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Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 3
Lesson 2: Sculpture and architecture in central Italy- Brunelleschi & Ghiberti, the Sacrifice of Isaac
- Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, Sacrifice of Isaac (quiz)
- Ghiberti, "Gates of Paradise," east doors of the Florence Baptistery
- Brunelleschi, Old Sacristy
- Brunelleschi, Dome of the Cathedral of Florence.
- Brunelleschi, Dome (quiz)
- Brunelleschi, Pazzi Chapel
- Brunelleschi, Pazzi Chapel
- Brunelleschi, Santo Spirito
- Nanni di Banco, Four Crowned Saints
- Orsanmichele and Donatello's Saint Mark
- Donatello, Saint Mark
- Donatello, St. Mark (quiz)
- A soldier saint in Renaissance Florence: Donatello's St George
- Donatello, Feast of Herod
- Donatello, Madonna of the Clouds
- Donatello, David
- Donatello, David
- Donatello, David (quiz)
- Donatello, The Miracle of the Mule
- Donatello, Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata
- Donatello, Mary Magdalene
- Andrea della Robbia’s bambini at the Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence
- Alberti, Palazzo Rucellai
- Alberti, Palazzo Rucellai
- Alberti, Palazzo Rucellai
- Alberti, Façade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence
- Alberti, Sant'Andrea in Mantua
- Michelozzo, Palazzo Medici
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Donatello, Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata
Donatello, Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata (Erasmo da Narni), 1445-53, bronze, 12 feet, 2 inches high, Piazza del Santo, Padua Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- I notice that there is a carving just below the sculpture that didn't even get a mention in this video. Does anyone know what this carving depicts?(8 votes)
- The pedestal under the horse is composed of two reliefs toward the top with fake doors underneath. The doors symbolize the gates of the underworld, lending the feeling of a tomb, though the monument was never a burial place.[5] One relief shows Gattamelata's coat of arms flanked by two putti that are pointing to it. The other relief is of angels displaying battle armor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrian_statue_of_Gattamelata(13 votes)
- Is there pretty broad support for the bold claim that the artist is surpassing the ancients?(2 votes)
- He more or less takes the ancient techniques and uses them in another "modern" way. Therefore he reaches up to a new level of art. Using the ancient naturalistic tradition togeteher with the focus of the renessaince.(3 votes)
- was this sculpture around the area of the other building that was talked about in the past 2 videos?(1 vote)
- The Gattamelata sculpture is in the city of Padua near Venice. However, most of Donatello's work can be found in Florence(3 votes)
- so this was the first large bronze casting in over 1000 years?(1 vote)
- One thing I find interesting about this sculpture is the use of details that cannot have been part of the original casting, such as the sword and the harness. Casting the harness in particular as a separate piece would have been difficult because the harness needs to fit the shape of the horse exactly. Is it known how these were made?(1 vote)
- Immediately when I saw this, I noticed a visual gradient that occurs, as we gaze at a brighter bottom fading into a darker top, caused by the increase in depth of the relief; this accentuation of the natural space helps me to perceive the relief as a powerful depiction. What elements stood out to you upon a cursory glance?(1 vote)
Video transcript
(piano music playing) Beth: We're standing in the square, outside of the Church of
Sant Antonio in Padua, looking across a traffic circle, at Donatello's great equestrian monument, from the mid-15th century, Gattamelata. Steven: Donatello had
spent a good deal of time in Rome, was up in Padua
for about 10 years, and worked on a number
of important commissions, but, this is clearly his most famous. Beth: And, it's important
to note that Donatello was twice in Rome, because he got to see the great equestrian
sculpture of Marcus Aurelius. Steven: This is really important, and I think it's a little bit difficult for us to understand how extraordinary that ancient sculpture must have seemed. You know, by the late medieval and the beginning of the Renaissance, when Donatello was alive, you had a culture that had forgotten how to cast bronze at a large scale. In other words, they
could look at a sculpture from antiquity that they
couldn't make any more. Beth: That certainly
seemed like a challenge, and Donatello took up that challenge. Can we, a 1,000 years
later, make a monumental bronze sculpture, an equestrian sculpture? Steven: Well, an equestrian sculpture is especially difficult.
Just look at the Gattamelata for a moment. You have this massive horse. You have this mass of the human body, and all of that rests on 4 slender legs. Beth: And, to show off,
you would want to raise one of the legs of the horse, as the sculptor did for Marcus Aurelius, and Donatello was clearly ambitious in wanting to do that, but
he didn't go all the way in that direction and, instead, he's got the left hoof up on a cannonball. Steven: Although, if you
look at that left foreleg, it is so delicately
placed on that cannonball, it's actually a very small point that is able to anchor the sculpture, and so it can't really
support that much weight, so he's gone pretty far. Beth: So, this is a type
of sculpture that was lost, not only because of the
loss of the knowledge of how to cast bronze in this size, but also because this
is a type of monument that didn't really
interest the Middle Ages. This is a monument that commemorates a great man, commemorates an individual. Steven: And it commemorates a great man in our world, a recent figure, and, right, this is antithetical to the medieval celebration
of, perhaps, royalty. Beth: Or, saints you would
get in the Middle Ages. This is not a saint.
This is a very talented military captain, or a Condottiere, a kind of hired military captain that was very common at the time. Steven: And a man who was hired by Venice, which is a city only about
a half hour from Padua, that was responsible for Venice actually gaining this territory, that is, solidifying its foothold, on terra firma, outside of the lagoon. Beth: Right. In the early 15th century, Venice captured more and more towns on the mainland, and
Padua was one of them. And, so, we're looking, really, at a military commander
who captured Padua. Now, the monument was commissioned by Gattamelata's family. By the way, Gattamelata means honeyed cat. I don't think we know the
origin of that nickname but it sounds to me like something, perhaps, his soldiers called him. Steven: His real name was Erasmo da Narni. Beth: His family had him buried inside this important
Church of Saint Anthony - this is a major pilgrimage church - and then asked the Venetian government if they could put up a
monument to him outside and, obviously, the
Venetian government agreed. The monument commemorates an individual but also speaks to the greatness of Padua, the greatness of Venice. Steven: He is placed just
outside of this enormous church and, so, there's this way that that civic pride is contextualized within this religious society. Donatello's work is just a tour de force. There's a kind of
sensitivity in the handling of both the figure and of the horse. They are both independent figures that are responding to
the world around them, in their own way, so that the man stands fully in control, in charge. He has baton in hand, he looks outward, the horse also enormously powerful, but looks down at us, turns, and seems so animated. Beth: You can see Donatello taking up the challenge and then surpassing the ancient Romans. When we look at the Marcus Aurelius, a figure that has nobility, but lacks military strength and power, or doesn't project that
as much as we have here, Gattamelata sits up in his stirrups, presses down, his body is vertical, balanced by the horizontal of the horse, and, as we're looking
from this vantage point outside the church, you can see the horse turning to its left, almost posing, and the beauty of the horse showing off its own valor. Steven: Well, the horse seems to be aware that we're looking at it. Beth: Donatello's clearly studied the anatomy of the horse, the same way that we know Donatello was studying human anatomy at the time, that interest in naturalism is so evident here. Steven: It's such a
culmination of the ideas of the early Renaissance.
Look, for instance, at the broad face of the horse, and look at the way that you can see some of the veins, and
the nostrils are flared. This is clearly based
on direct observation. The same way that Donatello was concerned with Contrapposto in the human body, we
have the real movement of a horse through time, through space. Beth: A monument that
epitomizes Renaissance humanism in its commemoration
of the achievements of an individual, and in recalling, and even surpassing, that ancient past. (piano music playing)