There were so many interesting masterpieces in this museum that I couldn't stop taking pictures. There were many works by Donatello - one of my favorite sculptors. Here are a few more that I think you might like. The last link on the list below contains a narrative on the museum.
Here are some excerpts from an extensive article on Donatello.
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (c. 1386 – 13 December 1466), better known as Donatello (English: /ˌdɒnəˈtɛloʊ/ Italian: [donaˈtɛllo]), was an Italian sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Florence, he studied classical sculpture and used his knowledge to develop an Early Renaissance style of sculpture. He 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. His David was the first freestanding nude male sculpture since antiquity; like much of his work it was commissioned by the Medici family.
He worked with stone, bronze, wood, clay, stucco, and wax, and used glass in inventive ways. He had several assistants, with four perhaps being a typical number. Although his best-known works are mostly statues executed in the round (tondo)), he developed a new, very shallow, type of bas-relief for small works, and a good deal of his output was architectural reliefs for pulpits, altars and tombs, as well as Madonna and Childs for homes.
Broad, overlapping, phases can be seen in his style, beginning with the development of expressiveness and classical monumentality in statues, then developing energy and charm, mostly in smaller works. Later he reacts against the "sweet style" he had helped to develop, with a number of stark, even brutal pieces. The sensuous eroticism of his most famous work, the bronze David, is very rarely seen in other pieces.
By early 1408 Donatello had acquired sufficient reputation to be given the commission for a life-size prophet for the cathedral, to be paired with another by Nanni di Banco, a brilliant sculptor of Donatello's age, who seems to have been both a rival and friend. In the end they were not placed as intended, probably because they appeared too small from far below, and the Donatello appears to be lost.
In 1415 the cathedral authorities decided to revive and complete medieval projects, and add eight lifesize marble figures for the niches of the higher levels of Giotto's Campanile adjoining the cathedral, as well as complete a row on the cathedral facade (in which Donatello was not involved). All the figures for the campanile series were removed in 1940, to be replaced by replicas with the originals moved to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. They were placed very high, and so were seen from a distance, at a sharp angle, factors which needed allowing for in the compositions, and made "fine detail virtually useless for visual effect"; Since 2015 the museum's new displays show this and other statues for the cathedral at the intended original heights.
Donatello was responsible for six of the eight campanile figures, in two cases working with the younger Nanni di Bartolo (il Rosso). The commissions and starts stretched between 1414 and 1423, and while most were completed by 1421, the last of his statues was not finished until 1435. This was the striking Zuccone ("Baldy", or "Pumpkin Head" probably intended as Habakkuk or Jeremiah), the best known of the series, and reportedly Donatello's favourite.
His other statues for the campanile are known as: the Beardless Prophet and Bearded Prophet (both from 1414 to 1420); the Sacrifice of Isaac (with Nanni di Batolo, 1421); il Populano, a prophet not finally finished until 1435.
The visibility of statues high on the cathedral buildings was to remain a concern for the rest of the century; Michelangelo's David was intended for such a place, but proved too heavy to raise and support. Donatello, with Brunelleschi, proposed a large but lightweight solution, and made a prophet Joshua with a brick core, then a modelled layer of clay or terracotta, all painted white. This was put in place on the cathedral some time after 1415, and remained until the 18th century; it was known as the "White Colossus" or homo magnus et albus ("Large White Man").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DonatelloFor narratives on Florence and additional images, please see my previous posts:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-780452-1.htmlhttps://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-780574-1.html#14042094https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-780644-1.htmlhttps://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-780747-1.html#14046442https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-780857-1.htmlhttps://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-781066-1.html#14052114https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-781155-1.htmlhttps://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-781361-1.htmlhttps://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-781570-1.html#14062411https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-781764-1.html#14066381https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-781877-1.html#14068369https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-781969-1.html#14070561https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-782046-1.html#14072302https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-782130-1.html#14073789https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-782224-1.htmlhttps://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-782434-1.html#14079836https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-782523-1.html#14081820https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-782725-1.htmlhttps://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-782943-1.html#14090979https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-783224-1.html#14097203 (Opera del Duomo Museum)
I hope you enjoy these!
Mark
There were so many interesting masterpieces in thi... (
