36 Facts About Donatello

Donatello spent time in other cities, where he worked on commissions and taught others; his periods in Rome, Padua, and Siena introduced to other parts of Italy the techniques he had developed in the course of a long and productive career.

Donatello's David was the first freestanding nude male sculpture since antiquity; like much of his work it was commissioned by the Medici family.

Donatello worked with stone, bronze, wood, clay, stucco, and wax, and used glass in inventive ways.

Donatello had several assistants, with four perhaps being a typical number.

Donatello was the son of Niccolo di Betto Bardi, who was a "wool-stretcher" and member of the Florentine Arte della Lana, the wool workers guild, which probably provided a good income.

However, Donatello's father did have a connection with the powerful Buonaccorso Pitti, whose diary records a fight in Pisa in 1380 in which Niccolo intervened, giving Pitti's opponent a fatal blow.

Vasari's claim that Donatello was raised and educated in the house of the prominent Martelli family is probably baseless, and given for literary, even political reasons.

Donatello was probably there with his father, who had an official job in Pistoia at the time, while Buonaccorso Pitti was the Captain, or governor.

Seven sculptors were invited to submit trial panels, for which they were paid; Vasari's Life of Brunelleschi wrongly claims that Donatello was one of them, but they were all more experienced figures.

Any part played by Donatello, presumably assisting Brunelleschi with his trial piece, is unknown.

Brunelleschi subsequently mostly remained in Rome, becoming a highly important architect, while Donatello returned to Florence to pursue his career in sculpture.

Donatello was commissioned to rework it in 1416, the cathedral surrendering it to the republic, who placed in the seat of government, the Palazzo Vecchio.

Donatello was responsible for six of the eight campanile figures, in two cases working with the younger Nanni di Bartolo.

Nevertheless, according to a story in Vasari, Donatello had trouble with his first statue for Orsanmichele, a marble St Mark for the linen-weavers guild.

Donatello got them to put it in its niche and cover it up while he worked to improve it.

Michelozzo had great experience with bronze, and no doubt helped with the technical aspects, and Donatello took to the medium very quickly.

Donatello became famous for his reliefs, especially his development of a very "low" or shallow relief style, called stiacciato, where all parts of the relief are low.

Around 1425 Donatello entered into a formal partnership with Michelozzo, who is mainly remembered as an architect, but was a sculptor, especially of smaller-scale works in metal.

Donatello had trained with the mint making dies for coins, where he still had a salaried position.

Michelozzo wanted to extract himself from an arrangement with Ghiberti, and Donatello had too much work, and was poor at organizing a workshop, at which Michelozzo seems to have excelled.

Donatello made the recumbent bronze figure of the deceased, and Michelozzo, with assistants, the several figures in stone.

The commission began in 1428, but Donatello did not begin work on his alloted areas for years, despite relentless chasing by the Prato authorities, and finally Cosimo de' Medici.

Donatello wears leggings that emphasize rather than hide his private parts.

The historian Paul Strathern makes the claim that Donatello made no secret of his homosexuality, and that his behaviour was tolerated by his friends.

Donatello usually did not sign his work, except for some commissions destined for outside Florence.

In 2020 the painted wooden crucifix of the church of Sant'Angelo in Legnaia, a suburb of Florence, was attributed by the diocese to Donatello, and dated to the 1460s.

Donatello's additions were two pairs of bronze doors with relief panels, and elaborate architectural surrounds for them, and two sets of large relief roundels below the main dome.

We do not know how Donatello felt about his finished scheme, but he never used painted stucco again; nor did anyone much else, as within a few years the Della Robbia workshop had perfected painted and glazed terracotta in large pieces, as in the Pazzi Chapel, which was clearly the better technique.

In 1443, Donatello was called to Padua by the heirs of the famous condottiere Erasmo da Narni, who had died that year.

Donatello is flanked by two saints, Anthony of Padua and Francis of Assisi.

Donatello remained in Padua until 1453, when he returned to Florence.

Between 1457 and 1461 Donatello was active in and for Siena, though he was now aging, and perhaps mostly contributed designs and modelli rather than carving much himself, at least in stone.

Donatello's bronze Judith and Holofernes is an important late work, which ended in a Medici courtyard in Florence, while his bronze John the Baptist was delivered minus a forearm and is in Siena Cathedral.

Donatello was evidently unable to work for a period, of uncertain extent, before his death; Vasari records this, but without any timing.

Donatello is portrayed by Ben Starr in the 2016 television series Medici: Masters of Florence.

Donatello is portrayed by Rhett McLaughlin in the 2014 Epic Rap Battles of History video Artists versus Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in which he appears working on Gattamelata and is mocked for being less famous than other Renaissance artists.