Cosimo de' Medici into exile, Donatello went to Rome in order to
advise Simone Ghini about the tomb of Pope Martin V.--_temporum suorum
filicitas_, as the epitaph says.[113] This visit to Rome, which is not
contested, like the visit thirty years earlier, did not last long, and
certainly did not divert Donatello from the line he had struck out. At
this moment the native art of Rome was colourless. A generation later
it became classical, and then lapsed into decadence. The number of
influences at work was far smaller than would at first be imagined. It
is generally assumed that Rome was the home of classical sculpture.
But early in the fifteenth century Rome must have presented a scene of
desolation. The city had long been a quarry. Under Vespasian the
Senate had to pass a decree against the demolition of buildings for
the purpose of getting the stone.[114] Rome was plundered by her
emperors. She was looted by Alaric, Genseric, Wittig and Totila in
days when much of her art remained _in situ_. She was plundered by her
Popes. Statues were used as missiles; her marble was exported all over
the world--to the Cathedrals of Orvieto and Pisa, even to the Abbey
Church of Westminster. Suger, trying to get marble columns for his
church, looked longingly at those in the baths of Diocletian, a
natural and obvious source, though happily he stole them
elsewhere.[115] The vandalism proceeded at an incredible pace. Pius
II. issued a Bull in 1462 to check it; in 1472 Sixtus IV. issued
another. Pius, however, quarried largely between the Capitol and the
Colosseum. The Forum was treated as an ordinary quarry which was let
out on contract, subject to a rental equivalent to one-third of the
output. But in 1433, and still more during the first visit, there was
comparatively little sculpture which would lead Donatello to classical
ideas. Poggio, writing just before Donatello's second visit, says
he sees almost nothing to remind him of the ancient city.[116]
He speaks of a statue with a complete head as if that were very
remarkable--almost the only statue he mentions at all. Ghiberti
describes two or three antique statues with such enthusiasm that one
concludes he was familiar with very few. In fact, before the great
digging movement which enthralled the Renaissance, antique sculpture
was rare. But little of Poggio's collection came from Rome: Even
Lorenzo de' Medici got most of his from the provinces. A century later
Sabba del Castiglione complains of having to buy a Donatello owing to
the difficulty of getting good antiques.[117] Rome had been devastated
by cupidity and neglect as much as by fire and sword. "Ruinarum urbis
Romæ descriptio" is the title of one of Poggio's books. Alberti says
that in his time he had seen 1200 ruined churches in the city.[118]
Bramantino made drawings of some of them.[119] Pirro Ligorio, an
architect of some note, gives his recipe for making lime from antique
statues--so numerous had they become. But much remained buried before
that time, _sotterrate nelle Rovine d'Italia_,[120] and Vasari
explains that Brunellesco was delighted with a classical urn at
Cortona, about which Donatello had told him, because such a thing was
rare in those times, antique objects not having been dug up in such
quantities as during his own day.[121] But the passion for classical
learning developed quickly, and was followed by the desire for
classical art. Dante had scarcely realised the art of antiquity,
though more was extant in 1300 than in 1400. Petrarch, who was more
sympathetic towards it, could scarcely translate an elementary
inscription. From the growing desire for knowledge came the search for
tangible relics: but love of classical art was founded on sentiment
and tradition. As regards the sculptors themselves, their art was less
influenced by antiquity than were the arts of poetry, oratory and
prose. While Rossellino, Desiderio, Verrocchio and Benedetto da Maiano
maintained their individuality, the indigenous literature of Tuscany
waned. Sculpture retained its freedom longer than the literary arts,
and when the latter recovered their national character sculpture
relapsed in their place into classicism. From early times sculptors
had, of course, learned what they could from classical exemplars.
Niccola Pisano copied at least four classical motives. There was no
plagiarism; it was a warm tribute on his part, and at that time a
notable achievement to have copied at all. But the imitation of
antiquity was carried to absurd lengths. Ghiberti, who was a literary
man, says that Andrea Pisano lived in the 410th Olympiad.[122] But
Ghiberti remained a Renaissance sculptor, and his classical
affectation is less noticeable in his statues than in his prose.
