Donatello

Donatello (properly called DONATO DI BETTO BARDI), the greatest of the early Tuscan sculptors, was born at Florence in 1386, the son of a wool-merchant, and was apprenticed to a goldsmith, probably Bartolo, the stepfather of Ghiberti. He became the friend of Brunelleschi, ten years his senior, who directed and influenced his art. At the age of fifteen he visited Rome in his company, and for several years the pair supported themselves as goldsmiths, and so were enabled to study the remains of antiquity in sculpture and architecture. Among the works probably executed before he left Florence are the wooden crucifix in Santa Croce; the wooden statue of the Magdalene, in the Baptistery; and the marble St John at the Bargello; while among the earliest of his productions after his return are the marble figures of the prophets for the cathedral, and an Annunciation in the Cavalcanti Chapel in Santa Croce. A higher level was reached in the marble statues of Saints Peter, Mark, and George, on the exterior of San Michele (1408-16). These were followed by the tombs of Pope John XXIII. in the Baptistery (1426), of Cardinal Brancacci in St Angelo a Nilo in Naples (1427), and of Bartolomeo Aragazzi at Montepulciano (1427-29), works in which he was aided by Michelozzi. The influence of his study of the antique is very visible in his bronze statue of David, now in the Bargello Museum, Florence, where also are his celebrated marble bas-reliefs of singing and dancing children, originally designed as a balustrade for the organ of the cathedral; while the bronze statue of the Condottiere, Erasmo da Nari, called Gattamelata, at Padua, is a noble example of his equestrian portraiture. He died at Florence, 13th March 1466, and was buried in San Lorenzo, where his last works, two bronze pulpits, were completed by his pupil Bertoldo. The life of Donatello marks an epoch of art. He may be regarded as the founder of sculpture in its modern sense, as the first producer, since classic times, of statues, complete and independent in themselves, and not mere adjuncts of their architectural surroundings. He was also a perfect master of work in relief, admirable in the gradation of tone which he attained, and in his beautiful treatment of various planes. The distinction which marks his work was caught from the antique; but all that he did is stamped with his individuality, and vivified by his powerful grasp of character and expression. See Müntz, Donatello (Paris, 1885).