Donatello
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50 free Donatello trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Donatello changed what a statue could be. Working in Florence in the 1400s, he carved and cast figures that looked startlingly alive, revived ideas that had been forgotten since ancient times, and left behind stories about his temper, his generosity and his odd habits that are still retold. This quiz gathers the fun facts about Donatello that people search for most. It covers his early years and training, his most famous statues and the cities that still display them, his friends, rivals and patrons, the techniques he pioneered, and the cartoon turtle who borrowed his name. It is pitched for curious kids, students working on a report and anyone planning a trip to Tuscany. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something new even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01According to Vasari, Donatello kept money for friends and assistants to take freely in which unusual place?
A hanging basket
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.
Q 02Donatello's bronze David, the first freestanding male nude since antiquity, wears boots and which other item?
A hat
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.
Q 03According to Vasari, what did Donatello do to his Saint Mark during two weeks under cover after a guild rejected it?
Left it untouched
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.
Q 04According to legend, Donatello shouted which command at his lifelike marble prophet Zuccone while carving it?
Speak
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.
Q 05Italy's David di Donatello awards, named after the sculptor's famous statue, honour the best work in which field?
Film
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.
Q 06The Ninja Turtle named after the sculptor Donatello wears a mask of which colour?
Purple
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.
Q 07The general on Donatello's famous bronze horseback monument was nicknamed Gattamelata, an Italian name meaning what?
Honeyed Cat
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.
Q 08Donatello first appears in written records in 1401, aged about 15, accused of doing what in Pistoia?
Hitting a man with a stick
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.
Q 09Donatello's Marzocco, a symbol of Florence first made for a papal visit, depicts which animal?
A lion
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.
Q 10Which later sculptor carved a far taller marble David in Florence in 1501–04, decades after Donatello's bronze one?
Michelangelo
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.
Q 11The Ninja Turtle Donatello and his three brothers are all named after Italian artists of which historical period?
The Renaissance
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.
Q 12Donatello, the brainy Ninja Turtle named after the sculptor, fights with which signature weapon?
A bō staff
A bō staff, a long pole, is his signature weapon in every version of the franchise; one screen version upgrades it with rocket boosters.
Q 13To which city is the young Donatello said to have gone with an architect friend to dig up and measure ancient ruins?
Rome
Q 21In Donatello's bronze relief The Feast of Herod, whose severed head is brought to the king on a platter?
John the Baptist
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.
Q 22Which young woman is shown still performing in Donatello's Feast of Herod relief as a severed head arrives?
Salome
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.
Q 23In which northern Italian city does Donatello's bronze Gattamelata monument stand on a square beside a great basilica?
Padua
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.
Q 14Donatello is buried in the same Florence church crypt as which banker, his greatest patron?
Cosimo de' Medici
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.
Q 15Donatello's gaunt Penitent Magdalene, long kept in the Florence Baptistery, is made of which material?
Wood
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.
Q 16Which 1966 disaster in Florence damaged Donatello's Penitent Magdalene and led restorers to uncover its original paint?
A flood
A flood of the River Arno damaged the statue, and the repair work that followed revealed traces of its original colour and gilding.
Q 17Which Donatello marble, carved for an armourers' guild, was stolen by German soldiers during the Second World War?
Saint George
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.
Q 18In 1456 Donatello gave a bronze Madonna roundel to Giovanni Chellini as thanks for which service?
Medical treatment
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.
Q 19Donatello's relief frieze for a singing gallery in Florence Cathedral is crowded with which lively figures?
Dancing children
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.
Q 20Donatello's father Niccolò belonged to a Florentine guild whose members worked with which material?
Wool
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.
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.
Q 24Donatello's bald marble prophet is known as Lo Zuccone, an Italian nickname often translated as what?
Pumpkin Head
Pumpkin Head, or Baldy, is the best known of a series of prophets Donatello carved, and was probably meant as Habakkuk or Jeremiah.
Q 25In Vasari's telling, which architect friend said Donatello's painted crucifix made Christ look like a peasant?
Filippo Brunelleschi
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.
Q 26In whose Florence workshop did Donatello train from 1404 while it made bronze doors for the Baptistery?
Lorenzo Ghiberti
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.
Q 27Which Florence museum, once a prison and police headquarters, holds Donatello's bronze David and his Marzocco?
The Bargello
The Bargello, built in the 13th century, has housed a national museum since 1865 and holds the main collection of Donatello's portable pieces.
Q 28Donatello's bronze Judith and Holofernes, made for a palace garden, is thought to have been designed to work as what?
A fountain
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.
Q 29Which Italian term names the weight-on-one-leg stance Donatello gave his marble Saint Mark of 1411–13?
Contrapposto
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.
Q 30Donatello's Zuccone was one of several prophets he carved for niches on which Florence landmark?
Giotto's bell tower
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.