Donatello. Il Rinascimento (Florence, Palazzo Strozzi and Museo Nazionale del Bargello, 19 March–31 July 2022). Catalogue Donatello. Il Rinascimento ed. Francesco Caglioti. Venice: Marsilio Arte. 456 pp. €72. ISBN 979‐12‐5463‐005‐1

Abstract

It is difficult to consider the resplendent display of Donatello’s sculpture under review here as a single exhibition. Of the approximately 130 artworks included, around fifty are by or attributed to Donatello; a number of these were made in partnership with the sculptorarchitect Michelozzo and many with workshop assistance. Divided between two venues, this seemed the equivalent of three exhibitions. Eleven rooms at the Palazzo Strozzi presented a chronological survey of the sculptor’s career and influence in the fifteenth century. A second section, in the Bargello’s cavernous Salone di Donatello, focused on several statues, including his bronze David, the Orsanmichele St. George with its tabernacle niche and schiacciato relief, and the Marzocco, the lion he carved in sandstone (macigno). And artworks in two groundfloor rooms at the Bargello explored his influence in the later fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The exhibition expanded, potentially, even beyond these sites, as signage encouraged visitors to explore other cultural institutions in Florence and outside the city in Tuscany where additional examples of Donatello’s art can be found – or where sculptures included in the exhibition usually reside. Before 2022, comprehensive museum exhibitions featured Donatello’s art twice: in 1887, on the fifth centenary of his birth, and in 1985– 6, when an exhibition staged in three cities marked the sixth centenary. 2022 is not the anniversary of his birth or death or of the completion of a major sculpture (or so we think; missing