Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, known mononymously as Donatello, 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.
Donatello, an imagined 16th-century portrait by an unknown artist (The former attribution to Paolo Uccello is no longer accepted.)
David at the Bargello in Florence
16th-century portraits of Florentine culture heroes: Giotto, Paolo Uccello, Donatello, Antonio Manetti, Brunelleschi.
Ghiberti and workshop, the Nativity relief of the north doors for the Florence Baptistery from probably before 1407
Italian Renaissance sculpture
Italian Renaissance sculpture was an important part of the art of the Italian Renaissance, in the early stages arguably representing the leading edge. The example of Ancient Roman sculpture hung very heavily over it, both in terms of style and the uses to which sculpture was put. In complete contrast to painting, there were many surviving Roman sculptures around Italy, above all in Rome, and new ones were being excavated all the time, and keenly collected. Apart from a handful of major figures, especially Michelangelo and Donatello, it is today less well-known than Italian Renaissance painting, but this was not the case at the time.
Painting of the Piazza della Signoria and Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, 1830, Carlo Canella. From left, Fountain of Neptune, Rape of the Sabine by Giambologna, David by Michelangelo, one of the Medici Lions, Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini, hiding Hercules and Cacus by Baccio Bandinelli. Away from the loggia wall, the Medici Pasquino Group, copying an ancient Roman subject.
Francesco Laurana, A Princess of the House of Aragon, c. 1475
Michelangelo's Pietà, completed in 1499.
Luca della Robbia, Resurrection, glazed terracotta, 1445.