THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 603 great Florentines, Donatello, Ghiberti, and Luca della Rob- bia. The last is especially famed for his terra-cottas ; Ghi- berti, for his bronze doors with their panels full of sculpture in relief in the baptistery at Florence, just across the square from Giotto's tower and Brunelleschi's dome. Donatello had begun his artistic career by 1406. For a score or more of years he worked in Florence on the sculp- tures of the cathedral and campanile and in com- Career and petition with Brunelleschi and Ghiberti. From character of 141 3 to 1428 Ghiberti and he labored at statues for the Or San Michele. He also visited Siena, Venice, Mantua, Modena, Ferrara, and Prato, and worked for sev- eral years in Padua. In 1433 he was at Rome aiding in the preparations for the imperial coronation of Sigismund. Later he helped Cosimo de' Medici adorn his palace for humanists with appropriate sculptures. Many stories are told of Dona- tello's simple and unassuming character. He is said to have kept his money in a basket hung from the roof with a cord attached by which it might be lowered by any friend who wished to help himself. His patrons, the Medici, presented him on one occasion with a sumptuous costume and in his old age with a small estate on which to retire, but he re- turned the one as too fine for him to wear and the other as too much bother for him to maintain. He had, however, as further anecdotes in Vasari illustrate, little patience with business men who ventured to criticize his art or who tried to beat him down on his prices. Donatello was interested in the collection of classical antiquities, and his sculpture is described by Vasari as having "the closest resemblance to the Greeks and Romans" ; but he was even more of a realist and follower of nature. Both the style of Donatello and the themes of his sculp- ture were varied, and a list of some of his works will give us a notion of the scope of Renaissance art. His His chief Marzocco, or seated lion, is an excellent and dig- statues nified example of animal sculpture. His frieze of boys run- ning and laughing made Vasari regard him as the "greatest master of bas-relief." His David, depicted as a shepherd