Filippo Strozzi went so far as to emancipate his favourite slave, a
"_grande nero_," in his will.[123] But Gothic art died hard. The
earlier creeds of art lingered on in the byways, and the Renaissance
was flourishing long before Gothic ideas had completely perished--that
is to say, Renaissance in its widest meaning, that of reincarnated
love of art and letters: if interpreted narrowly the word loses its
deep significance, for the Renaissance engendered forms which had
never existed before. But it must be remembered that in sculpture
classical ideas preceded classical forms. Averlino, or Filarete, as a
classical whim led him to be called, began the bronze doors of St.
Peter's just before Donatello's visit. They are replete with classical
ideas, ignoble and fantastic, but the art is still Renaissance.
Comparatively little classical art was then visible, and its
infallibility was not accepted until many years later, when Rome was
being ransacked for her hidden store of antiquities. Statues were
exhumed from every heap of ruins, generally in fragments: not a dozen
free-standing marble statues have come down to us in their pristine
condition. The quarrymen were beset by students and collectors anxious
to obtain inscriptions. Traders in forgeries supplied what the diggers
could not produce. Classical art became a fetish.[124] The noble
qualities of antiquity were blighted by the imitators, whose inventive
powers were atrophied, while their skill and knowledge left nothing to
be desired. Excluding the Cosmati, Rome was the mother of no period or
movement of art excepting the Rococo. As for Donatello himself, he was
but slightly influenced by classical motives. His sojourn in Rome was
short, his time fully occupied; he was forty-seven years old and had
long passed the most impressionable years of his life. He was a noted
connoisseur, and on more than one occasion his opinion on a question
of classical art was eagerly sought. But, so far as his own art was
concerned, classical influences count for little. His architectural
ideas were only classical through a Renaissance medium. When a patron
gave him a commission to copy antique gems, he did his task faithfully
enough, but without zest and with no ultimate progress in a similar
direction. When making a portrait he would decorate the sitter's
helmet or breastplate with the cameo which actually adorned it. With
one exception, classical art must be sought in his detail, and only
in the detail of work upon which the patron's advice could be suitably
offered and accepted. Donatello may be compared with the great
sculptors of antiquity, but not to the extent of calling him their
descendant. Raffaelle Mengs was entitled to regret that the other
Raffaelle did not live in the days of Phidias.[125] Flaxman was
justified in expressing his opinion that some of Donatello's work
could be placed beside the best productions of ancient Greece without
discredit.[126] These _obiter dicta_ do not trespass on the domain of
artistic genealogy. But it is inaccurate to say, for instance, that
the St. George is animated by Greek nobility,[127] since in this
statue that quality (whether derived from Gothic or Renaissance
ideals) cannot possibly have come from a classical source.
Baldinucci is on dangerous ground in speaking of Donatello as
"_emulando mirabilmente la perfezione degli antichissimi scultori
greci_"[128]--the writer's acquaintance with archaic Greek sculpture
may well have been small! We need not quarrel with Gori for calling
Donatello the Florentine Praxiteles; but he is grossly misleading in
his statement that Donatello took the greatest pains to copy the art
of the ancients.[129] Donatello may be the mediæval complement of
Phidias, but he is not his artistic offspring.
[Footnote 113: It is a bronze slab, admirably wrought and preserved,
in S. Giovanni Laterano. Were it not for an exuberance of decoration,
one might say that Donatello was responsible for it; the main lines
certainly harmonise with his work. Simone Ghini was mistaken by Vasari
for Donatello's somewhat problematical brother Simone.]
[Footnote 114: See Codex. Just. Leg. 2. Cod. de ædif. privatis. A
similar law at Herculaneum had forbidden people to make more money by
breaking up a house than they paid for the house itself, under penalty
of being fined double the original outlay. This shows the extent of
speculative destruction. Reinesius, "Synt. Inscript. Antiq.," 475, No.
2.]
[Footnote 115: See his Libellus in "Rer. Gall. Script.," xiv. 313.]
[Footnote 116: _Nihil fere recognoscat quod priorem urbem
repræsentet_, in "De Varietate fortunæ urbis Romæ." Nov. Thes. Antiq.
Rom., i. 502.]
[Footnote 117: "Ricordi," 1544. No. 109, p. 51.]
[Footnote 118: Written about 1450. "De re ædificatoria." Paris ed.
1553, p. 165.]
