Donatello's High Altar in the Santo at Padua Part Two: The Reconstruction

Donatello's High Altar in the Santo at Padua Part Two: The ReconstructionAuthor(s): John WhiteSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Jun., 1969), pp. 119-141Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048605 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 22:36

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

College Art Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The ArtBulletin.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:36:29 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=caa

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048605?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Donatello's High Altar in the Santo at Padua Part Two: The Reconstruction

JOHN WHITE

The Architectural Elements and Relief Sculpture

One of the dangers in any attempt to give visual as well as verbal form to the reconstruction of lost works of art is that the more elaborate the works are the more the results tend to look like the art of the decade in which the reconstruction is

proposed, and the less they resemble actual products of the period under consideration. It is for this reason, which under- lies Band's explicit refusal to provide a sketch of his own scheme, that the illustrations of the present reconstruction are as diagrammatic as possible. They are in no way intended to suggest what Donatello's altar actually looked like. Only imagination and a thorough familiarity with its surviving fragments and with such great related works of art as Dona- tello's own Cavalcanti Altar or Mantegna's San Zeno Altar- piece can do that. The diagrammatic illustrations of the present proposal (Figs. 30-33) are meant merely to suggest a possible disposition of the various elements in Donatello's design.

The reconstruction presented here is calculated to accommodate all the ten mandatory features and also all the twelve desiderata outlined in the first part of this article (Art Bul- letin, 51, March, 1969, 1-14). It is compatible with Michiel's description of the altar and with the implications of the later fifteenth-century documents. As regards the distribution of the main figures and of the bronze reliefs, it seems to represent the only configuration which does meet all the requirements. As far as the relative proportions of the main architectural divisions of the front and rear elevations are concerned, the documents are silent. Fortunately, however, the physical and historical evidence seems to indicate the surprisingly narrow limit of about half a meter as the maximum range of variation in the measurements of the altarpiece. The reconstruction illustrated in Figures 30-33 falls within this range.

The minimum overall width of the altar appears to be 5.18 meters." This is 90cm more than the 4.28m taken up by the nine bronze reliefs which appear to have been incorporated in the front of the altar. The maximum width is a little less pre-

cise, but it seems to be possible to show that it is very unlikely to have been much more than about 5.68m.

These estimates were arrived at on the basis of three main considerations. The first was that since solutions with a narrow center and wide wings, or with a very wide center and narrow wings, or with a single unified space, are excluded on historical and architectural grounds,"6 the central bay should be wide enough to contain the Virgin and Child and two flanking saints. The second point was that the central supports should compose reasonably with the 188cm-wide Entombment (Fig. 45) at the back of the altar. The third was that the flanking bays should provide reasonable accommodation for the 123cm- wide Miracle reliefs. As regards the general configuration of the altarpiece, the only possibilities which remain are that these conditions should be satisfied within the framework either of three equal bays or of a dominant center with two slightly narrower flanking bays.68

Turning to the back of the altar, there seem initially to be two possibilities. The first is that the Entombment slab acted as a base for the central piers or columns and their supporting Angels. Since a narrow center is excluded and the Angels are 21cm wide, the resulting bay width is 146cm. Unfortunately, the width of the necessarily central group of the Virgin and Child (Fig. 41) is ca. 59cm. This leaves gaps of 43.5cm on either side, artd there is no combination of two saints which can be fitted into these spaces without being severely over- lapped by the framing supports. Even if the slimmest of all the figures, that of St. Francis (Fig. 40), were placed on the left of the Virgin, and as near to the center as possible, a few centimeters of the left elbow would be cut off. If it were

placed on the right of the Virgin, the whole right side would disappear from the shoulder down. The figure of St. Anthony (Fig. 42) would suffer similar severe cutting on whichever side it was placed, since the protruding left foot gives it an overall width of well over 50cm and prevents it from being brought up close to the right side of the Virgin. Each of the remaining figures extends in one way or another well beyond

NB Part One of this article appeared in the March, 1969, issue of The Art Bulletin. Footnotes and illustrations have been numbered continu- ously through both parts. A bibliography of frequently cited sources, given short titles in the text, appears at the end of each part. CORRIGENDUM: In Part One, page 10, I should not have said that there were no designs with narrow centers and wide wings, but only that they were very rare. Prof. Creighton Gilbert has generously told me of at least three central Italian examples. Giovanni Bonsi's Virgin and Four Saints of 1371 in the Pinacoteca Vaticana and Taddeo di Bartolo's Madonna and Four Saints of 1389 from Collegalli are Gothic altarpieces with five pinnacles. In Bonsi's case the partial nature of the transition from five-part polyptych to triptych form is stressed by the tooling

separating the residual outer compartments and by the isolated land- scape section under the left-hand arch. Finally, amongst church facades, I have noted that the long side of Cavalcanti's Madonna della Piazza, Pescia, has a center just over 10 per cent wider than the wings. The unusual design stems from an exact repetition of the articulating elements on the normally proportioned short side. 66 The widths given here and elsewhere, referring to the reconstruc-

tion illustrated in Figs. 30-33, invariably concern the main body of the altarpiece and exclude the moldings, which are of course completely hypothetical in form and projection.

67 See above, page 8f. 68 See above, page 9.



120 The Art Bulletin

its existing 50cm-wide base, and the poses are such that none of them even begins to fit.

If the Entombment cannot have acted as a base for the central supports, the second possibility is that the supports formed its immediate frame. This alternative, illustrated in

Figure 31, gives the central bay a width of 188cm. Since the central group on the existing altar (Fig. 1) takes up about 175cm, there is no difficulty in accommodating the requisite three figures.

With the expansion of the central bay to these dimensions, a reconstruction with three equal bays appears to be ruled out on at least three counts. The first is that, allowing for four 21cm-wide supports, and adding a minimal 5cm at either end for framing, the total width reaches 6.58cm. Even if the width of the supports was not controlled by that of the Angel reliefs, they can hardly, for visual and structural reasons alike, have been any narrower. The resulting overall dimension is very large indeed. The limiting factor is not so much the site as the need to extend the altarpiece very considerably beyond the ends of the mensa since such dimensions for an altar table would have been unparalleled in the fifteenth century. Any such arrangement is in itself unlikely at this date.69 The second objection is that a width of bay which satisfactorily houses the uniquely wide group of the Virgin and Child and two flanking saints not only would seem uncomfortably sparsely populated with only a pair of saints but would give a loose and disconnected look to the figure group as a whole. Finally, such a disposition would leave gaps of more than 30cm on either side of each of the Miracle reliefs. These, like every- thing else, would begin to be dwarfed by their surroundings.

The only remaining possibility is that of a wide center and

slightly narrower wings. If there were no framing of any kind for the Miracle reliefs, the lateral bays could have been reduced to as little as 123cm. This is just possible as far as the

standing figures are concerned, but would leave them very tightly packed. Nevertheless, with the 188cm central bay and no allowance for any framing at the ends of the altarpiece, this arrangement produces the minimum overall dimension of 5.18m. Alternatively, an allowance of ca. 5cm for framing at the ends of the altarpiece and on either side of the two Miracle

reliefs permits a more comfortable grouping for reliefs and

figures alike and seems to represent the most probable solution. It is this hypothesis, giving a lateral bay width of 133cm and an overall width of 5.48m, which is illustrated in Fig- ure 30.

There is, of course, always a possibility that the framing of the Miracles was a little wider than is suggested here. Never- theless, if the framing were increased by much more than about 5cm on either side of each Miracle, giving a lateral bay in the region of 143cm and an overall width of 5.68m, the objections which seemed to be effective against the possibility of three equal 188cm bays would again begin to be operative. Whatever the particular solution which might be favored within the limits which have been derived from the historical and physical evidence, it remains true that there would always be a definite emphasis on the central bay. Furthermore, the proportional relationships which would be generated would in no case fall outside the range for which there is ample sanction in the fifteenth-century comparative material.

The arrangement of the back of the altarpiece illustrated in Figure 31 allows a harmoniously proportioned disposition of the four lost figured slabs mentioned in the documents (IX, in Part One). These reliefs were stated by Michiel to contain four figures, two on each side.7o The 21cm separation between the Entombment and the slab on either side of it is conditioned by the width of the Angel reliefs. A gap of about 11cm between the flanking slabs seems to be reasonable in itself and in relation to the group as a whole. As with all such framing intervals, the precise measure given is, however, only intended to represent an area of possibility or probability. If we assume the four flanking reliefs to have had uniform widths and to have been the same height as the Entombment, the resulting dimensions are 138cm by 61cm. The proportions of these rectangles are in reasonable harmony with those of the Angels, which are rather slimmer, at an almost 3 to I ratio of long sides to short. They come very close to those of the Miracles, which are set at just over 2 to 1. Not only do they fit the pattern established by the surviving bronze reliefs. They also conform to the standard proportions for fields containing single figures in both north and central Italian altarpieces. Such compartments

69 Kauffmann, Donatello, 109f. 70 Michiel's sentence, taken as a whole (see above, page 4), seems

clearly to imply that the Entombment and the single figures were all at the back of the altar. The document referring to the lost slabs (IX, in Part One) also associates them with the Entombment. It is therefore very unlikely, if conceivable, that they were set into the sides of the altar, as they are in Fiocco's reconstruction (Fig. 12). Even if they were, however, there seems to be no justification for associating them with the two rather crudely carved Donatellesque half-length figures which were re-used as steps in a house in Padua (Fig. 27). In the first place, the less damaged of the two figures is definitely St. Prosdocimus with his baptismal ewer and, as Janson points out in discussing the whole problem (Donatello, 235-36), it is unlikely that he would appear twice in identical iconographic form

on the same altar. In the second place there seems to be no way of relating the slabs satisfactorily to the other surviving elements of the altar. Parronchi, in his reconstruction (Fig. 16), has suc- ceeded in solving the problem posed by the discrepancy in height between these slabs and the Entombment. His success in this, however, only demonstrates how unsuitable the abrupt change in scale and the half-length format of these figures makes them as com- panions for the Entombment. But even if they can never have been designed to flank the Entombment, it is evident from their profile setting that they were designed to focus attention on a central figure or action of some kind. For obvious reasons no such figures were ever set nose to nose with only an inch or two between them as in Fiocco's reconstruction (Fig. 12).

71 See above, page 4.



DONATELLOI PADUA ALTAR II 121

almost invariably fall between the ratios of 3 to I and 2 to 1. The majority tend rather more toward the upper end of the scale, but there is no dearth of examples at every point within it.

If a different solution were favored and the lateral bays of the altarpiece were set at the minimum figure of 123cm, the flanking slabs would measure 138cm by 56cm. Their proportions would then fall almost halfway up the normal scale. Once again, provided that the overall limits suggested for the altarpiece are respected, whatever particular solution might be preferred, it would still conform to the standard practices of the time and region.

The tolerances in terms of architectural proportion which have just been discussed do not of course affect the fact that the proposed reconstruction disposes of the four Miracle reliefs and the five figured slabs, including the Entombment, in conformity with Michiel's description.71 It also allows the four Evangelists' symbols to be placed in positions which are compatible with his text (Figs. 32, 33). Michiel's assertion that the symbols were set "nelli cantoni"72 can have either of two mean- ings. It can signify "in the corners," as a number of com- mentators have assumed. On the other hand, cantone is not confined to the meaning of "corner." In reference to a building or similar structure it may equally well indicate such less specific terms as "lateral part," or "side." In the present instance the placing of the Evangelists' symbols conforms to both the more general and the more particular meaning and therefore corresponds to Michiel's description, whichever significance he may have had in mind for the word "cantoni."-73 The reliefs are set on the sides of the altar. They are also at its corners. Moreover, as the side elevation shows (Fig. 32), they act as bases for the pilasters supporting the front and rear faces of the superstructure, with which they are therefore closely connected. They are also set one in front of and one behind the central Angels, and also at the front and back of the large freestanding figures above. It is therefore as reasonable to describe them as being "in the sides [in the corners], two in front and two behind" as it is to speak of them as being "two in each side." It is merely a question of the visual context in which they are seen and in which Michiel remembered them.

