ometimes impossible to determine the source of
what is generically called classical. The revival or reproduction of
Romanesque motives is often mistaken for classical research. In the
places where Christianity had little classical architecture to guide
it--Ravenna, for instance--a new line was struck out; but elsewhere
the Romanesque had slowly emerged from the classical, and in many
cases there was no strict line of demarcation between the two. But
Donatello was very young when he went to Rome, and the fashion of the
day had not then turned in favour of classical study. The sculptors
working in Rome, colourless men as they were, drew their inspiration
from Gothic and pre-Renaissance ideals. In Florence the ruling motives
were even more Gothic in tendency. It is in this school that Donatello
found his earliest training, and though he modified and transcended
all that his teachers could impart, his sculpture always retained a
character to which the essential elements of classical art contributed
little or nothing.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Predecessors of Donatello.]

Florence was busily engaged in decorating her great buildings. The
fourteenth century had witnessed the structural completion of the
Cathedral, excepting its dome, of the Campanile, and of the Church of
Or San Michele. During the later years of the century their adornment
was begun. A host of sculptors was employed, the number and scale of
statues required being great. There was a danger that the sculpture
might have become a mere handmaid of the architecture to which it was
subordinated. But this was not the case; the sculptors preserved a
freedom in adapting their figures to the existing architectural lines,
and it is precisely in the statuary applied to completed buildings
that we can trace the most interesting transitions from Gothic to
Renaissance. It is needless to discuss closely the work which was
erected before Donatello's return from Rome: much of it has unhappily
perished, and what remains is for the purposes of this book merely
illustrative of the early inspiration of Donatello. Piero Tedesco made
a number of statues for the Cathedral, Mea and Giottino worked for the
Campanile. Lorenzo di Bicci, sculptor, architect, and painter, was one
of those whose influence extended to Donatello; Niccolo d'Arezzo was
perhaps the most original of this group, making a genuine effort to
shake off the conventional system. But,