The Early Renaissance




 

Donatello [Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi]

(b Florence, 1386 or 1387; d Florence, 13 Dec 1466). Italian sculptor. He was the most imaginative and versatile Florentine sculptor of the early Renaissance, famous for his rendering of human character and for his dramatic narratives. He achieved these ends by studying ancient Roman sculpture and amalgamating its ideas with an acute and sympathetic observation of everyday life. Together with Alberti, Brunelleschi, Masaccio and Uccello, Donatello created the Italian Renaissance style, which he introduced to Rome, Siena and Padua at various stages of his career. He was long-lived and prolific: between 1401 and 1461 there are 400 documentary references to him, some for nearly every year. However, there is no contemporary biography, and the earliest account, in Vasari’s Vite (1550), is confused.

St George
c. 1416
Marble
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

St George (detail)
c. 1416
Marble
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence
 

St Louis
c. 1413
Gilded bronze
 

Herod's Banquet
1427
Bronze
Baptistry, Siena