Donatello
2 Video Views·Dec 1, 2025
Scultore di indiscusso valore, scolpisce statue dalla grande carica espressiva, senza tralasciare la precisione formale. Tanto il suo David quanto il Gattamelata, hanno negli occhi lo sguardo vivo e razionale dell’uomo del Quattrocento.
Donatello. If we wanted to find a progenitor of the Florentine Renaissance, the choice would fall on Donatello.
His research on the expressiveness of the statuary and on the humanity of the figures was of such great importance
that he laid the foundations for the work of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raffaello.
Donatello is the diminutive of the longest Donato by Niccolò di Betto Bardi.
The name was chosen because, unlike his father, the carver of Lana in Florence,
the boy was much more delicate in his physical appearance and manners.
It is funny, however, to note that his first mention in an official act
is precisely on the occasion of a rally in which Donatello, 16 years old, would have beaten a young German.
The following year, in 1402, we find him with his friend Brunelleschi in Rome,
at the Discovery of the Ancient, where he stays for a couple of years.
On his return, the first important works at the Duomo site and the niches of Orsanmichele.
After a short stay in Siena and Rome, Donatello moves to Padova in 1443,
and here he stays for ten years, giving birth to famous and remarkable masterpieces.
The last years pass calmly in the city of Natale, where the sculptor dies at the age of 80,
still with small unpaid debts.
Donatello, in fact, was not very good at managing money,
and then, you know, artists have a bit of a head in the clouds.
Donatello had a long life, and his works are just as long.
We remember his crucifix of Santa Croce,
and the statues for the bell tower of Giotto, like that of the prophet Habakkuk,
kindly renamed Luzzucone.
These prophets are depicted in their humanity, as if they were ordinary people.
The bench of Herod belongs to the Sienese period.
Here, Donatello's technique of squashing reaches the highest results.
This consists in making a very low relief,
with minimal variations between one floor and the other, compared to the bottom,
to give a sense of depth.
Of the residence in Padova, on the other hand,
his monument in Gattamelata is unforgettable.
One of the last works of the master is the statue in the line of Maddalena,
of the fleshless and moving figure,
which is striking for its drama.
You know that the crucifix of Santa Croce,
for its new way of expressing human pain,
and for the realism in representing the body of Jesus,
was the subject of criticism by Brunelleschi.
Well, it is said that the sculptor
said that Donatello's Christ
resembled a peasant rooster,