Since, if the present reconstruction is correct, the Evangelists' symbols could only have been seen from the sides of the altar, the phrase used by Michiel might well be considered to be the most natural for him to use.

Apart from the matter of conformity to Michiel's description, the proposed arrangement has a number of other ad-

vantages. It is the only solution that has so far been suggested, apart from that of Cordenons, which gives each side of the altar an iconographically coherent and meaningful design.74 It is also the only one which produces an iconographically complete scheme when the two sides are taken together, and which therefore places them on an equal footing with the front and rear faces of the altar when those are considered as a

unit. It distributes the four Evangelists' symbols in a manner

exactly analogous to the distribution of the four Miracles of St. Anthony. In so doing it clarifies the iconographic pattern of the whole altar by distinguishing formally as well as icono-

graphically between the group of Evangelists' symbols and the cycle of the Miracles. The arrangement has the further visual

advantage that it completely fills the available space on either side of the altar. Finally, the frieze of bronze reliefs becomes a continuous band exactly expressive of the "circumquaque," "on all sides," which is used to describe it in the document of 1455 (XVIa, in Part One). The three-dimensionality which is a

revolutionary feature of Donatello's altarpiece is fully ex- pressed in the omnidirectional iconographic and visual distribution of the bronze reliefs.

Another advantage over any previous reconstruction is that if the ten Angels, four Miracles, and four Evangelists' symbols of Donatello's original conception, which was embodied in the trial altarpiece of 1448, are considered by themselves, the three differing sets of heights are reasonably explained. The four Miracles, which are 57cm high, are never seen at the same time as the four Evangelists' symbols, which are 59.8cm high. The latter also have a different border design from that of the Miracles. This further distinction again expresses their differing function and location. The ten Angels, with their 58cm height, act as articulating elements as far as the larger reliefs are concerned. They carry a continuous iconographic and decorative pattern round the front and sides of the altar. The

72 Both Fiocco, incidentally ("L'Altare," 34), and Parronchi ("Per la ricostruzione," 117), with deliberation, return to the reading contorni which originated in Morelli's publication of 1800 and was followed by Frizzoni in 1884, but which was rightly corrected by Frimmel (Der Anonimo, 2). Michiel's r is quite distinct from his n, and the only similarity occurs when ri come together. Comparison of the debated word with the word attorno, which occurs four lines earlier in the same passage, makes it completely impossible for the reading contorni to be correct. The oni is unequivocal, and there simply are not four letters after the t.

73 The reconstructions of Boito (Figs. 1, 2), Band (Fig. 7), Planiscig (Fig. 8), and Parronchi (Fig. 17) do not place the four Evangelists' symbols in the "corners" and are therefore incompatible with the

stricter reading of Michiel's phrase. 74 Cordenons (Fig. 3) places one of the Miracles and two Angels on

each side. Parronchi (Fig. 17) has one Evangelist's symbol and two Angels somewhat awkwardly disposed on either wing. Fiocco (Fig. 12), apart from reliefs of saints which do not appear to belong to the altar (see note 70 above), has five Angels alone on either side, and Janson (Fig. 10) has four. Von Hadeln, Band (Fig. 7), Planiscig, and Pope-Hennessy have two Angels alone on either side. Boito has a single Angel on each side, and de Mandach and Kauffman have nothing at all. It should be noted that the redrawn diagram of Planiscig's reconstruction given in Seymour, Sculpture, 126, which actually places two Angels and two Evangelists' symbols on either side of the altar, does not correspond to Planiscig's own scheme.




fact that their vertical dimensions are distinct from those of

the Miracles is accounted for in the first place by their stand-

ing out slightly from the plane of the larger reliefs, as is indi- cated by their patterned sides. Such an arrangement renders the slight but definite discrepancies in vertical measurement

wholly acceptable in visual terms. Secondly, their being slightly taller than the Miracles but slightly shorter than the

Evangelists' symbols is explained because, although their ar-

ticulating function remains constant, their architectonic use varies. With the exception of the two reliefs of Singing Angels which seemingly entered the design at a late stage and which will be discussed below, the Angels at the front and back of the altar act as bases for the supporting columns or piers and are a little taller and more emphatic, vertically speaking, than the intervening Miracle reliefs. At the sides the position is reversed and the two Angels become the non-load-carrying elements separating the fractionally taller, pier-supporting Evangelists' symbols.

When it comes to the question of the detailed designs of the Angel panels, the present reconstruction explains features which have previously given rise to visually awkward situa- tions. Two of the ten reliefs of single Angels are distinguished from the remainder by having decorative swags in relatively high relief (Figs. 36b, 37b). The others merely have incised

designs in conformity with the rest of the decorative patterning of their backgrounds (Figs. 34, 35). The raised swags are also much larger than those in the other reliefs. They stretch across the full width of the ground instead of being contained within an inner framework of incised patterning. The raised

swags are therefore very noticeable elements within the general design of their reliefs, whereas the other swags are not.

They also differ considerably from each other in form and therefore make an unsatisfactory visual pair. The same is true of the figures themselves, since they both hold their instru- ments out to the right to overlap the boundaries of the main frame. When set as a closely related pair, framing the grating at the back of the altar, as they are in Janson's reconstruction, they look decidedly uncomfortable. On the other hand, large swags in relief, stretching across the full width of the back- ground, are features of all four reliefs of the Evangelists' symbols (Figs. 36a,c; 37a,c). Situated as articulating elements at the center of opposite sides of the altar, where they form a functional but never a visual pair, and where the one peculiar

feature of their design matches similar elements in the reliefs on either side of them, the Angels with the raised swags are

fully explained and completely at home. When it comes to the question of the precise distribution of

the six panels on the sides of the altar, the situation, as in the case of the measurements of the altar, seems at first to be ex-

tremely fluid. In the end, however, it turns out that the exact location of every relief can be established with a fairly high degree of probability. Some combinations can be eliminated with reasonable confidence, since two of the Evangelists' symbols face left and two face right. The right-facing symbols of St. Matthew (Fig. 36c) and St. Mark (Fig. 37c) could be placed together on one side and the left-facing symbols of St. John (Fig. 37a) and St. Luke (Fig. 36a) together on the other. In that case the harp-playing Angel's firm orientation toward the

right (Fig. 37b) places him unequivocally with the symbols of St. Matthew and St. Mark. The clash between this figure and the symbols of St. Luke and St. John would be intolerable. This is not the case with the Tambourine Player (Fig. 36b) since al-

though he holds his instrument to the right, he faces left as

they do. As it is unlikely in such an arrangement that all the

figures faced toward the back of the altar, they must have faced the front. This would place the symbols of St. Matthew and St. Mark, together with the Harpist, on the left of the altar and the other set of three figures on the right.

An iconographically more usual arrangement would be to have the Evangelists' symbols facing either in toward or outward away from each other. The first arrangement would stress their iconographic unity. The second would emphasize their connection with the four corners of the earth, and this

may well have been a factor in their placement on the altar. In either case the symbols of St. Matthew and St. Luke would almost certainly have been separated by the Tambourine

Player, who pairs harmoniously with the angel of St. Matthew. The symbols of St. Mark and St. John would then be separated by the Harpist, who would create a singularly awkward,

asymmetric repetition if placed next to the angel of St. Mat- thew.

As the accompanying illustrations show (Figs. 36a-c,

37a-c), my own inclination is to think that the Evangelists' symbols faced outward. Apart from its symbolic implications, such an arrangement avoids an otherwise excessive composi- tional concentration on the music-making Angels. Such a

75 See above, page 10. 76 The most common arrangement is probably St. Matthew, St. Mark,

St. Luke, St. John. As with the tympanum design, this does not yield a chronological sequence for the events for which the sym-

bols were seen as references. On the altar, this pattern would emerge if all the symbols were arranged facing toward the front of the altar in the manner discussed on page 122 above. A nearby example of the variations which could take place in particular situa-



DONATELLO I PADUA ALTAR II 123

concentration would be out of keeping with their primary function as articulating elements between the major reliefs, on which attention properly focuses. The preferred arrangement also relates the sides of the altar more firmly to its front and rear faces. In connecting two of the Evangelists' symbols unequivocally with the front of the altar and two with the rear, it also makes Marcantonio Michiel's turn of phrase more understandable than ever.

There are, indeed, reasons for thinking not only that the symbols faced outward, but that those of St. Matthew and St. Luke, separated by the Tambourine Player, were on the left side and those of St. John and St. Mark, separated by the Harp- ist, were on the right. This would link the forward-facing symbols of St. Matthew and St. John with the front of the altar and those of St. Mark and St. Luke, as the rearward-facing pair, with the back. The front of the altar is, as has been seen, dominated by a rising theme." Christ the Saviour is shown as a child, and a strong reference to the Nativity and the Incarna- tion is therefore implicit. Mary, on the other hand, appears as Queen of Heaven and is surmounted by a roundel containing the heavenly aspect of the Godhead. Although in omnidirectional vault decoration, in which there is no up and down or front and back, the sequence of the symbols is rather variable,71 the situation is very different when it comes to tympanum design and the like. There, whether in Romanesque tympana of the Second Coming or in manuscript illuminations or elsewhere, there is a well-established iconographic arrangement for the Apocalyptic beasts or symbols of the Evangelists. The man or angel of St. Matthew appears at the top left and the eagle of St. John at the top right. These two figures are now at the left and right sides of the altar. The angel is, moreover, taken as a symbol of the Incarnation and the eagle as representing the Ascension to heaven." The rear of the altar, on the other hand, is devoted to the Fall. This has its sequel in the Cruci- fixion and the Entombment, which are the prelude to the Resur- rection. Again, in this long-established tradition, the lion of the Resurrection is at the lower left and the sacrificial bull of the Crucifixion at the lower right. This arrangement, de- vised for a single vertical plane, has also been preserved in the

very different three-dimensional context of Donatello's altar. Considered in relation to the rear face of the altar, with which their orientation connects them, the lion and the bull are re-

spectively to the left and right of the main face.

On Donatello's altar, as on its medieval iconographic predecessors, it is evident that the four symbols are arranged primarily as balanced interconnected and contrasting themes. However, as will be seen in the later discussion of the placing of the Miracle reliefs, it is likely that a left-to-right circulation was also built into the pattern of the altar." In that case the figure of the Harpist (Fig. 37b) would tend to accelerate the flow as the viewer rounded the first corner on his way toward the back of the altar. This is partly because it is a

rearward-facing figure in itself, and partly because, in conjunction with the lion of St. Mark, it would tilt the even balance of the main figures in that direction. Having inspected the back of the altar, the viewer would then find the central

position on the other short side filled by the Tambourine Player (Fig. 36b), whose pose is one of actual torsion and of potential motion toward the front of the altarpiece, but whose glance is directed backward to catch the eye of the

spectator as he rounds the corner. It should perhaps be noted that although the counter-clock-

wise, left-to-right circulation of the altar is, as might be ex-

pected, the dominant direction of travel, the order of the Evangelists' symbols which has just been suggested as the one Donatello used does also introduce a coherent counter-theme if the viewer circulates in the opposite direction. The sequence of the angel, the bull, the lion, and the eagle which is then encountered places the symbolic references in the natural chronological order of the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension.

