His was no lifeless or pedantic imitation of antique fragments, but a real expression of the fervour with which the modern world hailed the discoveries revealed to it by scholarship.

This is said advisedly.

The most beautiful and spirited pagan statue of the Renaissance period, justifying the estimate here made of Sansovino's genius, is the "Bacchus" exhibited in the Bargello Museum.
Both the Bacchus and the Satyriscus at his side are triumphs of realism, irradiated and idealised by the sculptor's vivid sense of natural gladness.

Considered as a restitution of the antique manner, this statue is decidedly superior to the "Bacchus" of Michael Angelo.

While the mundane splendour of Venice gave body and fulness to Sansovino's paganism, he missed the self-restraint and purity of taste peculiar to the studious shades of Florence.