50 Fun Facts About Donatello

According to Vasari, Donatello kept money for friends and assistants to take freely in which unusual place?

A hanging basket on a cord from the workshop ceiling held the cash, in a story also told by an earlier writer. Donatello was well liked but rather poor at the business side of his career.

Donatello's bronze David, the first freestanding male nude since antiquity, wears boots and which other item?

A hat is all he wears besides the boots, which only makes his nakedness more striking. Earlier Florentine statues of David, including Donatello's own in stone, showed him clothed.

According to Vasari, what did Donatello do to his Saint Mark during two weeks under cover after a guild rejected it?

Left it untouched: he simply had the statue lifted into its niche, where proportions planned for viewing from below looked right. The guild happily accepted it.

According to legend, Donatello shouted which command at his lifelike marble prophet Zuccone while carving it?

Speak was the order, the story goes, shouted at a figure known for its startling realism. The statue is reported to have been Donatello's favourite, and he is said to have sworn oaths by it.

Italy's David di Donatello awards, named after the sculptor's famous statue, honour the best work in which field?

Film is the field: the prizes, founded in 1955, are voted by people inside the industry and are considered Italy's equivalent of the Academy Awards.

The Ninja Turtle named after the sculptor Donatello wears a mask of which colour?

Purple marks out the smartest and often gentlest of the four turtle brothers. The first animated series, which premiered in 1987, introduced the turtles' colour-coded masks.

The general on Donatello's famous bronze horseback monument was nicknamed Gattamelata, an Italian name meaning what?

Honeyed Cat was the nickname of Erasmo of Narni, a mercenary captain born into a poor family who rose to lead armies for Italy's city-states.

Donatello first appears in written records in 1401, aged about 15, accused of doing what in Pistoia?

Hitting a man with a stick, hard enough to draw blood, was the charge. The victim was a German, and the teenage Donatello was probably in town with his father.

Donatello's Marzocco, a symbol of Florence first made for a papal visit, depicts which animal?

A lion sits with one paw on the coat of arms of Florence. Donatello's original is now kept in a museum, with a replica standing on the Piazza della Signoria.

Which later sculptor carved a far taller marble David in Florence in 1501–04, decades after Donatello's bronze one?

Michelangelo's David was planned for a spot high on Florence Cathedral but proved too heavy to raise, so it went on show in the city's main square instead.

The Ninja Turtle Donatello and his three brothers are all named after Italian artists of which historical period?

The Renaissance supplied all four names: the comic's creators first considered Japanese names, then chose Italian masters because it felt quirky enough to fit.

Donatello, the brainy Ninja Turtle named after the sculptor, fights with which signature weapon?

A bō staff, a long pole, is his signature weapon in every version of the franchise; one screen version upgrades it with rocket boosters.

To which city is the young Donatello said to have gone with an architect friend to dig up and measure ancient ruins?

Rome still had abundant ancient remains, most of them buried, so the two hired labourers to dig. They were very early in what was effectively archaeology.

Donatello is buried in the same Florence church crypt as which banker, his greatest patron?

Cosimo de' Medici backed Donatello for decades and is thought to have ordered the bronze David. The two lie in a crypt beneath the nave of a basilica his family rebuilt.

Donatello's gaunt Penitent Magdalene, long kept in the Florence Baptistery, is made of which material?

Wood, specifically white poplar, was used for the figure, which astonished viewers with its realism: a gaunt penitent in place of the usual beautiful young woman.

Which 1966 disaster in Florence damaged Donatello's Penitent Magdalene and led restorers to uncover its original paint?

A flood of the River Arno damaged the statue, and the repair work that followed revealed traces of its original colour and gilding.

Which Donatello marble, carved for an armourers' guild, was stolen by German soldiers during the Second World War?

Saint George had been hidden in a villa outside Florence to keep it safe from air raids. It was tracked down in the South Tyrol and returned to the city in 1945.

In 1456 Donatello gave a bronze Madonna roundel to Giovanni Chellini as thanks for which service?

Medical treatment was repaid in art: the doctor recorded the gift in his own account book, and the roundel's hollowed back works as a mould for casting copies.

Donatello's relief frieze for a singing gallery in Florence Cathedral is crowded with which lively figures?

Dancing children fill the frieze, his most famous work of the kind. It develops the style of his reliefs for an outdoor pulpit at Prato Cathedral, which took ten years to finish.

Donatello's father Niccolò belonged to a Florentine guild whose members worked with which material?

Wool was the family trade: Niccolò worked as a wool-stretcher, a job in the wool workers' guild that probably brought in a good income.

In Donatello's bronze relief The Feast of Herod, whose severed head is brought to the king on a platter?

John the Baptist was the theme of the whole font the panel belongs to. Donatello gave the scene two vanishing points, perhaps to leave the viewer feeling uneasy.

Which young woman is shown still performing in Donatello's Feast of Herod relief as a severed head arrives?

Salome is still moving to the music at the right of centre while the king recoils in horror at the left, so several moments of the story share a single scene.

In which northern Italian city does Donatello's bronze Gattamelata monument stand on a square beside a great basilica?

Padua was Donatello's base for ten years, and the stimulus of his stay helped make the city a leading centre for small table bronzes decades later.

Donatello's bald marble prophet is known as Lo Zuccone, an Italian nickname often translated as what?

Pumpkin Head, or Baldy, is the best known of a series of prophets Donatello carved, and was probably meant as Habakkuk or Jeremiah.

In Vasari's telling, which architect friend said Donatello's painted crucifix made Christ look like a peasant?

