Donatello was sixty-seven when he returned from Padua. He seems to have been unsettled during his later years, undertaking ambitious schemes which he did not execute, and hesitating whether Florence or Siena should be the home of his old age. The bronze pulpits of San Lorenzo[238] are the most important works of this period, and they were left unfinished at his death. Donatello was an old man, and the work bears witness to his advancing years. Bandinelli says that the roughness of the modelling was caused by failing eyesight,[239] and it is obvious that, notwithstanding the signs of feverish activity, and an apparent desire to get the work finished, much was left uncompleted at his death. The pulpits were not even erected until a later date; some of the panels were subsequently added in wood, and others do not correctly fit into the structural design. But the genius of Donatello shines through the finishing-touches of his assistants. Drama is replaced by tragedy; and in these panels the concluding incidents of the Passion are pictured with intense earnestness and pathos. But Donatello would not allow gloom to monopolise his composition. The paradox of the pulpits consists in the frieze of putti above the reliefs: putti who dance, play, romp, and run about. Some of them are busily engaged in moving a heavy statue: others are pressing grapes into big cauldrons. The boy dragging along a violoncello as big as himself is delightful. The contrast afforded by this happy and buoyant throng to the unrelieved tragedy below is strikingly unconventional; and the spirit of both portions is so well maintained that there is neither conflict of emotion nor sense of incongruity. The scenes (including those added at a later date) are sixteen in number. Except the later reliefs of St. John, St. Luke, the Flagellation, and the Ecce Homo, all are of bronze, upon which more care seems to have been expended than on the clay models from which they were cast. On the southern pulpit the scene on the Mount of Olives shows the foreshortened Apostles sleeping soundly as in Mantegna's pictures. Christ before Pilate and Christ before Caiaphas are treated as different episodes, in two similar compartments of one great hall, separated by a large pier. The Crucifix and the Deposition are, perhaps, the most remarkable of all these reliefs: corresponding in many ways to works already described; but not having been over-decorated like the Bargello relief, show greater dignity and less confusion. The background of the Deposition is flat, but broken here and there by faintly-indicated horsemen; naked boys riding on shadowy steeds like those vague figures which seem to thread their way through some panel of Gothic tapestry. There is an element of stiacciato in the Entombment, giving it the air of a mystery rather than of an historical fact. The draperies are thin and graceful, suited to the softer modelling of the limbs: some of the faces are almost dainty. Passing to the northern pulpit, we come to three scenes divided by heavy buttresses, but unified by figures leaning against them, and overstepping the lateral boundaries of the reliefs. The subjects are the Descent into Limbo, the Resurrection and the Ascension. The link between the two former is a haggard emaciated Baptist. The Christ is old and tired. The people who welcome him in Limbo are old and tired, feebly pressing towards the Saviour. The Roman guards lie sleeping, self abandoned in their fatigue, while Christ, wearied and suffering, steps from the tomb with manifest effort. One feels that the physical infirmities of the artist are reflected in these two works, so vivid in their presentment of the heavy burden of advanced years. But in the Resurrection a fresh note is struck. The bystanders are gathered round the Christ, who gives the Benediction. His robe is held back by little angels, and the scene is pervaded by an atmosphere of staid and decorous calm. Donatello has treated this relief in a more archaic spirit. The absence of paroxysms of acute grief, giving a certain violence to other parts of the pulpits, makes the contrast of this relief more effective; but, even so, this scene of the Ascension is fraught with dramatic emphasis. The Descent of the Holy Ghost is less interesting. There is a monotony in the upraised hands, while the feeling of devotional rhapsody is perhaps unduly enforced. The relief of the Maries at the Tomb, which occupies the western end of this pulpit, is almost Pisanesque in the relative size of the people to the architecture. There is a combination of trees and pilasters seeming to support the long low roof beneath which the incident is portrayed. A curious feeling of intimacy is conveyed to the spectator. The pulpits are full of classical details—far more so than in anything we find at Padua. It is very noticeable in the armour of the soldiers, in their shields bearing the letters S.P.Q.R. and the scorpion, and in the antique vases which decorate the frieze. The centaurs holding the cartel on which Donatello has signed his name are, of course, classical in idea, while the boys with horses are suggested by the great Monte Cavallo statues.[240] Then, again, the architecture is replete with classical forms; in one relief Donatello introduces the Column of Trajan. But here, as elsewhere, the classicisms are held in check, and never invade or embarrass the dominant spirit of the Quattrocento. How far Donatello was helped by assistants must remain problematical in the absence of documentary evidence. Bellano and Bertoldo were in all probability responsible for a good deal. In the relief of St. Laurence it is possible that Donatello's share was relatively small. Moreover, one part of the frieze of children is so closely allied to the work of Giovanni da Pisa at Padua, that one is justified, on stylistic grounds, in suggesting that he may also have been employed. But it is certain that the share of Bellano must have been limited to the more technical portion of the work, for there is happily nothing to suggest the poverty of his inventive powers. These pulpits are very remarkable works; they have an inexhaustible wealth of detail in which Donatello can be studied with endless pleasure. The backgrounds are full of his architectural fancy, and the sustained effort put forth by Donatello is really astonishing. But he was an octogenarian, and there are signs of decay. Michael Angelo and Beethoven decayed. Dante and Shakespeare were too wise to decay; Shelley and Giorgione died too young. But the sculptor's intellect must be reinforced by keen eyes and a steady hand: of all artists, Nature finds him most vulnerable. Donatello's last work shows the fatigue of hand and eye, though the intellect never lost its ardent and strenuous activity. There was no petulance or meanness in his old age, no decadence; he merely grew old, and his personality was great until the end.