Finally, there is one feature of the Evangelists' symbols which, if it is significant at all in relation to the iconographic pattern of the altar, makes it impossible to move any of these four reliefs from the positions which have been assigned to them. A prominently displayed gospelbook is a feature of each design, and in three cases the pages are similarly patterned with a series of rectangular compartments. The fourth book, held by the lion of St. Mark, is distinguished by having plain pages one of which is virtually unforeshortened and car- ries the incised inscription "pax tibi Marce evangelista meus." This phrase, which appears on the arms of Venice together with the symbol of St. Mark, was by this time virtually the

motto of the city, and Padua had been in Venetian territory since the early part of the century. Nevertheless these words are by no means invariably the ones shown on the scroll or

tions is that of the Evangelists on the barrel vault of the Oratorio di San Giorgio next door to the Santo in Padua. These are set as inward-facing pairs with St. Matthew opposite St. Luke and St.

John opposite St. Mark. 77 See L. R4au, Iconographie de l'art chritien, Paris, 1958, 476f. 78 See below, page 124f.




book associated with St. Mark or with his symbol during the fifteenth century, even in the Veneto. It is therefore possible that in addition to singling out the lion of St. Mark for special attention as representing the patron saint of the region, the inscription may also have had a specific meaning in relation to the altar.

The words of the inscription occur in the Life of St. Mark in the Legenda Aurea as the opening phrase spoken by Christ when he came to comfort the saint in prison on the eve of the completion of his martyrdom. St. Mark had already been dragged through the city and an angel was first sent to him. Then Christ himself appeared, saying, "Pax tibi Marce evangelista meus." ... "Be not in doubt, for I am with thee and shall deliver thee." The following morning St. Mark died under repeated torture with the words, "Into thy hands, Lord, I com- mend my spirit." Immediately afterward a miraculous storm arose preventing his executioners from burning his body and allowing it to be borne away by the Christian community. The quoted phrase, which accompanies the scene of Christ's apparition on the twelfth-century enamel on the Pala d'Oro in Saint Mark's, is therefore explicitly associated with the theme of Resurrection, and it is precisely the death and Resur- rection of Christ and the promise of salvation to fallen man which are the subject of the rear of Donatello's altar.

If, therefore, the inscription on the symbol of St. Mark was chosen not only to do special honor to the saint but also to underline the theme with which his lion, whether accompanied by these words or not, had long been associated, the relief can only have been in the position already suggested for it: namely, at the rear of the right side of the altar. If it were placed in the opposite, rear left corner, its back would be turned to the rear of the altar, and if it were moved elsewhere the association with the Resurrection theme would be even more completely broken. Once this association is granted and the position of the symbol of St. Mark is fixed, the location of the symbol of St. Luke at the rear of the left side of the altar is also confirmed. Lastly, the orientation of the two remaining symbols and of the intervening Angel reliefs is such that they likewise cannot be moved from the positions which they have been given in the reconstruction.

Turning to the eight remaining single Angels, there can be no certainty about precise locations. There is also little difficulty in suggesting a thoroughly satisfactory distribution which accounts, amongst other things, for the upward and downward concentration of interest which has been remarked on in previous reconstructions without leading to particularly happy results. On the front of the altar (Fig. 34a-i) three out of four Angels face upward, making joyous contact with the most important element in the whole design, the freestanding figure of the Virgin, who is flanked by saints as she presents her Child to the faithful. In so doing they conform to principles of predella design already established in the fourteenth century. Indeed, the importance of forging close formal link- ages between the predella and the main body of the altarpiece above it was realized almost from the moment of its invention. The Twin-Pipe Players (Fig. 34a,i), being set beneath the outer pillars to left and right, face inward to the center as well as upward and constitute ideal framing features for the altar. The similarly inward-facing Tambourine Player (Fig. 34c) and the almost frontally disposed Cymbals Player (Fig. 34g) then fit under the left central and right central columns respectively, the one ecstatic at the joy of the Nativity, the other heavy with the knowledge of its necessary sequel.

At the back of the altar the main emphasis is downward to the great relief of the Entombment and its flanking figures, rather than upward in a direction in which only the backs of the figures in the round are to be seen. As the emphasis shifts from the young emergent Saviour to the Fall of Man and to the mourning of the Crucified God, there is a corresponding change of mood. Now there are two solemn inward-facing Flute Players (Fig. 35a,f) to frame the outer corners, with the no less solemn Rebec Player and Lutanist (Fig. 35c,d) in the left and right central positions respectively. The latter figures make a suitably grave pair to carry out the dual function of directing attention down toward the Entombment immediately beneath their feet and of framing the solemn re- pository of the consecrated Host.

Within the framework which has now been established, there are good reasons, not all of which have previously been realized, for placing the major reliefs of the Miracles in the

79 See the reconstructions of von Hadeln (Fig. 5), Planiscig (Figs. 8, 9), Janson (Fig. 10), Pope-Hennessy (Fig. 11), and Parronchi (Figs. 15, 16).

80 A full discussion of the early texts of the life of St. Anthony is given in L. de Kerval, S. Antonii de Padua vitae duae, Paris, 1904.

81 When discussing this sequence in "Developments in Renaissance Perspective-II," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 14, 1951, 63 n. 1, I was unconcerned with the reconstruction of the altar and failed to see its significance.

82 It is purely coincidental that the reconstructed order places the reliefs in their probable order of conception, if the sequence is begun with the Miracle of the Speaking Babe and continued from left to right, to end with the Miracle of the Miser's Heart, which the

documents show to have been modeled at a slightly later date (III, IV, in Part One). As is argued in J. White, "Developments," the detailed analyses of the development of the relief style, of the perspective structure, and of the progressive use of gold and silver all point in the same direction.

Barbara Hochstetler has drawn my attention to the potential significance of the parallelism between St. Anthony's miracles and the Gospel narratives. "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Luke 12:34; Matt. 6:20), "And if thy foot offend thee cut it off" (Mark 9:45; Matt. 18:8) provide exact antecedents. The Miracle of the Speaking Babe is less closely anchored, although it could be related to "Out of the mouths of infants and of suck- lings thou hast perfected praise" (Ps. 8:2; Matt. 21:16), and it is St.




positions which have often been assigned to them.79 The 1.38m height of the Entombment makes it likely that the bronze reliefs at the back of the altar would have been nearing eye-level when seen from the top of the steps mentioned in the documents and at or above eye-level when seen from the floor of the choir. The low viewpoints of the Miracle of the Speaking Babe (Fig. 35b) and the Miracle of the Mule (Fig. 35e) would therefore be explained if they were associated with the rear of the altar. In accordance with a normal, left-to-right narrative sequence, the Miracle of the Speaking Babe would be placed on the left and the Miracle of the Mule on the right at the back, and the Miracle of the Wrathful Son (Fig. 34b) on the left and the Miracle of the Miser's Heart (Fig. 34h) on the right at the front of the altar. This narrative sequence corresponds to that given by the Paduan Sicco Polentone in his De Vita e Miraculis Sancti Antonii of 1433. This is the earliest known source for the Miracle of the Speaking Babe and in Donatello's day was the only text in which all four miracles were included.80 Taken in conjunction with its Paduan origin and its then recent publication, these facts make it virtually certain that this was the text which provided Donatello with his starting point.

The sequence given by Polentone places the Miracle of the Miser's Heart, which is on the front right of the altar, first, immediately followed by the Miracle of the Speaking Babe and the Miracle of the Mule, with the Miracle of the Wrathful Son last after some intervening narrative.8' Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the canonical position for the first scene in a continuous frescoed narrative sequence is on the right of the altar. The narrative then runs from left to right, ending with the final scene on the left of the altar. Precisely this occurs in the present reconstruction, and no other positioning of any of the four reliefs will satisfy these conditions. By con- forming to an age-old tradition in the new context of his altarpiece, Donatello not only pairs the first and last scenes on the front of the altar, but, by starting the sequence as he does, places the maximum emphasis on the three-dimensional nature of the whole. He ensures that the viewer starting at the beginning of the story will immediately be confronted by the need to walk round to the back to continue it, and will then find it im-

possible to reach the conclusion without completing the circuit of the altar to end up, as he began, facing the Virgin and Child and their attendant saints at the front. Moreover, the Miracle of the Speaking Babe and the Miracle of the Mule, appropriately placed at the rear because of their low viewpoints, also form a natural pair by virtue of their relatively high relief. This leaves the more highly pictorial reliefs of the Miracle of the Wrathful Son and the Miracle of the Miser's Heart to form a no less satisfactory visual pair at the front. Whether considered as a narrative sequence or as balanced decorative units, the Miracle reliefs are given added meaning by their precise positions on the altar.82

If the reconstruction of Donatello's original scheme which has now been completed is right, all the spaces available for bronze reliefs were symmetrically filled except for the central compartments at front and rear, and all eight supporting columns and piers were provided with figured bronze base elements.

At this point attention must be turned from the original design incorporated in the trial altar to the modifications seemingly introduced as a result of the experience gained from its construction and display.

The coincidence in height between the two Angel reliefs and the Pieta (Fig. 34d,e,f), which enter the documents together after the trial of the original design, implies that the two smaller elements were to be more closely associated with the larger relief than was the case elsewhere. In all other instances the Angel reliefs were distinguished from the larger panels by a slight variation in height. Furthermore, the subject matter of the Pieta is such that it must have had a central

position. No earlier or later altarpiece exists in which such a feature is displaced from the central axis. On the other hand, the stone God the Father appears on the documentary scene at exactly the same time and is explicitly associated with the superstructure of the altar. This, in conjunction with the fact that the Pieta is a pierced relief, makes it unlikely that the Pieta was placed above the central Virgin and Child and confirms that it was indeed placed beneath the Virgin's feet, where it appears in most of the earlier reconstructions.

In north Italian altarpieces this position is unusual, since

Matthew who gives the genealogy and deals with the infancy of Christ. In the case of the Miracle of the Mule the relation with any particular Gospel is even less evident, for although it is St. John who is most concerned with the mystical aspects of the Incarna- tion, the institution of the Eucharist is dealt with by all four evangelists. Sicco Polentone actually mentions St. Luke in nar- rating the Miracle of the Miser's Heart, but otherwise no stress is laid on the Gospel antecedents. Finally, it must be noted that St. Matthew alone provides as close a text as any for all four miracles.

If, in spite of these uncertainties, the grouping Miser/Luke, Babe/Matthew, Mule/John, and Son/Mark is posited, and the Evangelists' symbols are kept in their suggested places, the narrative sequence then begins at the rear right and the two reliefs with

a low viewpoint are set on the front of the altar. If, instead, the Miracle reliefs are kept in place, the effect is firstly to make the Evangelists' symbols face inward and secondly to break the connection between their traditional symbolism and the main themes of the altar, since the bull and the lion with their references to the Crucifixion and the Resurrection would be associated with the front instead of with the rear of the altar.

On balance, therefore, it seems that although the Gospel antecedents add a further dimension to the iconographic implications of the altar, the individual miracles are not sufficiently closely, con- sistently, and exclusively connected with a particular Gospel to make one think that these considerations, rather than those which have been suggested above, controlled the placing of the reliefs.




the Pieth is normally placed above the Virgin and Child.83 Elsewhere in Italy, and particularly in Tuscany, the reverse is generally the case. Major examples ranging from the polyptych in Bologna, signed by Giotto, with the Eternal above the Virgin and Child and the Pieta below, to Agnolo Gaddi's triptych from Antella, now in Florence, with Christ above and the Pieta below, to Fra Angelico's Louvre Coronation, with only the Pieta in the predella, can easily be cited as characteristic examples.84 For Donatello, therefore, the creation of a central axis with the Eternal above, the Virgin and Child in the middle, and the Pieta below, would reflect a well- established and thoroughly orthodox pattern. In such an arrangement the perforation of the Pieta would be explained by its function as a frontal grating for the tabernacle of the Sacra- ment which was hollowed out within the body of the dossal. The two Angel panels not so far accounted for could then have been closely associated with it on either side (Fig. 34d,f). These are the only two panels radically disassociated from the remainder by containing two solemn singing Angels each, instead of a single instrumentalist. Janson has convincingly underlined their unique suitability for the positions flanking the Piet.8" Their distinctive design is therefore accounted for both by their special function and by their emergence as an afterthought in the design process.

