Donatello: A True Master

Donatello - Bust of Niccolò da Uzzano - 1430s - Polychrome terracotta, height 46 cm - Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence (click photo for larger image)Donatello (1386-1466) was a master of sculpture in both marble and bronze—as well as wood- and one of the greatest of all Italian Renaissance artists. He had a more detailed and wide-ranging knowledge of ancient sculpture than any other artist of his day. His work was inspired by ancient visual examples, which he often daringly transformed.

Following a restoration in 1985, this polychrome terracotta Bust of Niccolò da Uzzano, originally from Palazzo Capponi, has won back its place in the history of Florentine Renaissance sculpture which Carlo Carlieri had assigned to it in his Florentine Guide of 1745. This distinguished public figure, who led the party which opposed the Medici, and represented several times in fresco (in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, in Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, in the Church of Sant'Egidio), on medals and subsequently in the commemorative alcoves of the Uffizi Gallery, could not be ignored by the young Donatello, who reproduces the man in polychrome terracotta, in line with the classical model of antiquity. Probably executed in the 1430s (Niccolò died in 1433), it reveals the physical and moral individuality of the man, and has been described as the oldest half bust portrait of the Florentine Renaissance. There does remain some debate as to its attribution.