Filippo Brunelleschi was then dared to do better and carved a rival crucifix of his own. He is most famous for designing the dome of Florence Cathedral.

In whose Florence workshop did Donatello train from 1404 while it made bronze doors for the Baptistery?

Lorenzo Ghiberti had won the commission in a famous competition. Donatello spent about three years with him as an apprentice, the last few months on a salary.

Which Florence museum, once a prison and police headquarters, holds Donatello's bronze David and his Marzocco?

The Bargello, built in the 13th century, has housed a national museum since 1865 and holds the main collection of Donatello's portable pieces.

Donatello's bronze Judith and Holofernes, made for a palace garden, is thought to have been designed to work as what?

A fountain is the likely answer: water was meant to run from the corners of the cushion Judith stands on and from the reliefs around the base.

Which Italian term names the weight-on-one-leg stance Donatello gave his marble Saint Mark of 1411–13?

Contrapposto, first seen in ancient Greek statues, fell out of use in the Middle Ages. In the Saint Mark it puts more weight on the right leg and bends the left knee.

Donatello's Zuccone was one of several prophets he carved for niches on which Florence landmark?

Giotto's bell tower stands beside the cathedral. The statues sat so high that fine detail was almost useless, and all were replaced by replicas in 1940.

Which emperor's ancient bronze horseback statue did Donatello certainly know before making his own Gattamelata monument?

Marcus Aurelius towers over his horse in the ancient statue. Donatello instead kept horse and rider life-size and let pose and expression show the general's power.

Donatello's bronze Gattamelata was made, like other bronzes of its day, using which technique?

Lost-wax casting is thousands of years old. A local metalworker led the team that cast Donatello's bronze, mostly in 1447 or 1448.

In Donatello's Gattamelata monument, the horse's raised front hoof rests on which object?

A sphere, often read as a cannonball, props up the raised leg. Adding such a support under a hoof was a trick Donatello took from ancient sculpture.

Around 1434 Donatello took on a job usually given to painters, designing what for Florence Cathedral?

Stained glass was only one of his mostly novel uses of the material, which had hardly featured in European sculpture before: he also set pieces of it into the backgrounds of reliefs.

Early biographers say the young Donatello paid his way while studying ancient ruins by working for which craftsmen?

Goldsmiths gave him jobs that probably doubled as important training, some twenty years before his first documented work in bronze.

Historians place Donatello's birth around 1386 because of the age he declared on which 1427 document?

A tax return from July 1427 has him claiming to be 41 years old. Vasari, writing about a century later, put his birth some seventeen years too late.

Donatello was a nickname; the sculptor was born with which surname, shared with a famous Florentine banking family?

Bardi was his family name: in full he was Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, though any tie to the wealthy bankers seems to have been a distant one.

Donatello used which real material in modelling his bronze Judith and Holofernes to give the surface texture?

Cloth was worked into the model to give it real texture, and the legs of Holofernes may even have been moulded from a living man.

Donatello's early painted crucifix for Santa Croce was built with which unusual feature for church processions?

Lowerable arms made the light figure easier to carry in procession. Its Christ is strikingly realistic, shown in agony with eyes and mouth partly open.

Donatello's bronze Feast of Herod was made for the baptismal font of which Tuscan city's baptistery?

Siena handed him the panel in 1423, and it became his first relief in bronze. It sits so low on the font that its bottom edge is at about knee height.

Donatello developed a very shallow style of relief carving called stiacciato, an Italian word meaning what?

Flattened out is the literal sense: in his first milestone in the style, the carving is only about two centimetres deep yet suggests far-off hills and trees.

The outdoor pulpit Donatello worked on at Prato Cathedral was built to show crowds which relic of the Virgin Mary?

Her belt, said to have been dropped to the apostle Thomas as she rose to heaven, was displayed to the people of Prato from a high pulpit five times a year.

Donatello's last major project was a set of bronze pulpit reliefs for which Florence church, where he is buried?

San Lorenzo holds reliefs he made with assistants in old age, when he was at times unable to work. They were only assembled into two pulpits in the following century.

The architect Filarete wrote that the paired saints on Donatello's bronze sacristy doors looked like what?

Fencers was the jibe, and it suits the door of martyrs best, since most of them hold thin palm fronds. The doors drew criticism from very early on.

Donatello's giant Joshua for Florence Cathedral, nicknamed the White Colossus, had a core of which material?

Brick made a large but lightweight core, which was covered in modelled clay and painted white. The figure stayed on the cathedral until the 18th century.

Which Florence guild church, converted from a grain market, held Donatello's saints in niches on its outer walls?

Orsanmichele has 14 niches, each assigned to a guild that usually filled it with its patron saint. Donatello's first statue there was for the linen weavers.

Which architect and sculptor was Donatello's formal business partner for nine years from about 1425?

Michelozzo Michelozzi, usually known simply as Michelozzo, excelled at organising a workshop, which Donatello did not. A dispute that was mostly Donatello's fault ended the deal.

Donatello's 1433 contract for a cathedral singing gallery promised 20% more pay if it outshone a gallery by which rival?

Luca della Robbia had been given the first gallery two years earlier. His workshop later perfected glazed terracotta, a better technique than the painted stucco Donatello had tried.

Donatello made the bronze effigy for a Florence Baptistery tomb honouring which rival papal claimant, deposed in 1415?

John XXIII, born Baldassare Cossa, is now counted as an antipope. His tomb was the tallest sculpture in Florence when it was finished.

Which London collection holds the Chellini Madonna, the bronze roundel Donatello gave to a friend in 1456?

The Victoria and Albert has the roundel, whose hollowed back was designed as a mould so that copies could be cast from it.