Donatello

The decade of activity of the Florentine sculptor Donato di Niccolò de’ Bardi, known as Donatello, in Padua constitutes one of the most significant and fascinating episodes in the history of the figurative arts in Italy. Among the principal works produced by the artist during this period was the bronze Crucifix executed between 1444 and 1449 for the Basilica of Sant’Antonio. This was the first monumental bronze representation of the subject to be created since Classical Antiquity, and one of the most astonishing works of the Italian Renaissance, in terms of its inventiveness and aesthetic qualities, in which it is possible to glimpse the principal features of Franciscan spirituality and find the characteristics particular to Donatello’s means of expression: such as the powerful and dynamic muscular emphasis of the anatomy, the distinctive “unfinished” working of the bronze and the extraordinary capacity of the artist to enter into dialogue with the sculpture of Antiquity.