoration of the chapel of Beato Giovanni Orsini in the Cathedral of Trogir. One of the most ambitious decorative schemes of the Quattrocento, it envisaged the execution, among other things, of sixteen life-size statues, including Christ and the twelve Apostles, and a relief of the Coronation of the Virgin. So far did the project outrun Trogir's resources, that it was nearly a century before the series of Apostles was complete. By October 1473 Niccolo, in association with Alesi, had erected the facade of the Augustinian Hermit church of S. Maria on the Island of S. Niccolo in the Tremiti archipelago: the portal's statuary and reliefs have deteriorated largely beyond recognition, but the architectural members still reveal a classical purity exceptional for their time. In 1475 Niccolo succeeded Giorgio da Sebenico as protomaestro of the Cathedral of Sibenik and in 1502 was entrusted with construction of the church of S. Maria di Valverde in the same city - two posts that he retained until his death not long after the end of 1506.1 Despite the fact that Niccolo's later career was chiefly dedicated to architecture, sculptures from his hand or shop furnished churches in the towns and islands up and down the Dalmatian coast,2 while his highly personal style governed the appearance of Dalmatian sculpture for a century.

This note offers two hitherto unpublished documents which add a new date to the chronology of the works made by Luca della Robbia and Andrea del Verrocchio for the Tribunal of the Mercanzia at Orsanmichele, Florence (see the Appendix below). Both dated 22nd March 1464 (1463, Florentine style), they concern the glazed terracotta roundel with the Mercanzia's coat of arms and the famous bronze sculpture of Christ and St Thomas commissioned for the empty tabernacle niche (previously housing Donatello's St Louis of Toulouse) which the Mercanzia had acquired from the Parte Guelfa almost exactly a year earlier.

In 1947 Barbara Hepworth made a number of maquettes and drawings for sculpture for Waterloo Bridge. Produced for a limited competition organised by the London County Council, these un- realised designs provide an intriguing glimpse of the artist at a point in her career when she was seeking to realise new ambitions. They represent her first attempts to win an official commission to provide sculpture for a public space, and thus mark the start of a significant new sphere of activity.