[Footnote 119: _Cf._ Plate 49 in "Le Rovine di Roma." "Tempio
circolare." Written beside it is "_Questo sie uno tempio lo quale e
Atiuero_ (i.e., _che è presso al Tevere_) _dove se chauaue li prede
antigha mente_ (i.e., _si cavavano le pietre anticamente_)."]
[Footnote 120: Vasari, "Proemio," i. 212.]
[Footnote 121: _Cosa allora rara, non essendosi dissotterata quella
abbondanza che si è fatta ne' tempi nostri_, i. 203.]
[Footnote 122: "2nd Commentary," in Vasari, I. xxviii.]
[Footnote 123: Gaye, i. 360.]
[Footnote 124: _Cf._ the action of the Directory in year vi. of the
French Republic. They ordered the statues looted in Italy to be
paraded in Paris--hoping to find the clue to ancient supremacy. Louis
David pointedly observed, "_La vue ... formera peut-être des savans,
des Winckelmann: mais des artistes, non_."]
[Footnote 125: "Works," 1796, i. 151.]
[Footnote 126: "Lectures," 1838, p. 248.]
[Footnote 127: Semper, p. 93.]
[Footnote 128: Ed. 1768, p. 74.]
[Footnote 129: "Donatellus, qui primum omnium vetustis monumentis
mirifice delectatus est, eaque imitari ac probe exprimere in suis
operibus adsidue studuit."--"Dactyliotheca Smithiana," 1768, II. p.
cxxvi.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Alinari_
TABERNACLE
ST. PETER'S, ROME]
[Illustration: THE CHARGE TO PETER
LONDON]
[Sidenote: Work at Rome.]
Up till a few years ago the most important work Donatello made in Rome
was unknown. We were aware that he had made a tabernacle, but all
record of it was lost, until Herr Schmarsow identified it in
1886.[130] It was probably made for the Church of Santa Maria della
Febbre,[131] and was transported to St. Peter's when Santa Maria was
converted into a sacristy. The tabernacle is now in the Sacristy of
the Canons, surrounded by sham flowers and tawdry decoration, which
reduce its charms to a minimum. Moreover, the miraculous painting of
the Madonna and Child which fills the centrepiece--having, perhaps,
replaced a metal grille or marble relief, has been so frequently
restored that a discordant element is introduced. The tabernacle is
about six feet high; it is made of rather coarse Travestine marble,
and in several parts shows indications of the hand of an assistant. It
has suffered in removal; there are two places where the work has been
repaired, and the medallion in the lower frieze has been filled with
modern mosaic; otherwise it is in good order. It is essentially an
architectural work, but the number of figures introduced has softened
the hard lines of the construction, giving it plenty of life. Four
little angels, rather stumpy and ill-drawn, are sitting on the
lower plinth. Above them rise the main outer columns which support
the upper portion of the tabernacle, and enclose the central opening,
where the picture is now fixed. At the base of these columns there
are two groups of winged children, three on either side, looking
inwards towards the central feature of the composition. They
bend forward reverently with their hands joined in prayer and
adoration--admirable children, full of shyness and deference. The
upper part of the tabernacle, supported on very plain corbels, is
occupied by a broad relief, at either end of which stand other winged
angels, more boyish and confident than those below. This relief
is, perhaps, Donatello's masterpiece in _stiacciato_. It is the
Entombment, his first presentment of those intensely vivid scenes
which were so often reproduced during his later years. Christ is just
being laid in the tomb by two solemn old men with flowing beards, St.
Joseph and St. Peter. The Virgin kneels as the body is lowered into
the tomb. Behind her is St. Mary Magdalene, her arms extended, her
hair dishevelled; scared by the frenzy of her grief. To the right St.
John turns away with his face buried in his hands. The whole
composition--striking in contrast to the quiet and peaceful figures
below--is treated with caution and reserve. But we detect the germ of
the pulpits of San Lorenzo, where the rough sketch in clay could
transmit all its fire and energy to the finished bronze. In this case
Donatello not only felt the limitations of the marble, but he was not
yet inclined to take the portrayal of tragedy beyond a certain point.