If all the bronze reliefs in Donatello's final scheme are now considered together, it is clear that the predominant formal theme on the two main faces of the altarpiece at front and rear is one of balance about, and concentration on, the center. This center is in each case marked, in visual and thematic terms, by a strong vertical axis. The idea of left-to-right progression is then established in the Miracle reliefs by nonvisual thematic means alone. The sides of the altarpiece are also given their own balance, expressive both of their existence as architectural entities in themselves and of their formally as well as thematically stressed relationship with the front and rear faces of the altar. Upon these fundamentally balanced elements the two central Angels then impose a flow from left to right by formal means. The design and placing of each one of the reliefs is therefore intimately related at every level to the architectural realities of Donatello's revolutionary freestanding block design. The demands of the main set-piece tableaux at front and rear, and the need to move on from one view to the next, are subtly and surely recognized.

The 188cm width suggested for the central intercolumniation (Fig. 30) means that, allowing an interval of about o10cm between the flanking Angels and the Pieta, there would have been a gap of about 35cm between the pairs of Singing Angels and the single Music-Making Angels beneath the central columns. These are the spaces into which it is possible to fit the "two leaves of copper" that are referred to in the document of 1455 which was concerned with the unfinished decorative framework of bronze cornices (XVI b, in Part One). The word "leaves" implies flat sheets or panels of some kind. It distinguishes these elements from the references to moldings or cornices which surround them both in the same sentence and elsewhere throughout the document. They are, moreover, said to be "ad capita dictarum soaziarum in medio spiritellorum." Later in the same entry Master Nicolaus is enjoined to "make and complete the whole of the above written work at the feast of St. Anthony the Confessor nearest in the future or at least the part in the front of the altar and at the head of the above written tasks ['ad capita suprascripti laborerii']." The reappearance of the phrase "ad capita" in the same document and in a context showing it to mean "at the head of" and not "at the heads of" means that in the previous context of the physical structure of the altar the phrase can be taken to indicate the center or ceremonial head of the altarpiece established by the central bay. This is where the two decorative bronze leaves are located in the present reconstruction. Placed as they are with Angel reliefs on either side of them in each case, they are also in a very exact sense "in the middle of" or "between the little spirits." Finally, the separate framing of the two new Angel reliefs is readily explained by the desire to maintain the already existing pattern of the altarpiece in these subsequently added elements. Any visual incongruity of the kind so apparent in those earlier reconstructions in which two or more Angel panels are set side by side in close juxtaposition is here damped down by the intervention of relatively broad decorative features the function and position of which would otherwise be unexplained.

Insofar as the suggested design of the central bay remains less orthodox than the remainder of the relief band, this can be accounted for by the exigencies of replacing the unknown original central features. In logical terms it is no disadvantage, rather the reverse, that such a feature is confined to the one point in the projected reconstruction at which the documents

83 Such an arrangement becomes increasingly common in the second half and, above all, in the final quarter of the century. Antonio and Bartolommeo Vivarini's polyptych in the Pinacoteca in Bologna is a dated example of 1450 (Berenson, Italian Pictures, pl. 108), and another is Antonio's altarpiece, dated 144?, in the Duomo in Parenzo. In the fourteenth century the Crucifixion was more common over the central panel. Nevertheless, such works as the polyptych in the Abbaziale di San Martino in Piove di Sacco (See

P. Pallucchini, La Pittura veneziana del Trecento, Venice, 1964, fig. 191) show that the pattern with the Pietai goes back at least to the following of Paolo Veneziano.

84 Sano di Pietro's polyptych of 1449, No. 255 in the Pinacoteca at Siena, has Christ above and the Pieth below, and his Madonna and Saints, No. 273 in the same gallery, has the Eternal above and the Pieta below.

85 Janson, Donatello, 178.




show that the stresses and strains and accommodations which

are so frequently involved in a late change of design might be

expected to leave some visible trace. The design of the lost grating at the back of the altar (Fig.

31) remains unknown. On October 11, 1482, however, there is mention of the purchase of a lamp to be placed above the altar before the Sacrament, and in 1493-94 a whole series of references are made to the "little door for the sacrifice" then

being constructed (XVII, in Part One). There is also an entry of April 17, 1565, referring to the awkward situation arising from the fact that the Sacrament "remains hidden in the rear

part of the high altar." The writer inveighs against the scandal occasioned "by idiots ['idiotis aliisque simplicioribus personis'] who failing to see the manifest sign of the same most precious Sacrament," having first looked for it at other inferior altars, walk about the choir talking and thinking themselves to be far removed from the tabernacle. The solution is that a tabernacle of bronze or other more suitable material should, with its attendant lamps, be set up in full sight on the high altar as is the case in most other notable churches in the city.86 These documents between them confirm that the Host was indeed

housed within the body of the altar in such a way that no ex- ternal tabernacle or other structure broke the outline of the dossal. Although the Pieth at the front of the altar is a pierced relief, it was not hinged in any way. The only access to the

housing of the Sacrament must therefore have been from the back. Consequently, it must have been possible to open the whole or part of the grating at the rear of the altar. Many configurations can be imagined which would allow of one or two doors, extending over all or part of the full width of the structure, and incorporating the two locks or bolts mentioned in the documents (XV, in Part One). As has already been seen, the one clear fact is that the 195 pounds of iron allowed for the construction of the grating fits well with the 300 pounds of copper assigned to the flanking Miracle reliefs. The specific gravities of the two metals are not widely separated, and the at least partially open-work construction of the grating with its door or doors would account for the reduced weight."7

In the present context a particularly interesting point is raised by the entries of 1493-94 (XVII, in Part One). The first of them refers to "a sepulcher with a dead Christ with a St. Anthony and St. Francis." This has been identified with the tabernacle door with the Man of Sorrows (Fig. 29) now in the

center of the existing altar.88 The latter is 57cm high and 52cm wide and is therefore of approximately the same size as Dona- tello's original Pieta. However, since the sepulcher is clearly stated to have been carved by an unknown woodcarver in Venice, and since there is no reference to its being a door, the identification is by no means as certain as the earlier reading of the entry implies. Conversely, none of the entries mentioning the "little door," which is also called a "bronze picture," specifically refers to it as a "sepulcher" or Man of Sorrows. The

logical basis for linking the sepulcher and the bronze door of the documents with the existing tabernacle door is therefore

anything but secure. If, in spite of this, they actually are identical, the fact that the existing Man of Sorrows contains no St. Anthony and no St. Francis takes on special significance. It means that the two saints were on separate flanking panels. In that case what was planned was a central panel with two slim flanking elements. This is an exact replica of the situation on the front of the altar in the present reconstruction, and would support the likelihood that the latter was correct. Since one entry refers to the painting "of the sacrifice before the altar," there is, however, an element of confusion between this document and that of 1565, when the Sacrament is specifically stated to be hidden in the rear of the altar." On balance it seems probable that the new tabernacle door with its lost flanking figures in fact replaced the grating at the back of Donatello's altar. It is, however, also possible either that it was at first intended to replace Donatello's Pieta and its two flanking Angels or that the painting referred to was a re-

furbishing of Donatello's existing Pieta in connection with the

general reorganization of the housing of the Host in the center of the altar.

The groundplan of the superstructure of the altar (Fig. 33) is already implied in the reconstruction of the distribution of the decorative elements of the base or dossal. The nature of

the supports is fixed by the documents (VII, in Part One). About the general form of the superstructure there can be no certainty. All that is clear is that it contained a God the Fa- ther in stone (XI, in Part One). It is, however, fairly likely, as the form taken by the majority of the modern reconstructions indicates, that its forward face resembled that of Nicolo Pizzolo's altar of 1449 in the Ovetari chapel of the church of the Eremitani (Fig. 20). The central feature of the pediment of this work by one of Donatello's assistants on the Padua

86 Sartori, "Documenti," 95 (79). AdA, reg 4, c. 87. 87 See above, page 6. The intercolumniations of 188cm would sug-

gest a range in size between that of the Miracles at about 7,011 sq. cm, and a maximum of about 9,744 sq. cm if the height were raised to 58cm and as little as 10cm still left free at either end, as is the case in Fig. 31. Even this maximum increase of about 37 per cent in area would not involve an impossibly thin grating. The whole of

the possible range in size is therefore compatible with the weight of metal mentioned in the documents.

88 Sartori, "Documenti," 95-96. 89 Sartori, "Di nuovo," 348-49, points out in another connection that in

1424 the eastern side of the previous altar was referred to as the front. It is possible therefore that the present instance merely reflects a confusion of terminology of this kind.




Altar is a roundel containing a God the Father. The general form, a segmental pediment with voluted ends, supported by an architrave, is repeated in Mantegna's San Zeno Altarpiece of ca. 1456-59 (Fig. 22). It also reflects that of the superstructure of Donatello's own Cavalcanti Altarpiece of the early or mid-thirties (Fig. 19). Donatello's own early experimentation with this form and its reappearance in the two altarpieces which seem to contain the most direct reflections of his own work in Padua provide a basis for reasonable conjecture. A possible clinching factor seems to be the existence of the two stone volutes (Fig. 28) once adapted to form part of the over- mantel of a doorway in the Santo, and first published by Fiocco in 1930.9o It is conceivable, but by no means as certain as is generally assumed, that these carvings may have come from Donatello's altar. They are fairly roughly carved in rather coarse stone, and it is more than a little difficult either to reconcile them with the superb quality of all the other decorative carving produced in Donatello's various workshops and associated with his indoor sculpture or to see them as being designed to fit in with the delicacy and richness of the carving which surrounded them in the choir of the Santo. They may well be mere reflections of similar features on Donatello's altar. However, since their form is certainly not in conflict either with the documentary evidence or with the similar elements in the major likely reflections of Donatello's work, and since each of these two volutes has two faces at right angles, the simplest suggestion for the form of the whole superstructure of the altar is that the general design of the front was repeated on the sides and back. It is, however, important to emphasize two things. The first is that this arrangement has no especial virtue other than that of economy of hypothesis. The second is that the volutes shown in the diagrams conform in size to the existing stone volutes only because the latter may conceivably have come from the altar, and not because I myself believe that they did. As far as the general proportions shown in the diagrams (Figs. 30-32) are concerned, the relation of the volutes to the main segmental curve, the form of the architrave, and the relationship between the various elements of the architrave have been derived from the similar features in the comparative material.

About the form and size of the mensa there is no evidence

of any kind except that it must have been a fairly simple construction since it was customarily covered by an altar hanging (XVIII, in Part One). As was seen in discussing the overall width of the altarpiece,"l two main considerations do, however, seem to bear upon the problem. The first is that, in the light of fifteenth-century practice, it is unlikely that the width of the "pala" greatly exceeded that of the altar-table. The general configuration proposed in the present reconstruction (Fig. 30) is, moreover, such that if the size of the mensa were none- theless substantially reduced there would be no natural caesura that might mark its limits until the inner edges of the Miracle reliefs were reached, and this would seem on every count to be a most unlikely solution. The second consideration is that, although in view of the scale of Donatello's "pala" it is likely that the mensa was large, an overall width much in excess of 5m would again seem to be improbable in a fifteenth-century context. The precise disposition is, of course, entirely hypothetical, but the proposal shown in Figure 30 gives a width of about 5.07m and conforms to normal architectural practice.

