Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (c. 1386 – 13 December 1466), known mononymously as Donatello (English: ; 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, 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. Early on, he veered away from the International Gothic style he learned from Lorenzo Ghiberti, with classically informed pieces, and further on 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.
All accounts describe Donatello as amiable and well-liked, but rather poor at the business side of his career. Like Michelangelo in the next century, he tended to accept more commissions than he could handle, and many works were either completed some years late, handed to other sculptors to finish, or never produced. Again, like Michelangelo, he enjoyed steady support and patronage from the Medici family.
All sources agree that he carved stone and modelled clay or wax for bronzes very quickly and confidently, and art historians feel able to distinguish his hand from that of others, even within the same work. Italian Renaissance sculptors nearly always used assistants, with the master often giving parts of a piece over to them, but Donatello, who would perhaps not have been good at managing a large workshop like that of Ghiberti, seems to have had at most times a relatively small number of experienced assistants, some of whom became significant masters in their own right. The technical quality of his work can vary, especially in bronze pieces, where casting faults may occur; even the bronze David has a hole under his chin, and a patch on his thigh.
Donatello certainly made drawings, probably especially for reliefs. In the case of his stained glass designs and perhaps other works these were his whole contribution. Vasari claimed to have several in his collection, which he praised highly: "I have both nude and draped figures, various animals which astound anyone who sees them, and other beautiful things..". But very few, if any, surviving drawings are now accepted as probably by his own hand, and these are strong and lively sketches with figures, such as the three in its collections that the French government still attributes to Donatello himself.
A story told both by Vasari and the earlier Pomponio Gaurico says that he kept a bucket containing money hanging on a cord from the ceiling of his workshop, from which those around could take if they needed it. A tax return from 1427, near the peak of his career, shows a much lower income than Ghiberti's for the same year, and he seems to have died in modest circumstances, although this may not have been of concern to him; "he was very happy in his old age" according to Vasari.
Donatello was born in Florence, probably in 1386, based on his own later statement in his catasto tax declaration; he claimed to be 41 years old in July 1427. He was the son of Niccolò di Betto Bardi, who was a "wool-stretcher" (tiratore di lana) and member of the Florentine Arte della Lana, the wool workers guild, which probably provided a good income.
Donatello's actual surname was therefore Bardi, but if he was related to the well-known Bardi family of bankers, it seems to have been rather distantly. The banker Bardis were still wealthy and powerful, despite the default of Edward III of England in 1345 having caused the failure of their bank. After Contessina de' Bardi married Cosimo de' Medici around 1415, any connection he had might still have been useful to Donatello. However, Donatello's father did have a connection with the powerful Buonaccorso Pitti, whose diary records a fight in Pisa in 1380 in which Niccolò 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. They were certainly later keen patrons of Donatello, and also commissioned work from Vasari himself.
Donatello's first appearance in any documentary records is unpromising; in January 1401, at the age of about 15, he was accused in Pistoia, 25 miles from Florence and then controlled by it, of hitting a German with a stick, drawing blood. He was probably there with his father, who had an official job in Pistoia at the time, while Buonaccorso Pitti was the Captain, or governor. While there Donatello appears to have befriended, and perhaps worked with, Filippo Brunelleschi, who was some ten years older (born in 1377), and although not yet a master goldsmith, working on silver figures for an altar in Pistoia Cathedral. What experience Donatello had to assist him, if that was what he was doing, is unclear.
Both Donatello and Brunelleschi returned to Florence in early 1401, in time for Brunelleschi to take part in the famous competition for the Baptistery doors, often seen as the start of Florentine Renaissance sculpture. 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. Following Vasari and Brunelleschi's biographer Antonio Manetti, the unexpected result declared by the 34 judges was that the entries by two young Florentines, Lorenzo Ghiberti and Brunelleschi, were the best. An attempt was made to get the two to share the commission, but amid bitter recriminations that lasted for years, this failed, and Ghiberti was given the whole commission. Ghiberti himself, on the other hand (and the only contemporary voice) claimed in his Commentarii that the vote went unanimously for him, including the competing artists.
Any part played by the adolescent Donatello, presumably assisting Brunelleschi with his trial piece, is unknown. After the final result in late 1402, or early 1403, they seem to have left for Rome together, staying until at least the next year, to study the artistic and architectural remains left by Ancient Rome, then very abundant, though for the most part still buried. They were very early in this effectively archaeological pursuit, which included measuring remains, and hiring labourers to excavate. The main source for this period is the biography of Brunelleschi by Antonio Manetti (1423–1497), who knew both men, but it was written after their deaths in the 1470s.
Vasari just repeats a shorter version of Manetti's account, according to which both men were able to support themselves by jobs for Roman goldsmiths, which probably represented important training for Donatello. Perhaps they were also able to sell excavated sculptures. Brunelleschi subsequently became a highly important architect, while Donatello began his career in sculpture.
Donatello is recorded as working as an apprentice, and for the last few months on a salary, in the studio of Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1404–1407, apparently working on the workshop's main project, the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery, and from 1406 on he began stone carving at the cathedral for the Porta della Mandorla on its north side, a large project that was still some years from completion. He was paid in November 1406 for a figure of a prophet on the door, most probably the one for the left pinnacle (now in the Museo dell' Opera del Duomo, the cathedral museum). Giovanni d'Ambrogio, whose work, according to Kreytenberg, "provided a decisive impetus for the emergence of Renaissance sculpture", has been described by Manfred Wundram as the "true mentor of Donatello".