The moderation of this relief entitles it to higher praise than we can
give to some of his later work. The other panel in _stiacciato_ made
about this time belonged to the Salviati family.[132] Technically the
carving is inferior to that in St. Peter's, and it may be that in
certain parts, especially, for instance, round the heads of Christ
and one of the Apostles, the work is unfinished. Christ is seated on
the clouds, treated like those on the Brancacci panel, and hands the
keys to St. Peter. The Apostles stand by, the Virgin kneels in the
foreground, and on the left there are two angels like those on the
tabernacle. Trees are lightly sketched in, and no halos are employed.
The work is disappointing, for it is carved in such extraordinarily
low-relief that parts of it are scarcely recognisable on first
inspection; the marble is also rather defective. As a composition--and
this can best be judged in the photograph--the Charge to Peter is
admirable. The balance is preserved with skill, while the figures are
grouped in a natural and easy fashion. The row of Apostles to the left
shows a rendering of human perspective which Mantegna, who liked to
make his figures contribute to the perspective of the architecture
around them, never surpassed. This panel, in spite of Bocchi's praise,
shares one obvious demerit with the relief in St. Peter's. The Virgin,
who kneels with outstretched hands as she gazes upwards to the Christ,
is almost identical with a figure on the Entombment. She is ugly, with
no redeeming feature. The pose is awkward, the drapery graceless, the
contour thick, and her face, peering out of the thick veil, is
altogether displeasing. One has no right to look for beauty in
Donatello's statues of adults: character is what he gives. But neither
does one expect this kind of vagary. There is great merit in the
plaintive and wistful ugliness of the Zuccone: Here the ugliness is
wanton, and therefore inexcusable. The Crivelli tomb and the Baptist
in San Giovanni Fiorentino have been already described. There were
other products of Donatello's visit to Rome, but they are now lost.
Tradition still maintains that the wooden Baptist in S. Giovanni
Laterano is his work. But it cannot possibly be by him, though it may
be a later copy of a fifteenth-century original. Curiously enough,
there is another Baptist in the same church which is Donatellesque in
character and analogous in some respects to the St. John at Siena,
namely, the large bronze statue signed by Valadier and dated 1772.
Valadier was a professional copyist, some of his work being in the
Louvre. Where he got the design for this Baptist we do not know; but
it is certainly not typical of the late eighteenth century. Titi
mentions a head in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, and a medallion portrait
of Canon Morosini in Santa Maria Maggiore.[133] Neither of them can be
found.
[Footnote 130: See Schmarsow, p. 32.]
[Footnote 131: See "Arch. Storico dell' Arte," 1888, p. 24.]
[Footnote 132: Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 7629, 1861. Bocchi
says: "_Un quadro di marmo di mano di Donatello di basso relievo: dove
è effigiato quando da le chiavi Cristo a S. Pietro. Estimata molto da
gli artefici questa opera: la quale per invenzione è rara, e per
disegno maravigliosa. Molto è commendata la figura di Cristo, e la
prontezza che si scorge nel S. Pietro. E parimente la Madonna posta in
ginocchione, la quale in atto affetuoso ha sembiante mirabile e
divoto_," p. 372.]
[Footnote 133: "Ammaestramento Utile," 1686, p. 141. "_Una testa nel
deposito a mano destra della Porta Maggiore, è scoltura di Donatello
Fiorentino._" In Chapel of Paul V., Sta. M. Maggiore: "_In terra in
una lapide vi è di profilo la figura del Canonico Morosini, opera di
Donatello famoso scultore e architetto._" _Ibid._ p. 241.]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Medici Medallions.]
The Medici did not remain in exile long, and their return to Florence
marks an epoch in the artistic as well as the political history of
Tuscany. From this moment the sway of the private collector and patron
began. Gradually the great churches and corporations ceased giving
orders on the grand scale, for much of the needful decoration was by
then completed. By the middle of the century patronage was almost
wholly vested in the magnates of commerce and politics: if a chapel
were painted or a memorial statue set up, in most cases the artist
worked for the donor, and not for the church authorities. The
monumental type of sculpture became more rare, _bric à brac_ more
common. Well-known men like Donatello received the old kind of
commission to the end of their lives, while younger men, though fully
occupied, were seldom entrusted with comprehensive orders. Even
Michael Angelo was more dependent on the Pope than upon the Church.
