Early Criticism of Donatello.
Donatello's activity is the best testimonial to the appreciation of his work during his lifetime. Sabba del Castiglione was proud to possess a specimen of Donatello's sculpture.[245] Commissions were showered on him in great numbers, and Gauricus says that he produced more than all his contemporaries.[246] Flavius Blondius of Forli compares him favourably with the ancients.[247] Bartolomeo Fazio warmly praised Donatello, his junior.[248] Francesco d'Olanda[249] and Benvenuto Cellini[250] also admired him. Lasca credited Donatello with having done for sculpture what Brunellesco did for architecture:
"E Donatello messe la scultura
Nel dritto suo sentier ch' era smarrita
Cosi l'architettura
Storpiata, e guasta alle man' de' Tedeschi...."
and so forth.[251] Another early poem, the Rappresentazione of King Nebuchadnezzar, shows the great popularity of Donatello in the humbler walks of life.[252] Vasari's rhetoric led him to say that Donatello was sent by Nature, indignant at seeing herself caricatured.[253] Bocchi claims that, having equalled the ancients and surpassed the sculptors of his own day, Donatello's name will live in the perpetual memory of mankind.[254]
Character and Personality of Donatello.
Donatello must be judged by his work alone. His intellect is only reflected in his handicraft. We know little about him, but all we know bears tribute to his high character. The very name by which he was called—Donatello—is a diminutive, a term of endearment. His generosity, his modesty, and a pardonable pride, are recorded in stories which have been generically applied to others, but which were specific to himself. He shared his purse with his friends:[255] he preferred plain clothing to the fine raiment offered by Cosimo de' Medici;[256] and he indignantly broke the statue for which a Genoese merchant was unwilling to pay a fair price.[257] He was recognised as a man of honourable judgment, and he was called upon to act as assessor several times. The friend of the Medici, of Cyriac of Ancona, of Niccolo Niccoli, the greatest antiquarian of the day, and of Andrea della Robbia, one of the pall-bearers at his funeral, must have been a man of winning personality and considerable learning. But he was always simple and naïve: benigno e cortese, according to Vasari,[258] but as Summonte added with deeper insight, his work was far from simple.[259] He is one of the rare men of genius against whom no contemporary attack is recorded. He was content with little;[260] his life was even-tenored; his work, though not faultless, shows a steady and unbroken progress towards the noblest achievements of plastic art.