Alinari
END PANEL OF PULPIT
SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
Donatello's Influence on Sculpture.
The influence of Donatello on his three greatest contemporaries was small. Jacopo della Quercia always retained his own massive style. Luca della Robbia and Ghiberti—the Euphuist of Italian sculpture—were scarcely affected by the sterner principles of Donatello. All four men were, in fact, exponents of distinct and independent ideas, and handed on their traditions to separate groups of successors. Nanni di Banco and Il Rosso were, however, impressed by Donatello's monumental work, while other sculptors, such as Simone Fiorentino, Vecchietta, Michelozzo, Andrea del Aquila and Buggiano (besides much anonymous talent) were largely influenced by him. It is owing to the fact that Donatello was the most influential man of his day that so many "schoolpieces" exist.[241] The influence on his successors is less easily determined, except so far as concerns the men who worked for him at Padua, together with Riccio, the most skilful bronze caster of his day, who indirectly owed a good deal to Donatello. But Urbano da Cortona and his colleagues produced little original work after their return from Padua: their training seems to have merged their individuality into the dominant style of Donatello; and much of their subsequent work is now ascribed to Donatello or his bottega. Verrocchio, whom Gauricus calls Donatello's rival, owes little or nothing to the elder man, and the versatile sculptors who outlived Donatello, such as Rossellino, Benedetto da Maiano, Mino da Fiesole and Desiderio, show relatively small traces of his influence. But Donatello's sculpture acted as a restraining influence, a tonic: it was a living protest against flippancy and carelessness, and his influence was of service even where it was of a purely negative character. Through Bertoldo Donatello's influence extended to Michael Angelo, affecting his ideas of form: But Jacopo della Quercia, who was almost as great a man as Donatello, is the prototype of Michael Angelo's spirit. Jacopo ought to have founded a powerful, indeed an overwhelming school of sculpture at Siena. Cozzarelli, Neroccio, and the Turini just fail to attain distinction; but their force and virility should have fructified Jacopo's ideas and developed a supreme school of monumental sculpture. As regards Michael Angelo, there can be no question of his having been influenced by Donatello's St. John the Evangelist and the Campanile Abraham. The Madonna delle treppe[242] in a lesser degree is suggested by Donatello. The Trinity on the niche of St. Louis again reminds one of Michael Angelo's conception of the Eternal Father. His Bacchus in Berlin[243] was held to be the work of Donatello himself, and the Pietà in St. Peter's has also a reminiscence of the older master. But in all these cases the resemblance is physical. The intellectual genius of Michael Angelo owed nothing to Donatello. Condivi records one of Michael Angelo's rare obiter dicta about his predecessors[244] to the effect that Donatello's work, much as he admired it, was inadequately polished owing to lack of patience. The criticism was not very sagacious, and one would least expect it from Michael Angelo, of whose work so much was left unfinished. But, at any rate, Donatello commanded his approval, and contributed something to one of the greatest artists of the world. But the ideals of Michael Angelo were too comprehensive to be derived from one source or another, too stupendous to spring from individuals. He sought out the universal form: he took mankind for his model; and while he typified humanity he effectively denationalised Italian sculpture.