Donatello, the Renaissance: the revolutionary artist on display at Palazzo Stroozzi and the Bargello Museum

An extraordinary exhibition, the one about Donatello entitled Donatello, the Renaissance, which can be visited until 31 July 2022 at Palazzo Strozzi and the Bargello Museum. Over 130 works including sculptures, paintings and drawings, including some unique loans, never granted before, and distributed in two locations of excellence.

 

Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (1386-1466), known as Donatello, was one of the greatest sculptors of all time. He contributed to the renewal of sculpture thanks to his ability to give a soul to his works, representing the thousand facets of human emotion, and thanks to the invention of the "stiacciato" technique, a type of bas-relief that creates the effect of depth through minimal variations in thickness.

He studied "the ancient" in Rome together with his eldest colleague, Filippo Brunelleschi, and established a strong friendship with him. From the beginning of the fifteenth century, however, he was back in Florence, where he worked incessantly for most of his life, producing some of the most famous works in the world.

 

AT PALAZZO STROZZI

The exhibition, curated by Francesco Caglioti, full professor of Medieval Art History at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, compares Donatello's masterpieces with works by contemporary and later artists, such as Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini, Raphael and Michelangelo.

 

The path begins from the very dialogue with Brunelleschi's work, immediately proposing a comparison of excellence between the two famous wooden crucifixes from the Basilica of Santa Croce and that of Santa Maria Novella, and then concludes with a section dedicated to the influence that Donatello had on artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo and Bronzino.

For the first time in history, the famous Herod's banquet of the baptismal font in Siena and the doors of the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence are brought on display outside their original context. An extraordinary event, which in itself is worth the ticket to the exhibition.

 

AT THE BARGELLO

At the same time, at the Bargello National Museum, the itinerary continues to be articulated through the comparison between the work of Donatello and that of other artists such as Pippo Spano and Farinata degli Uberti, Andrea del Castagno and Michelangelo, and includes works such as the famous bonze David, the Martelli David (in marble), the San Giorgio, the Madonna Dudley and the Madonna of the clouds.

 

Donatello was a revolutionary artist, his desire to experiment was constant and even when his works received acclaim, he did not rest on his successes by repeating the same models, but continued to renew and innovate. With him began the season of the Florentine Renaissance and this incredible exhibition tells us about it in a unique and unrepeatable way.