Donatello

, or Donato, one of the principal revivers of sculpture in Italy, of an obscure family at Florence, was born in 1383. He learned design under Lorenzo de Bicci, and abandoning the old dry manner, he was the first who gave his works the grace and freedom of the productions of ancient Greece and Rome; and Cosmo de Medicis employed him on a tomb for pope John XXIII. and in other works, both public and private. Cosmo also availed himself of his taste and judgment in forming those grand collections, which gave celebrity to Florence as the parent of modern art. Amongst his performances in that city are his Judith and Holofernes in bronze, his Annunciation, his St. George and St. Mark, and his Zuccone, in one of the niches of the Campanile at Florence; all of which are as perfect as the narrow principles upon which the art was then conducted would allow. To these we may add another excellent performance, his equestrian statue of bronze at Padua, to the honour of their general Gallamalata. Conscious of the value of his performances, he exclaimed to a Genoese merchant, who had bespoke a head, and estimated it by the number of days which it had employed the artist, “this man better knows how to bargain for beans than for statues he shall not have my head” and then dashed it to pieces yet no man less regarded money than Donatello. Cosmo at his death having recommended him to his son, the latter gave him an estate; but in a little while Donatello, who began to be plagued with his farmers and agents, begged his benefactor to take | it again, as he did not like the trouble of it. The gift was resumed, and a weekly pension of the same value assigned to the artist. He had no notion of hoarding; but it is said that he deposited what he received in a basket, suspended from a ceiling, from which his friends and workpeople might supply themselves at their pleasure. He died in 1466, at the age of 83, and was buried in the church of St. Lorenzo, near his friend Cosmo, that, as he expressed himself, “his soul having been with him when living, their bodies might be near each other when dead.” He left a son, named “Simon,” who adopted his manner, and acquired reputation. 1

1

Tiraboschi.—Roscoe’s Lorenzo de Medici.—Aglionby’s Painting illustrated, p. 363.—Rees’s Cyclopædia.