was also a master, as we shall see at S. Lorenzo. But his
greatest claim to distinction is his psychological insight allied
to perfect mastery of form. His statues were not only the first
really great statues since the Greeks, but are still (always leaving
Michelangelo on one side as abnormal) the greatest modern examples
judged upon a realistic basis. Here in the Bargello, in originals and
in casts, he may be adequately appreciated; but to Padua his admirers
must certainly go, for the bronze equestrian statue of Gattamelata is
there. Donatello was painted by his friend Masaccio at the Carmine,
but the fresco has perished. He is to be seen in the Uffizi portico,
although that is probably a fancy representation; and again on a tablet
in the wall opposite the apse of the Duomo. The only contemporary
portrait (and this is very doubtful) is in a picture in the Louvre
given to Uccello--a serious, thoughtful, bearded face with steady,
observant eyes: one of five heads, the others being Giotto, Manetti,
Brunelleschi, and Uccello himself.

Donatello, who never married, but lived for much of his life with his
mother and sister, died at a great age, cared for both by Cosimo de'
Medici and his son and successor Piero. He was buried with Cosimo
in S. Lorenzo. Vasari tells us that he was free, affectionate, and
courteous, but of a high spirit and capable of sudden anger, as when
he destroyed with a blow a head he had made for a mean patron who
objected to its very reasonable price. "He thought," says Vasari,
"nothing of money, keeping it in a basket suspended from the ceiling,
so that all his workmen and friends took what they wanted without
saying anything." He was as careless of dress as great artists have
ever been, and of a handsome robe which Cosimo gave him he complained
that it spoiled his work. When he was dying his relations affected
great concern in the hope of inheriting a farm at Prato, but he told
them that he had left it to the peasant who had always toiled there,
and he would not alter his will.

The Donatello collection in the Bargello has been made representative
by the addition of casts. The originals number ten: there is also
a cast of the equestrian statue of Gattemalata at Padua, which is,
I suppose, next to Verrocchio's Bartolommeo Colleoni at Venice, the
finest equestrian statue that exists; heads from various collections,
including M. Dreyfus' in Paris, although Dr. Bode now gives that
charming example to D