cient
Greece_ (a translation and completion of C. O. Muller's unfinished
work); editions of the _Odes_ of Pindar and the _Antigone_ of Sophocles;
a Hebrew, a Greek and a Latin Grammar.

DONATELLO (diminutive of Donato) (c. 1386-1466), Italian sculptor, was
the son of Niccolo di Betto Bardi, a member of the Florentine
Woolcombers' Gild, and was born in Florence probably in 1386. The date
is conjectural, since the scanty contemporary records of Donatello's
life are contradictory, the earliest documentary reference to the master
bearing the date 1406, when a payment is made to him as an independent
sculptor. That Donatello was educated in the house of the Martelli
family, as stated by Vasari, and that he owed to them his introduction
to his future friend and patron, Cosimo de' Medici, is very doubtful, in
view of the fact that his father had espoused the cause of the Albizzi
against the Medici, and was in consequence banished from Florence, where
his property was confiscated. It is, however, certain that Donatello
received his first training, according to the custom of the period, in a
goldsmith's workshop, and that he worked for a short time in Ghiberti's
studio. He was too young to enter the competition for the baptistery
gates in 1402, from which Ghiberti issued victorious against
Brunelleschi, Jacopo della Quercia, Niccolo d'Arezzo and other rivals.
But when Brunelleschi in his disappointment left Florence and went to
Rome to study the remains of classic art he was accompanied by young
Donatello. Whilst pursuing their studies and excavations on classic
soil, which made them talked about amongst the Romans of the day as
"treasure seekers," the two young men made a living by working at the
goldsmiths' shops. This Roman sojourn was decisive for the entire
development of Italian art in the 15th century, for it was during this
period that Brunelleschi undertook his measurements of the Pantheon dome
and of other Roman buildings, which enabled him to construct the noble
cupola of S. Maria del Fiore in Florence, while Donatello acquired his
knowledge of classic forms and ornamentation. The two masters, each in
his own sphere, were to become the leading spirits in the art movement
of the 15th century. Brunelleschi's buildings and Donatello's monuments
are the supreme expression of the spirit of the early Renaissance in
architecture and sculpture and exercised a potent influence upon the
painters of that age.

Donatello