The existence of steps behind the altar, as well as in front of it, is established by the documents (XIII, in Part One). The form of the reconstruction presented in Figures 30-32 represents a reaction to the need to accommodate two interrelated

probabilities. In the light of contemporary practice, it is unlikely that there was a large gap between a mensa of the normal height of just over a meter and the band of bronze reliefs above it. There must therefore have been a difference in the platform height between the front and back of the altar in order to accommodate the 138cm-high Entombment relief.92 In the proposed reconstruction the termination of two 15cm-high steps against the front face of the altarpiece, in a manner analogous to that in the existing structure, provides the re- quired differential. Although it again, coincidentally, reflects the existing situation, the provision, at the back, of three further steps, rather than of any other number, is, of course, arbitrary. Nevertheless, the documents show that there were steps at the back of the altar, and the 45cm rise suggested in the reconstruction represents the minimum which would seem to be needed to raise the Entombment to a comfortable height for a viewer at ground level.

The remaining problem as regards the superstructure of the

90 G. Fiocco, "Gli Orecchioni dell'altare di Donatello al Santo," II Santo, 3, 1930, 21f.

91 See above, page 4f. 92 Janson does not show the side and rear elevations of his reconstruc-

tion, but the clearance shown in that of the front between the steps

and the band of reliefs is insufficient to accommodate the Entomb- ment at the back.

93 It is, of course, impossible to determine whether such works as Jacopo da Montagnana's Madonna della Misericordia (Fig. 24) and his Redeemer and Apostles, or Girolomalo Mocetto's Madonna and




altar is the distribution of the four columns and four piers mentioned in the documents (VII, in Part One). This is rather more pressing because it directly affects the appearance and distribution of the surviving bronzes. Many permutations are mathematically possible, but only two of them have architectural sanction in that they conform to normal architectural principles of design and can be paralleled in other fifteenth- century works.

The first of these alternatives is that the four columns provided the front supports and the four piers constituted those at the rear. This would conform to the pattern so splendidly reflected in Mantegna's San Zeno Altarpiece (Fig. 22) and in a number of other lesser works which may have been related to Donatello's design.93 There would be the further advantage that if the normal range of proportion were respected, the rounded forms of the columns would, throughout the whole forward viewing arc, cause the minimum of interference with the visibility of the freestanding figures. With the problem of visibility in mind, it seems reasonable to assume that the columns were as slim as was visually and structurally feasible. If rectangular piers set in the same positions were not to produce a more pronounced masking effect, the lengths of the diagonals of their ground plans would have to be no greater than those of the diameters of the columns. This would mean that the widths of their faces were considerably shorter, and would make the piers impossibly thin both visually and structurally. To take the simplest and most likely illustration, if the diameter of the columns was 20cm, the side of a square pier of equivalent masking effect would show a reduction of more than 25 per cent and come out at just over 14cm in length. On the other hand, one disadvantage of a superstructure with four columns in front and four piers behind is that it would increase the differentiation between the front and back of the altar. It would add to the forward concentration, which was unavoidable in the freestanding figures, but which was seemingly offset as far as possible by the documented distribution of all the other surviving elements.

The second possible arrangement, with the four piers on the wings at front and rear, and the four columns at the center, would not suffer from this disadvantage, if it is one. The em-

phasis on front and rear would be exactly balanced. The mask-

ing of the central figures would not be increased except in very extreme diagonal views. That of the outer figures would, however, be slightly more noticeable as the viewer moved beyond the flanks of the altarpiece. A further effect of this arrangement, as against a front column and rear pier design, would be to replace an even emphasis on all three spatial compartments by a differentiation between the central compartment and its neighbors. It would also create a somewhat stronger frame or closure at either end of the altar. In the light of what has already been said of the fully three-dimensional character of the altarpiece, and of the distribution of the reliefs, it is this hypothesis which is illustrated in Figures 30-33.

The difference between the design factors operative in relation to real, three-dimensional architecture and those which affect the design of the single face of a painted altar panel is more than enough to explain the divergence from the pattern found in the St. Lucy and San Zeno altarpieces and in other possibly related works.94 Nevertheless, the possibility that the alternative distribution with the four columns in front is correct cannot be excluded. There would, however, be no consequences for the other elements of the present reconstruction.

The analogy with Pizzolo's Ovetari Altarpiece (Fig. 20) and Mantegna's San Zeno Altarpiece (Fig. 22), which are seemingly the closest works amongst the comparative material, makes it virtually certain that there were straight entablatures on Dona- tello's altarpiece. This means that if columns and piers were associated in the manner suggested in the reconstruction, the piers must have been square in plan. Their forward faces are seemingly controlled, as is the diameter of the columns, by the 21cm width of the Angel panels, and their lateral faces could not be extended without running into architectural solecisms of one kind or another. The piers therefore conform to the literal and most straightforward reading of the word "quare," which is the term applied to them in the documents (VII, in Part One). The reason for supposing that at the sides of the altarpiece the piers were set over the center of the reliefs of the Evangelists' symbols is simply that this is the most eco- nomical hypothesis.

As regards the height of columns and piers alike, two main considerations seem to apply. The first is that, in conformity with Donatello's usual practice and with mid-fifteenth-century

Saints, referred to in note 54, were directly influenced by Dona- tello's example or merely reflect Mantegna's painted altarpiece.

94 All the works referred to in the preceding note have four applied columns, and center bays which are wider than those flanking them.

Such an arrangement would look rather stranger in three-dimensional terms with the four columns in the round. The departure from the norm of the temple front with its even intercolumniation would probably become rather disturbing.




usage generally, there should be adequate but certainly not excessive clearance above the standing figures. The second is that the supports should be reasonably proportioned in themselves. The proposed height of ca. 2.10m satisfies the first condition. It also gives the supports a 10 to 1 relationship between their height and their width at the base. This conforms to the proportions found in Donatello's Cavalcanti

Altarpiece (Fig. 19) and in the Ovetari and San Zeno altar-

pieces (Figs. 20, 22). It is, moreover, the proportion which Alberti gives for the Corinthian column. How splendid such a

system of central columns and framing piers could look when bodied out in actual Renaissance form can best be seen, perhaps, by looking at Alberti's somewhat later entrance to the church of San Pancrazio (Fig. 25)."

At this point the assessment of the possibilities and probabilities governing the likely form of Donatello's altarpiece is

complete. All that now remains to be considered is the disposition of the seven bronze statues which are the most important element in the reconstruction.

The Setting of the Seven Bronze Figures

The only thing that can be said with absolute certainty about the arrangement of the figures in the round is that the Virgin and Child (Fig. 41) were at the center. If the present architectural reconstruction is correct, it follows that, as in von Hadeln's and, indeed, in Cordenons's reconstructions, there must have been three figures in the central compartment and two figures in each of the flanking spaces. Given that the central bay was slightly wider than those flanking it, a 3-1-3

arrangement is inconceivable. Three main factors bear upon the sequence in which the six

saints were disposed about the Virgin and Child. The first is the iconography of the saints involved. The second is the vary- ing height of the figures. The third is the nature of their move- ments and gestures. No one of these three factors in itself im- poses a particular pattern, much less a symmetrical one. In

Nicolo Pizzolo's altar (Fig. 20), St. Francis and St. Anthony, the two saints who make an obvious pair, stand together on the extreme left instead of being symmetrically disposed. Simi- larly, St. James and St. Christopher, to whom the Ovetari chapel is dedicated, do not flank the central Virgin and Child but stand in sequence to their right. In Mantegna's San Zeno Altarpiece (Fig. 22) the mitred saints are not symmetrically

disposed, and even allowing for the perspectival diminutions, the variations in height among the figures are used not to re- inforce the architectural symmetry but to create variety within it. Nevertheless, when iconography, height, and gesture each

produce identical pairings, as they do in the case of the St. Francis and St. Anthony, St. Daniel and St. Justina, and St. Louis and St. Prosdocimus of the Padua Altar, there must be a

strong possibility that a symmetrical grouping of the kind which is assumed in all the earlier reconstructions except that of de Mandach (Fig. 4) is correct.

Within the generally agreed symmetry of the figure grouping there have so far been almost as many permutations of se-

quence as there have been reconstructions." The order here

proposed (Fig. 30) in the light of this accumulated experience and of the particular architectural solution already suggested has, however, many points to recommend it. Starting from the center, it places St. Francis, St. Daniel, and St. Louis on the left, and St. Anthony, St. Justina, and St. Prosdocimus on the right. Iconographically, it puts St. Francis (Fig. 40), as the founder of the Franciscan order, in the place of honor on the Virgin's right and spectator's left. St. Anthony (Fig. 42), the titular of the basilica and the second of the great saints of the order, is set in the similar position on the opposite side, where his inward-turning glance cements the connection with the Virgin and Child. The explicit repeated gestures and turned heads of St. Daniel (Fig. 38) and St. Justina (Fig. 39) in the flanking compartments immediately to left and right of the central columns now take on a positive meaning. As Pope- Hennessy observes in criticizing Band, it is only in the context of a firm establishment of the all-important relationship with the center that secondary connections outward to the wings or toward the onlooker are normally made in fifteenth-century altarpieces." Here the unusual strength of the symmetrically repeated gesture is fully explained by the need to tie the flank-

ing figures to the central group and to carry the eye inward

past the powerful architectural accent of the intervening columns. Only in this way can an awkward isolation of the flank-

ing figures be prevented. The tendency for the outer saints to break away from the central group is accentuated in von Hadeln's reconstruction (Fig. 5) by the architectural inflation

of the altarpiece. The tendency becomes still more extreme, and the outcome more improbable, when the two most important saints are placed alone in small outer compartments.

95 The positioning of piers and columns in the present reconstruction, but not the size of the intervals between them, is similar to that in the reconstructions of Cordenons (Fig. 3), Band (Fig. 7), Janson (Fig. 10), Pope-Hennessy (Fig. 11), and Fiocco (Fig. 13).

96 As it happens not one of the previous suggestions coincides with the present reconstruction. Reading straight through from left to right and omitting the central Virgin and Child, Boito's order (Fig. 1) is St. Louis, St. Justina, St. Francis; St. Anthony, St. Daniel, St. Prosdocimus. This is followed by Fiocco (Fig. 13), except that the

central figures on either side face the rear. Cordenons (Fig. 3) has St. Prosdocimus, St. Daniel, St. Francis; St. Anthony, St. Justina, St. Louis. He is followed by Planiscig (Fig. 8), though with the outermost figures separated from the remainder. De Mandach (Fig. 4) has St. Louis, St. Anthony, St. Francis; St. Prosdocimus, St. Daniel, St. Justina. Von Hadeln (Fig. 5) has St. Justina, St. Louis, St. Francis; St. Anthony, St. Prosdocimus, St. Daniel. Kauffmann (Fig. 6) has St. Daniel, St. Louis, St. Francis; St. Anthony, St. Prosdocimus, St. Justina. He is followed by Parronchi (Fig. 15),




This occurs in Pope-Hennessy's explicit visualization of the architectural setting which Band himself refrained from illus- trating. Band's arrangement of the figures (Fig. 7) has St. Daniel and St. Justina gesturing away from the all-important center, as is also the case in the reconstructions of Boito (Fig. 1), Cordenons (Fig. 3), von Hadeln (Fig. 5), and Janson (Fig. 10). Unfortunately, Pope-Hennessy's own solution (Fig. 11) almost caricatures the alternative danger, which Band avoided to some extent by using the gestures of the two saints to carry the eye past the flanking columns toward the otherwise isolated outermost figures.

