Donatello | Page 4

in favour of classical
study. The sculptors working in Rome, colourless men as they were,
drew their inspiration from Gothic and pre-Renaissance ideals. In
Florence the ruling motives were even more Gothic in tendency. It is in

this school that Donatello found his earliest training, and though he
modified and transcended all that his teachers could impart, his
sculpture always retained a character to which the essential elements of
classical art contributed little or nothing.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Predecessors of Donatello.]
Florence was busily engaged in decorating her great buildings. The
fourteenth century had witnessed the structural completion of the
Cathedral, excepting its dome, of the Campanile, and of the Church of
Or San Michele. During the later years of the century their adornment
was begun. A host of sculptors was employed, the number and scale of
statues required being great. There was a danger that the sculpture
might have become a mere handmaid of the architecture to which it
was subordinated. But this was not the case; the sculptors preserved a
freedom in adapting their figures to the existing architectural lines, and
it is precisely in the statuary applied to completed buildings that we can
trace the most interesting transitions from Gothic to Renaissance. It is
needless to discuss closely the work which was erected before
Donatello's return from Rome: much of it has unhappily perished, and
what remains is for the purposes of this book merely illustrative of the
early inspiration of Donatello. Piero Tedesco made a number of statues
for the Cathedral, Mea and Giottino worked for the Campanile.
Lorenzo di Bicci, sculptor, architect, and painter, was one of those
whose influence extended to Donatello; Niccolo d'Arezzo was perhaps
the most original of this group, making a genuine effort to shake off the
conventional system. But, on the whole, the last quarter of the
fourteenth century showed but little progress. Indeed, from the time of
the later Pisani there seems to have been a period of stagnation, a pause
during which the anticipated progress bore little fruit. Orcagna never
succeeded in developing the ideas of his master. The shrine in Or San
Michele, marvellous in its way, admirable alike for diligence and
sincerity, stands alone, and was not imbued with the life which could
make it an influence upon contemporary art.
* * * * *

[Sidenote: First Work for the Cathedral.]
The first recorded payment to Donatello by the Domopera, or Cathedral
authorities, was made in November 1406, when he received ten golden
florins as an instalment towards his work on the two prophets for the
North door of the church, which is rather inaccurately described in the
early documents as facing the Via de' Servi. Fifteen months later he
received the balance of six florins. These two marble figures, small as
they are, and placed high above the gables, are not very noticeable, but
they contain the germ of much which was to follow. The term
"prophet" can only be applied to them by courtesy, for they are
curly-haired boys with free and open countenances; one of them
happens to hold a scroll and the other wears a chaplet of bay leaves.
There is a certain charm about them, a freshness and vitality which
reappears later on when Donatello was making the dancing children for
the Prato pulpit and the singing gallery for the Cathedral. The two
prophets, particularly the one to the right, are clothed with a skill and
facility all the more remarkable from the fact that some of the statues
made soon afterwards, show a stiff and rigid treatment of drapery.
Closely allied to these figures is a small marble statue, about three feet
high, belonging to Madame Edouard André in Paris. It is a full-length
figure of a standing youth, modelled with precision, and intended to be
placed in a niche or against a background. Like the prophets just
described, it has a high forehead, while the drapery falls in strong
harmonious lines, a corner being looped up over the left arm. It is
undoubtedly by Donatello, being the earliest example of his work in
any collection, public or private, and on that account of importance,
apart from its intrinsic merits.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Cathedral Façade.]
Donatello soon received commissions for statues of a more imposing
scale to be placed on the ill-fated façade of the Cathedral. All beautiful
within, the churches of Florence are singularly poor in those rich
façades which give such scope to the sculptor and architect, conferring,
as at Pisa, distinction on a whole town. The churches of the Carmine,

Santo Spirito and San Lorenzo are without façades at all, presenting
graceless and unfinished masonry in place of what was intended by
their founders. Elsewhere there are late and florid façades alien