Among the earliest commissions given by the Medici after their return
was an order for marble copies of eight antique gems. These were
placed in the courtyard of their Florentine house, now called the
Palazzo Riccardi. They are colossal in size, and represent much labour
and no profit to art. Nothing is more suitably reproduced on a cameo
than a good piece of sculpture; but the engraved gem is the last
source to which sculpture should turn for inspiration. Donatello had
to enlarge what had already been reduced; it was like copying a
corrupt text. The size of these medallions accentuates faults which
were unnoticed in the dainty gem. The intaglio of Diomede and the
Palladium (now in Naples) is too small to show the fault which is so
glaring in the marble relief, where Diomede is in a position which it
is impossible for a human being to maintain. But the relief is
admirably carved: nothing could be better than the straining sinews of
the thigh; and it is of interest as being the only one which is
related to any other work of the sculptor. The head of one of the
angels in the Brancacci Assumption is taken from this Diomede or from
some other version of it. A similar treatment is found in Madame
André's relief of a young warrior. It has been pointed out that some
of the gems from which these medallions were made did not come into
the Medici Collections until many years later.[134] Cosimo may have
owned casts of the originals, or Donatello may have copied them in
Rome, for they belonged at this time to the Papal glyptothek, from
which they were subsequently bought. The subjects of these roundels
are Ulysses and Athena, a faun carrying Bacchus, two incidents of
Bacchus and Ariadne, a centaur, Dædalus and Icarus, a prisoner before
his victor, and the Diomede. Gems became very popular and expensive: a
school of engravers grew up who copied, invented, and forged.
Carpaccio introduced them into his pictures,[135] and Botticelli used
them so freely that they almost became the ruling element of
decoration in the "Calumny." Gems are incidentally introduced in
Donatello's bust of the so-called Young Gattamelata, and on Goliath's
helmet below the Bronze David. The Medusa head occurs on the base of
the Judith, on the Turin Sword hilt, and on the armour of General
Gattamelata. So much of Donatello's work has perished that it is
almost annoying to see how well these Medici medallions are
preserved--the work in which his individuality was allowed little
play, and in which he can have taken no pride.
[Footnote 134: Molinier, "Les Plaquettes," 1886, p. xxvi.]
[Footnote 135: _Cf._ St. Ursula, Accademia, Venice, No. 574.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Alinari_
THE BRONZE DAVID
BARGELLO, FLORENCE]
[Sidenote: The Bronze David.]
According to Vasari, the Bronze David was made for Cosimo before the
exile of the Medici, and consequently previous to Donatello's second
journey to Rome. It was removed from the courtyard of the palace to
the Palazzo Pubblico, where it remained for many years. Doni mentions
it as being there in 1549,[136] and soon afterwards it was replaced by
Verrocchio's fountain of the Boy squeezing the Dolphin. It is now in
the Bargello. The base has been lost. Albertini says it was made of
variegated marbles.[137] Vasari says it was a simple column.[138] It
has been suggested that the marble pillar now supporting the Judith
belonged to the David, but the David is even less fitted to this
ill-conceived and pedantic shaft than Judith herself. The David soon
acquired popularity; the French envoy, Pierre de Rohan, wanted a copy
of it. It was certainly a remarkable innovation, being probably the
first free-standing nude statue made in Italy for a thousand years.
There had been countless nude figures in relief, but the David was
intended to be seen from every side of Cosimo's _cortile_. There was
no experimental stage with Donatello; his success was immediate and
indeed conclusive. David is a stripling. He stands over the head of
Goliath, a sword in one hand and a stone in the other, wearing his
helmet, a sort of sun-hat in bronze which is decorated with a chaplet
of leaves; below his feet is a wreath of bay. It is a consistent study
in anatomy. The David is perhaps sixteen years old, agile and supple,
with a hand which is big relative to the forearm, as nature ordains.