The suggested arrangement of the figures has the further iconographic advantage of giving specific meaning to St. Prosdocimus's half-turning motion (Fig. 44) and to the baptismal ewer which he once held in his hand. It is St. Prosdoci- mus who is said to have baptized St. Justina when he came to Padua as its first bishop. It is to her that he turns, and, in taking on an iconographically precise role in place of the vague general relationship to the observer which is proposed by Band, he also strengthens the connection with the center. Turning to the opposite wing, it must be noted-and this will take on further significance later-that there is no valid reason for thinking that St. Louis (Fig. 43) is in the act of giving a blessing to the assembled faithful, as is normally assumed in the literature. Comparison with Donatello's own earlier gilt bronze St. Louis (Fig. 26) or with innumerable other works of art confirms something that is apparent to any observer of the real-life gesture of the sign of the cross which the act of blessing entails.98 The hand of the St. Louis on the Padua Altar is held far too low, and the fingers and forearm are too horizontal for any interpretation involving benediction to be correct. It is, instead, a typically relaxed Donatellesque pointing gesture. Moreover, as soon as the problem is viewed in a wider context than that of Donatello's altar itself, it becomes clear that, apart from the lack of connection with the near-vertical hand position which is standard in the iconography of the blessing gesture, there are other good grounds for thinking that this is not the act which is involved. Among all the many fifteenth-century painted and carved altarpieces which consist of a unified composition of the Virgin and Child with at- endant saints or of a Sacra Conversazione, I have not been able to find a single instance in which one of the accompanying saints is in the act of blessing the onlooker. In altarpieces with

a Virgin and Child, or with Christ or God the Father or the Trinity, in a central compartment, and with attendant saints in adjacent panels, blessing gestures among the latter are quite rare. When they do occur they are almost invariably used as symbolic of the priestly office of the saint concerned and are not directed unequivocally outward to the spectator, as is so com- monly the case when a saint or a pair of saints is the central feature of an altarpiece. The probable reason for this is that the priest when blessing, as is always the case, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is acting as an intermediary or channel for God's grace. When Christ himself is shown, such an exercise of delegated powers would merely draw attention from the central representation of the Incarnate God who alone can bless in his own name and from whom grace flows directly.

The final observation to be made at this stage is that the steady downward and inward slope of the head-heights itself draws attention to the center of the altarpiece. This feature, which the present reconstruction (Figs. 30, 31) shares with those of Band and Janson (Fig. 10), helps to carry the eye past the intervening columns. It accentuates the fact that all the figures form part of a single homogeneous group. It also leads on to the inextricably related question, not merely of the sequence of the figures, but of their spatial configuration.

In devising a three-dimensional canopy for his freestanding saints, Donatello was carrying sculpture into a realm which had hitherto been occupied exclusively by the painted Sacra Conversazione. Whether Donatello could have known Do- menico Veneziano's St. Lucy Altarpiece (Fig. 21) before his departure for Padua remains a moot point.99 The composi- tional analogies with the likely form of the Padua Altar and with Mantegna's San Zeno Altarpiece of ca. 1456-1459 (Fig. 22) are certainly striking. Whether Donatello did or did not see Domenico's altarpiece before he left Florence is certainly a vital consideration in terms of the detailed appearance and genesis of his own work. In relation to certain fundamentals of design the question is, however, less important, because these problems are common to all the major fifteenth-century forerunners, contemporaries, and successors of the St. Lucy Altarpiece. They recur in all similarly designed altar panels whether strictly classified as Sacre Conversazioni or not. These problems concern three interconnected matters. The first relates to the creation of a spatial unity that transcends the

though with the outermost pair invisible from the front. Band (Fig. 7) and Janson (Fig. 10) have St. Prosdocimus, St. Justina, St. Francis; St. Anthony, St. Daniel, St. Louis. Finally, Pope-Hennessy (Fig. 11) has St. Francis, St. Daniel, St. Louis; St. Prosdocimus, St. Justina, St. Anthony.

97 Pope-Hennessy, Renaissance Sculpture, 283. 98 The hand position of the early St. Louis is absolutely standard. Al-

though it is cast separately its angle can never have been varied by

more than a very few degrees. It is significant that this is a figure designed for a position well above the spectator's head and it therefore constitutes a strictly comparable exemplar of the generally applicable rule.

99 See Janson, 181. J. Pope-Hennessy, "The Early Style of Domenico Veneziano," Burlington Magazine, 93, 1951, 216f., suggests that the St. Lucy Altarpiece should be dated ca. 1442 instead of toward the end of the decade.




architectural subdivisions. The second concerns the creation of sufficient apparent depth to accommodate an imposing and seemingly three-dimensionally disposed group of figures. The third of these related problems is that of the pictorial compres- sion, but not destruction, of this deep space, in order to allow its incorporation within a satisfactory pictorial design. Filippo Lip- pi's Barbadori altar, Fra Angelico's San Marco altar, the St. Lucy Altarpiece itself (Fig. 21), and Piero della Francesca's Brera altar are representative major examples which happen to have been analyzed in these terms.100 In each case the painted architectural space is deep, and a reasonable groundplan can be reconstructed. In each the pictorial architecture is then cut by the frame in such a way that objects placed at widely separated depths appear to be as closely associated as if they were situated in the same or in adjacent planes. The niches or apses which lie deep in space behind the central Virgins of the St. Lucy and Brera altarpieces, but which nevertheless act as the immediate frames and throne-backs for these figures, are the clearest and simplest illustrations of this phenomenon.

When Donatello entered into the detailed implications of his general scheme, the problem was analogous, but its elements were transposed. The actual depth of his canopy was almost certainly small. In the present reconstruction it amounts to about Im 70.6cm as against a width of between 5.18m and 5.68m. In most of the comparable painted altarpieces the implied depth is as great as, or greater than, the total width of the panel. Apart from the problems of the number and possible distribution of the accompanying reliefs, of the vast scale of such a structure, and of the paucity of documented supporting elements, any similar depth in terms of actual architecture would lead to innumerable difficulties however the seven

existing figures were distributed. The general agreement as to the relative shallowness of the altar is therefore entirely reasonable, although there can be no doubt that in architectural terms this entails an unusual and somewhat awkward set of

relationships. The placing of the figures in a straight line under such a canopy would, moreover, have the effect of accentu- ating its shallowness in both the frontal and the lateral view.

Donatello was more concerned than any other sculptor, and more interested and more competent than most painters, in manipulating the visual properties of a given spatial situation. This is demonstrated by his constant concern with pictorial low relief'?• and his lifelong interest in the effect of the

observer's viewpoint upon his statuary.102 In the present instance, involving a fully three-dimensional structure, there was no possibility of manipulating the cutting effect of a frame as would have been the case in a painting or relief. The disposition of the figures was his only means of adjusting the apparent nature of the actual space at his disposal. Painters, working the context of a flat surface, needed to create an illusion of great depth and then to accommodate that depth to the surface pattern of which it was also a part. Donatello, working in a real but objectively shallow space, likewise needed to create an illusion of greater depth, and at the same time to achieve a satisfactory pictorial grouping for the main frontal view of his altarpiece.

It has been argued that Michiel's description of the saints as being placed "attorno la Nostra Donna" implies that they were not set in a straight line. Unfortunately Michiel uses a similar phrase, "a circo," to describe the relationship of the figures to the dead Christ in the low relief of the Entomb-

ment,103 and the actual disposition of these figures drains the term of any such significance. Nevertheless, if the present reconstruction is architecturally more or less correct, it is very likely that Band was right in suggesting firstly that the figures were not set in a straight line, and secondly that their disparities in height were intended to increase the apparent depth of the space they occupied.104 Throughout his career Donatello was thoroughly accustomed to beating the painters at their own game. It is therefore unlikely that, in a design which was so patently related to the theme of the Sacra Conversazione and which was so revolutionary in all its other aspects, he would be prepared to remain amongst the conservative stragglers as regards the spatial grouping of his figures. In the present reconstruction (Figs. 30-33), as in Band's slightly different ordering (Fig. 7), which is followed by Janson (Fig. 10), the saints are placed in echelon. The objectively tallest figures of the bishops are set forward in the wings. St. Daniel and St. Justina come next, and are placed slightly farther to the rear. Still farther back are the objectively shorter figures of St. Francis and St. Anthony, which stand in the central bay. This arrangement unobtrusively intensifies the natural, apparent diminution of the figures. In so doing it gives the illusion that the recession of the figures in space, and therefore the depth of the architectural construction in which they stand, is greater than it is. The low viewpoint from which these figures, which

100 For analyses of the first three see J. White, The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space, London, 1957, 171f., 185 n. 16. The Brera Altar- piece is analyzed in M. Meiss and T. G. Jones, "Once Again Piero della Francesca's Montefeltro Altarpiece," Art Bulletin, 48, 1966, 203f., and in J. Shearman, "The Logic and Realism of Piero della Francesca," Festschrift fiir Ulrich Middeldorf, 1968.

101 For detailed analysis of the spatial design of Donatello's reliefs, see White, Birth and Rebirth, 148f.

102 See J. Seymour, Sculpture, 66-67. 103 See above, page 4. 104 Band, "Donatellos Altar," 326.



ata

d,

,,

s

~ tL", ".

? .

. ," ,,

J'

"v II ?ImE

F, 1 lol

-@4:I :• L , "' II

.•

28 r 20

25. Leon Battista Alberti, Portico of San Pancrazio, Florence (photo: Alinari)

28. Circle of Donatello, Stone Volute. Padua, Sant' Antonio

26. Donatello, St. Louis. Florence, Museo di Santa Croce (photo: Alinari)

27. Circle of Donatello, St. Prosdocimus, Unknown Saint. Florence, Fondazione

Salvatore Romano

29. Man of Sorrows, Paduan late XV cent. Padua, Sant'Antonio (photo: Ali-

nari)



30 i I 31

IL----- 133F

32 !

RECONSTRUCTION OF DONATELLO'S PADUA ALTAR

30. Front

32. Right side

31. Rear

33. Plan



ig i? ?.

i L • ---• . . . . . .'

' ?

.• . . . . -- -- '

35a 35b 35c~

36a 36b 36c

34d

34-37. Donai



I •r

~S 72

4d 34e 34f 34g 34h

4.4 ?'~ .. ?

35d 35e

37a 37b

37. Donatello, Reliefs from the Padua Altar (not to scale) (photos: Alinari-Anderson)



Ilk

34g 34h 34

r

:I ,

77, NI

14 A, 1

35d 35e 35f

5\ 13

37a 37b 37

Alinari-Anderson)



38 39 ?

,•- ,Y'

C?- -

40 ~ 1~

•. .'" 1

42

DONATELLO. PADUA, SANTIANTONIO

38. St. Daniel (photo: Brogi)

40. St. Francis (photo: Brogi)

39. St. Justina (photo: Brogi)

41. Virgin and Child (photo: Brogi)

42. St. Anthony (photo: Brogi)



BAIJ ii

43 44 "~~~i -.-?o."

rar

:•,• • ... .. . , , ?,:

IAL

,

^A. . .. . . . .

ir;

4 5~~ ~

- -- '"

DONATELLO. PADUA, SANTIANTONIO

43. St. Louis (photo: Brogi)

45. Entombment (photo: Brogi)

44. St. Prosdocimus (photo: Brogi)




are set upon an altar that is itself raised on a stepped podium, would normally be seen, would further increase the perspectival emphasis upon recession and apparent depth. In contrast, the placing of the bishops next to the Virgin and the regular diminution toward the wings suggested by Pope-Hennessy (Fig. 11) would help to nullify the effect of the objective placement in depth and to restore the appearance of a straight-line setting. In the present context this appears to be nonsensical. On the other hand, the intermingling of objective heights seen in the reconstructions of von Hadeln (Fig. 5) and Kauffmann (Fig. 6) would have no perspectival consequences of any kind.

