My name is Donatello. I was an Italian artist and sculptor, and I was born in 1386, in Florence. In Florence I learned the basics of sculpting at the stonemasons´guild. After it I became an apprentice of Lorenzo Ghiberti. At the age of seventeen I was working for his master on the bronze panels of the Florentine baptistery.
In 1408 I sculpted one of my earliest known works, the “David”, a marble life-size sculpture. Rapidly I produced a strong and original style in two works: the large marble figure St. Mark on the outside of Orsanmichele, and St. John the evangelist for the facade of the Cathedral. My new style was confirmed in the famous St. George carved in marble around 1416 for the exterior of Orsanmichele.
I was requested to create many pieces or works, which I often executed with other artists.
Around 1425 I went into a partnership with Michelozzo, a sculptor and architect, with whom I made a trip to Rome after 1429.
Much of my later work demonstrates my understanding of classical art. From 1443 to 1453 I was in Padua, Italy, where in the Piazza del Santo I created the colossal bronze equestrian monument to the Venetian condottiere called Gattamelata.
Back in Florence I carved a haunting, unhealthy Mary Magdalen for the Baptistery.
On my death on December 13, 1466, two unfinished bronze pulpits were left in Saint Lorenzo, Florence. Giovanni, my pupil, finished them.
Hi Donatello, last month I saw an exposition of some of your pieces of art. I really liked it. So I wonder if you could, please, do a picture for my compilation of pieces of art of the greatest painters of all the times.
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