The back is bony and rather angular; the torso is brilliantly wrought,
with a purity of outline and a _morbidezza_ which made the artists in
Vasari's time believe the figure had been moulded from life. One might
break the statue into half a dozen pieces, and every fragment would
retain its vitality and significance. The limbs are alert and full of
young strength, with plenty more held in reserve: it is heroic in all
respects except dimension. The face is clear cut, and each feature
is rendered with precision. The expression is one of dreamy
contemplation as he looks downwards on the spoils and proof of
conquest. David hath slain his tens of thousands! Finally the quality
of the statue is enhanced by the care with which the bronze has been
chiselled. Goliath's helmet, and David's greaves, on which the _fleur
de lys florencée_ has been damascened, are decorated with unfailing
tact. The embellishment is in itself a pleasure to the eye, but it is
prudently contained within its legitimate sphere; for Donatello would
not allow the accessory to invade the statue itself, which is the
chief fault of the rival David by Verrocchio. Donatello's statue marks
an epoch in the study of anatomy. It is a genuine interpretation of a
very perfect piece of humanity; but his knowledge compared with that
of his successors was empiric. Leonardo's subtle skill was based upon
dissection. Michael Angelo likewise studied from the human corpse,
distasteful as he found the process. Donatello had no such scientific
training: he had no help from the surgeon or the hospital, hence
mistakes; his doubt, for instance, about the connection between ribs
and pectoral bones was never resolved. But, notwithstanding this lack
of technical data, the Bronze David has a distinction which is absent
in statues made by far more learned men. Donatello's intuition
supplied what one would not willingly exchange for the most exact
science of the specialist. The David was an innovation, but the phrase
must be guarded. It was only an innovation so far as it was a
free-standing study from the nude. Nothing is more misleading than the
commonplace that Christianity was opposed to the representation of the
nude in its proper place. The early Church, no doubt, underwent a
prolonged reaction against all that it might be assumed to connote;
one might collect many quotations from patristic literature to this
effect. But the very articles of the Christian Creed militated against
the ultimate scorn of the human body: the doctrine of the Resurrection
alone was enough to give it more sanctity than could be derived from
all the polytheism of antiquity. The Baptism of Christ, the descent
into Limbo, and the Crucifixion itself, were scenes from which the use
of drapery had to be less or more discarded. The porches and frontals
of Gothic churches abounded in nude statuary, from scenes in the
Garden of Eden down to the Last Judgment. Abuses crept in, of course,
and the Faith protested against them. The advancing standard of
comfort and, no doubt, a steadily deteriorating climate, diminished
the everyday familiarity with undraped limbs. Clothes became numerous
and more normal; the artist came to be regarded as the purveyor of
what had ceased to be of natural occurrence. He was encouraged by the
connoisseur, lay and cleric, who found his literature in antiquity,
and then demanded classical forms in his art. The nude was arbitrarily
employed: there was no biblical authority for a naked David, and
Donatello was therefore among the first to err in this respect. The
taste for this kind of thing sprang from humanism, and throve with
hellenism, till a counter-reaction came suddenly in the sixteenth
century. Michael Angelo was hotly attacked for his excessive study
from the nude as prejudicial to morals.[139] Ammanati wrote an abject
apology to the Accademia del Disegno for the very frank nudity of his
statues.[140] Some of the work of Bandinelli and Bronzino had to be
removed. What was a rational and healthy protest has survived in
grotesque and ill-fitting drapery made of tin--very negation of
propriety. Although needed for biblical imagery, the nude in Italy was
always exotic; in Greece it was indigenous. From the time of Homer
there had been a worship of physical perfection. The Palæstra, the
cultivation of athletics in a nation of soldiers, the religions of the
country, with its favourable atmosphere, climate, and stone, all
combined to make the nude a normal aspect of human life. But it was
not the sole inspiration of their art: in Sparta, where there was most
nude there was least art; in Italy, when there was worst art there was
most nude.
[Footnote 136: "_... una colonna nel mezzo dove è un Davitte di
Donatello dignissimo._" Letter to Alberto Lollio, 17. viii. 1549,
Bottari, iii. 341.]
[Footnote 137: _Giù abasso è Davit di bronzo sopra la colonna fine di
marmo variegato._ "Memoriale."]
[Footnote 138: "Life of Bandinelli," x. 301.]
[Footnote 139: "Due dialogi di Giovanni Andrea Gilio da Fabriano,"
1564; a tiresome and discursive tirade.]
[Footnote 140: 22. viii. 1582. Reprinted in Bottari, ii. 529.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Alinari_
CANTORIA
IN OPERA DEL DUOMO, FLORENCE]
[Sidenote: Donatello and Childhood.]