In terms of a pure elevation, it might seem reasonable to complete the spatial V by placing the central Virgin and Child still farther back in space. In actual three-dimensional terms this would, however, have the unfortunate effect of de-emphasizing the most important figures by making them seem to be relatively small and distant. It therefore seems that Janson (Fig. 10) is right in setting the Virgin slightly in advance of the immediately flanking figures of St. Francis and St. An- thony. As in Mantegna's San Zeno Altarpiece (Fig. 22), in which a similar relationship exists in greatly accentuated form, this would have the effect of restoring the pictorial or surface design from the main frontal viewpoint without destroying the carefully contrived impression of deep space. Through the operation of natural perspective it would also increase the Virgin's apparent size in relation to the objectively smaller flanking figures of St. Francis and St. Anthony. This would further ensure her domination of the entire group. It may be significant that Raphael, who was evidently thoroughly familiar with the Padua Altar and who incorporated details from its reliefs in his fresco of the School of Athens,'05 used precisely this device to counteract the de-emphasizing effect of the position of Plato and Aristotle deep in pictorial space. Their apparent stature is greatly increased by making them seem to be so much taller than the figures who apparently stand beside them, but who are actually behind them in the pictorial space. By manipulating visual effects in a way with which his past experiments with natural and artificial perspective had made him thoroughly familiar, Donatello was thus able to ensure the dominance of the Virgin without un- naturally increasing the size of the figure. There was no need to distinguish it by setting it on a tall base, for which there is no evidence in the documents and against which its closed

columnar design seems to militate. Above all he was able to achieve his ends without destroying the casual intimacy of the group which is implicit in the relaxed stance of every figure except that of the Virgin herself. This latter distinction itself serves to emphasize the Virgin, as does the treatment of detail throughout the group. The complexity of the modeling decreases steadily from the bishops on the wings to the two Franciscan saints at the center. The simple habits of St. Francis and St. Anthony (Figs. 40, 42) consequently act as a foil for the crescendo of detail in the figure of the Virgin herself (Fig. 41). Paradoxically, this very element which distinguishes the Virgin and Child from their immediate surroundings also serves to link them to the outermost elements of the group (Figs. 43, 44).

The distinctive closed outline and hieratic quality of the Virgin and Child have often been related to Romanesque prototypes. Assuming that the previous arguments establish- ing the architectural implausibility of a narrow center and wide wings are valid, the closed form cannot have been connected with the proximity of a pair of columns. If the present reconstruction is correct, it is, however, directly relevant to the problem of knitting figures which are spread throughout a tripartite space into a single coherent group. The gestures of St. Daniel and St. Justina (Figs. 38, 39) are important in this respect but are not sufficient in themselves.

The vital nature of such considerations can be seen by looking at the design of other altarpieces. Whenever the Virgin is isolated in the central compartment, as in Domenico Vene- ziano's St. Lucy (Fig. 21), Mantegna's San Zeno (Fig. 22), or Giovanni Bellini's Frari altarpiece (Fig. 23), a number of de- vices are used to broaden out the single central figure and to establish formal connections with the saints in the flanking compartments. The shape and structure of the throne, the spread of the Virgin's draperies, and subsidiary figures such as putti are all used either singly or in combination to achieve this end. Even in Pizzolo's Ovetari altarpiece (Fig. 20), where there is no such architectural subdivision in the foreground, St. James leans gently against the side of the Virgin's throne and St. John the Baptist places one foot on the step of the throne and rests his elbow on its arm. In Filippo Lippi's Barbadori Altarpiece the columnar quality of the central figure is accentuated by the standing pose, and the need for special measures is consequently still more pressing. Lippi's solution

105 See W. VOige, Raffael und Donatello, Strasbourg, 1896, 11f.




is to place a pair of kneeling figures in front of the dividing columns. This creates a powerful central triangle and com- pletes the spreading out of the design which is begun by the Virgin's throne.

In Donatello's design the columnar form of the figure of the Virgin (Fig. 41) is scarcely broadened out at all by the throne. Far from spreading out on either side to form a wide triangular base, it is so tightly fitted to her that it almost seems to form an organic part of her own being, out of which she rises like a lily from its sheath. In the context of Donatello's altarpiece such a conception can be explained only by the close relationship to the flanking figures which is essential to the present reconstruction.

All the bases on which the figures now stand are modern, and there are good reasons for thinking that no similar features were even designed or intended by Donatello. To place the figures on bases of any kind would be to destroy the air of reality which is essential to the Sacra Conversazione and which is insisted on not only by the very idea of a three- dimensional canopy but also by the soft naturalism of pose and interconnection of gesture which are distinctive features of the flanking saints. Moreover, in the contract of March 12, 1455, there is talk of the work which falls "between the

spaces of the large bronze figures between the feet of the saints" (XVI c, in Part One). The reference is not to spaces falling "between the bases" of the large bronze figures. Further on in the same document there is a second reference to the

"spaces which fall between the feet of the big figures." Finally there is the fact that the Virgin's throne not only provides its own figure base but has been given, by choice, a rounded back which would sit uncomfortably on any additional, rectangular platform.

The central figures as they are now spaced on Boito's altar take up approximately 174cm. The central intercolumniation of 188cm shown in Figure 30 would therefore accommodate them comfortably. Furthermore, the unity forged by the com- pactness of the central group would be increased rather than decreased by the setting back of the two saints, since St. Anthony would then be looking directly toward the figure of the Christ Child, whom he once held miraculously in his arms and with whom he is therefore particularly closely associated, instead of staring diagonally past it into space.

The unified design created by the close setting of the central

group, by the meaningful connecting glance, and by the gestures of St. Daniel and St. Justina would be completed if the two outermost figures were placed facing in toward the center of the altarpiece, instead of facing forward as they are in previous reconstructions. It has already been observed that St. Louis (Fig. 43) is engaged in pointing and not in blessing.1o6 As a result his gesture takes on meaning only if he is drawing the onlooker's attention to the Virgin and Child by pointing toward the center of the altar as a whole while he himself looks directly at his immediate neighbor, St. Daniel. As is the case with the St. John the Baptist of Domenico Veneziano's St. Lucy Altarpiece (Fig. 21), this is the unvarying function of such gestures. If this was indeed Donatello's intention, the fact that St. Louis is looking, in his terms, slightly to the left of his pointing finger is readily explained. For the giver of a blessing not to be looking directly at the recipients of his benediction would be inexplicable.

Once the axial rigidities imposed by the added rectangular bases have been exorcised, such twisting poses as that of St. Prosdocimus (Fig. 44) take on their full value. If the latter were rotated about 75 degrees from the present setting and placed facing inward on the right wing of the altarpiece, he, like St. Anthony and St. Louis, would be looking directly at the object of his interest, which in his case is the iconographically connected figure of St. Justina (Fig. 39). The slightly downward direction of his glance means that he is looking specifically at the palm of martyrdom which his act of bap- tism made it possible for her to win. Other details of their design also appear to support the likelihood that the figures of St. Louis and St. Prosdocimus were intended to be set up in this way. In the St. Louis the side and three-quarter views, which consequently take on such added importance, are particularly strongly developed by virtue of the unusually rich fall of folds and skillfully balanced design of that side of the figure. In the St. Prosdocimus the differentiation in the richness of design between the two sides of the figure is if anything even more marked. Once again the three-quarter aspect from a position opposite the center of the altar would present a particularly well-considered and finely balanced view.

In all the closely related altarpieces (Figs. 20-24), as in virtually all the preceding and succeeding altarpieces in which

other figures are not shown facing toward the center or in which some additional factor in the design does not provide

106 See above, page 131. 107 A forward-facing stance for the outermost figures would, of course,

involve no consequential changes in other aspects of the figure

group or elsewhere in the reconstruction. 108 For the metric equivalents of the earlier systems, see A. Martini,

Manuale di metrologia, Turin, 1883.




a similar concentration, the two outermost saints are set facing inward to enclose and frame the figure design and to ensure the unity of the group. There is therefore every reason to think that Donatello would conform to this thoroughly tried and, to

fifteenth-century eyes, eminently satisfactory pattern when

embarking on his own sculptural experiment. The setting back of the four remaining saints ensures that satisfactory group- ings would still be preserved in the less important lateral views (Fig. 32). Finally, from the rear of the altar, the closure of the design, the interest of the composition, and the focus on the center, which would otherwise be considerably weaker than it is in the frontal view, would all be greatly enhanced.1'0

With this, the attempt to reconstruct the architectural and

sculptural form of Donatello's altar is complete. The dimensional limits within which the existing evidence seemingly demands that Donatello's composition must have lain have been

The Proportions of the Altar

I have always been skeptical about the establishment, by purely analytical methods, of the original proportional systems used in the creation of particular works of art. This is

probably why, in trying to reconstruct Donatello's altar, I made no very serious effort to see if a proportional system was traceable in the surviving reliefs. However, in March, 1968, at the end of a lecture at Berkeley on the completed reconstruction, the typescript of which had already been ac-

cepted by The Art Bulletin, I was asked by Professor Walter Horn whether a consideration of the altar in terms of the

original measures, rather than those of the metric system, might not reveal significant numerical relationships. For the most part this has not proved to be the case. What seems to have emerged, on the other hand, is a coherent set of proportional relationships which are largely independent of the units of measurement that are used. These relationships appear to link all the reliefs both to each other and to the architectural

structure of the proposed reconstruction. Only very minor

modifications of the suggested measurements of the altar would be needed to make the fit exact. Although I would hesitate to use such a proportional system as the basis of a reconstruction, it does seem to support the likelihood that the existing proposal is correct.

determined. Within this evidently quite narrow range of possibilities a single configuration has been established in which each interlocking element is in conformity with the documen-

tary evidence and with the indications of the physical remains.

If it is right, the reconstruction shows that Donatello created a three-dimensional complex in which, in visual and icono-

graphic terms, each element was consistent in itself, and each contributed to the coherence of a whole in which the sum by far transcended any mere addition of the parts of which it was composed. It indicates that, as in all of Donatello's major works from the St. George at the beginning to the San Lorenzo

pulpits at the very end of his career, his altarpiece in Padua conformed in each and every aspect to the evolving patterns of the art of its own decade, even as, at almost every point, it marked a revolutionary expansion of the then existing boundaries of that art.

In principle, Donatello, working in Padua, might have em-

ployed any one of a number of the regionally based systems of measurement then in use.108 There seem, however, to be no

significant coincidences with any of the Paduan measures, which were the braccio di panno (68.0981cm), the braccio di seta (63.7514cm), and the piede (35.7394cm), or with their

major subdivisions. The same is true of the Venetian and Roman measures which would seem to be the other most

likely non-Florentine systems for him to have used. On the other hand, the height of the Angel reliefs and of the Pieta, at about 58cm, coincides almost exactly with the Florentine braccio di panno of 58.3626cm. Indeed the actual measurements of five of these thirteen reliefs fall within a millimeter

of this figure.'o9 The Florentine braccio di panno was subdivided into 20 soldi

of 2.9181cm each. These in their turn were made up of 12 denari of 2.4317mm, which were themselves divided into 12

punti of 0.2026mm each. There was also a quattrino of 4 denari which, at 9.7268mm, is virtually the equivalent of the modern centimeter. The quattrino is of particular importance because in fifteenth-century Florentine documents, as well as in surviving sculpture, dimensions involving one third and two thirds of a braccio often occur.llo The latter are respec-

109 See above, notes 37, 38. 110 To give one example, a figure for the Porta della Mandorla, for

which Donatello was paid in February, 1408, was stated in the document to be :L braccia tall.




tively 6 soldi, 8 denari (or 2 quattrini), and 13 soldi, 4 denari (or

I quattrino). Although the smallest Florentine measure was only a little

over a fifth of a millimeter, it seems unwise in practice to argue on the basis of measurements down to the millimeter. Variations of up to half a centimeter occur in the Angel reliefs themselves. Accidental breakage, bending, indentation, and other similar distortions which have taken place during the checkered history of the Paduan bronzes are only one aspect of the matter. Apart from the question of the sculptor's own attitude toward minute niceties of measurement, chance

irregularities could be introduced in both the casting and finishing processes. Even the regular shrinkage of thirteen to sixteen parts in a thousand (i.e., 13-16mm per meter) as between the model and the cast is subject to minor variations."'l In the ensuing discussions all dimensions will therefore be given only to the nearest centimeter or quattrino.

The evidence that the braccio di panno was used both by Florentine sculptors in general and by Donatello in particular is fortunately plentiful.112 At Padua two things seem to be clear. The first is that this basic unit provided Donatello with his starting point in designing the altar and its decoration (Figs. 30-32). The second is that the Angel reliefs, which have proved so thorny a problem for modern historians, provided the module for the whole structure. Certainly, the Miracle reliefs at about 1 quattrino (1cm) less in height (57cm), and the square Evangelists' symbols at about 2 quattrini more in

height and width (60cm), are close variations on the basic braccio unit.

Turning next to the width of the Angel reliefs (21cm) and treating it as one unit, we see a number of points emerge. The width of the Entombment (188cm) is one centimeter under 9 units, and the width of the Pieta (56cm) is exactly 2% units. The height of the St. Francis (147cm) is exactly 7 units, with St. Anthony (145cm) providing a 2cm variation on this figure. The St. Justina (154cm) is 7Y3 units, and the St. Daniel

(153cm) is Icm less. The remaining three figures, the Virgin and Child (159cm), St. Prosdocimus (163cm), and St. Louis (164cm), are all clustered round the 7% units mark (161cm), although none of them exactly coincides with it.

How significant any of these facts are, either individually or as a group, is a matter of opinion. Statistically the odds against any given object, measured to the nearest centimeter, coin-

ciding by chance with a whole 21cm unit or with a one-third or two-thirds subdivision, are 7 to 1, and those against its falling within a centimeter of one of these marks are only 7 to 3. On the other hand, the odds against a series of objects coinciding with the marks rises steeply. For two objects it is 72 (49 to 1). For three it is 73 (343 to 1), and so on.

The final important surface measurement involved in the

Angel reliefs, considered simply as rectangles, is that of their diagonals. These measure 62cm. Twice this figure is 124cm, or just Icm more than the width of the Miracle reliefs. The

diagonal of the Miracle reliefs, in their turn, is 136cm, and this is within 2cm of the height of the Entombment (138cm).

The diagonal was always of great importance in medieval systems of proportion, which, partly because of the wide

diversity of local systems of measurement, seem to have been

very largely dependent upon geometrical rather than arithmetical procedures. The use of the diagonal for generating proportional relationships goes back to antiquity and is to be found in Vitruvius, who said that in the third method of

laying out an atrium, "a square is described upon the width, and the diagonal of the square is drawn; whatever is the size of the diagonal supplies the length of the atrium."'13 This same method is given by Alberti as the method of designing the lowest form of doorway.114 Vitruvius also describes how to double the area of a square "by basing a new square on the diagonal of the first.""'r It is this latter, simple procedure which, in the Middle Ages, becomes the secret of the masons. It could be used for laying out the dimensions of a cloister on the basis of those of its enclosed garden, as it was by Magister 2 in the Continuation of Villard de Honnecourt's Sketchbook."" Over two centuries later the reverse procedure is set out by Matthias Roriczer as the means of determining the geometrical relationships of the successive stages of a Gothic pinnacle.17 It is this system which, it has been argued, was used by Brunelleschi to control the groundplan of Santo Spirito.lls

As Frankl observes, the fundamental importance of such

procedures is that once a basic unit has been chosen, the subse- quent processes can be carried out by simple geometrical means which are quite independent of local systems of meas-

urement."? This would have been of particular significance to Donatello himself while he was working in Padua, in view of the discrepancy between Florentine and Paduan measures. A second important point is that the length of the diagonal

111 The usual extent and possible significance of such shrinkages was pointed out to me by Cav. Bruno Bearzi.

112 For example, the commission for Donatello's St. Mark states that the figure is to be 4 braccia (233.6cm) tall, and in fact it measures 236cm. See Janson, Donatello, 17.

113 Vitruvius De architectura VI. m. 3. 114 Alberti De re aedificatoria I. 12. 115 Vitruvius De architectura IX. Pref. 4, 5. 116 Frankl, The Gothic, 50f.




of a square of side A is A \/2, and the relationship between the two lengths is irrational.120 Visually, a series of such relationships combines a feeling of interconnection and proportion with a sense of freedom. A third significant factor which is not usually stressed in the literature is that a continuing series of increasing or diminishing squares in which each unit is based on the diagonal of the preceding member creates a balanced sequence of irrational and rational relationships. In any series A B C D ..., A can never be a simple multiple or divisor of B, B of C, and C of D. On the other hand, it is also true that C = 2A, D = 2 B, and so on to infinity. This has the practical consequence that after a single geometrical step in which B is generated from A, all succeeding units can be determined simply by successive doublings of A and B. To move, for example, two further stages along the series, E = 2C 4A and F - 2D - 4B.

From what has already been said of the dimensions of the surviving reliefs of the Padua Altar, it seems that Donatello may himself have used a combination of geometrical and arithmetical methods. It also seems that he shifted the balance toward a preponderance of rational, arithmetical relationships. That this should be the case with a leading Renais- sance sculptor, however aware he may have been of the significance of the geometrical basis of the medieval masonic tradition, is rather to be expected. Both in Vitruvius and in Alberti rational members and arithmetical procedures are thoroughly dominant, and irrational numbers and geometrical methods play a relatively minor role. Donatello's use of proportional systems seems, indeed, to be exactly analogous to the interest in stylistic sources which is implicit in his sculpture. Throughout his career up to the time of his departure for Padua a primary concentration on the Renaissance present and the antique past is continually enlivened by references to the achievements of his medieval predecessors. After his return to Florence such references to the medieval past increase, both in frequency and in intensity.

Donatello's apparent use at Padua of a basic rectangle, incorporated in the Angel reliefs, rather than a basic square is only a slight but for him a typical extension of the principle enunciated in the texts. Indeed, it may well have been a strict application of the textual tradition that gave him the particular variant of the braccio unit incorporated in the Evangelists' symbols. Taken to the nearest centimeter these are 60cm

square. Their sides are therefore twice the 30cm diagonal of a square erected on the 21cm width of the Angel reliefs.

Turning from the surviving parts of Donatello's altar to the reconstructed elements established through the documentary and physical evidence, we see several points emerge. Firstly, the four lost figure reliefs at the back of the altar (Fig. 31), which share the height of the Entombment (138cm), have a reconstructed width of 61cm. This is only Icm less than the diagonal of the Angel reliefs. A reduction of the framing interval between each pair of reliefs from 11cm to 9cm is all that would be needed to make the correspondence exact. Another reconstructed feature on the back of the altar is the metal

grating, or gradela. This shares the height of the Angel reliefs (58cm) and, at 168cm wide, is exactly eight times their width.

In the central bay on the front of the altar (Fig. 30) there are the "two leaves of copper" which frame the triple group of the Pieta and its flanking Angel reliefs. These leaves have not been drawn in on the reconstruction, but the available space implied that they probably matched the height of the Angel reliefs (58cm) and were 35cm wide. This means that their diagonals were 68cm long-exactly half the 136cm diagonal of the Miracle reliefs. The last figure has already been related to the height of the Entombment (138cm), and it is the width of this relief (188cm) which determines that of the central intercolumniation of the reconstructed altar. It is possibly also significant, however, that the 136cm diagonal of the Miracle reliefs is only 3cm more than the suggested 133cm width of the lateral bays. Here again a mere 1.5cm adjustment of the framing elements on either side of the Miracle reliefs, increasing their width from 5cm to 6.5cm, is all that would be needed to make the correspondence exact.

When it comes to the overall size of the reconstructed altar, the key vertical dimension is that measured from the top of the third step to the crown of the segmental pediment. It is this third step which forms the base or platform on which the entire structure stands, leaving the main block completely un- encumbered at back and sides.121 The existing height comes out at 5.90m. A reduction of 6 to 10 cm in the wholly con- jectural area above the columns would bring it down to the region of 5.84 to 5.80 m. The higher limit is exactly 10 braccia to the nearest centimeter and the lower is ten times the 58cm

height of the Angel reliefs. It was, of course, the 21cm width

117 Ibid., 149. 118 E. Luporini, Brunelleschi, Milan, 1964, 109f. 119 Frankl, The Gothic, 51. 120 Ibid., 53.

121 The two uppermost steps account for the difference in height between the mensa at the front and the Entombment at the back. See above, page 128. There were almost certainly at least three further steps, but there could well have been more.




of these same Angel reliefs which established the 21cm width of the columns and which, likewise multiplied by ten, established their height.

If the Angel reliefs seem to have acted as the module for the entire altarpiece, it is no less clear that the central intercolumniation is in every sense a key architectural feature. In- deed, because it seemed that its width must have been determined by that of the Entombment beneath it, it provided the starting point for the process of reconstruction. In elevation its dimensions are 210cm by 188cm. This gives a diagonal of 282cm. If 5cm were added to the suggested framing elements at either extremity, the total width of the altarpiece, taking the previously suggested 3cm enlargement of the lateral bays into account, would come to 5.64m. This is exactly twice the diagonal of the central intercolumniation and exactly three times its width. A 16cm increase in the width of the altar-

piece would, of course, still leave the overall figure inside the half-meter tolerance within which it was argued that the solution seemed certainly to lie.122

Finally, on the sides of the reconstruction, the 85cm diagonal of the Evangelists' symbols is within 3mm of being exactly half the suggested total width of 170.6cm. The diagonal of the Evangelists' symbols is also within Icm of being four times the 21cm width of the Angel reliefs. In other words, two adjustments of Icm or less, and three further adjustments of 3, 5, and 6 to 10 cm to other elements of the reconstructed

altarpiece are all that would be needed if it were thought desirable that the whole should conform not merely approximately but exactly to the porportional principles which seem to link its surviving parts.123

The Bronze Doors in the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo, Florence

The suggestion that in designing his altarpiece in Padua Dona- tello used a simple proportional system, based on the sides and diagonals of a key rectangle, raises the question of whether such a system is reflected in any of his other works. Fortunately, the bronze doors in San Lorenzo (Figs. 46, 47) are two surviving examples which are composed of a series of interrelated rectangles and have not been modified or reconstructed in any way. They are also sufficiently simple in outline to minimize the difficulty of deciding where to measure from

which has caused such endless conflicts in the case of complex structures such as Gothic cathedrals. Finally, they are the commission on which Donatello appears to have been working immediately before he left for Padua at the end of 1443.124

The only thing which might introduce a note of uncertainty is the controversy over whether Donatello himself designed the doorways and tabernacles into which his bronze doors fitted. Luckily, Antonio Manetti states categorically that at the time of the planning of the doors "the small doorways flanking the chapel of the sacristy were left to be finished later,

.... there were only the openings in the wall, with

arches above for stability."125 From this it seems to be clear that the precise proportions of Donatello's doors were not pre- established for him by Brunelleschi. Consequently, even if, as has been argued, Donatello left for Padua before the doors were installed, and was not himself responsible for the design of the architectural surrounds,126 he clearly must himself have established the dimensions of the openings into which the doors were to fit before he began to design the doors. These dimensions must then have been adhered to unchanged or with only minimal modifications.

In fact, measurements taken at top and bottom and at both sides show that, allowing for a 2mm unevenness in the width of the right, or Apostles, doorway (Fig. 47), the two openings have completely uniform dimensions of 226.3cm by 105.3cm. The diagonal of a 105.3cm square is 149cm. The height of the door is therefore within 2.8cm of being one and a half times the diagonal of a square erected on its width (223.5cm) in the manner discussed by Alberti. The overall measurements of the backs of the leaves of the left, or Martyrs, doors (Fig. 46) are 232cm by 59.2cm, giving a dimension of 232cm by 118.4cm for the whole.127 This is very close to 4 braccia (233.6cm) by 2 braccia (116.8cm). The third and final overall dimension is that of the raised patterns on the front of the doors. In both cases these measure 225.2cm by 104.6cm exactly. Again there is a discrepancy of 3.2cm, or just over 1 soldo, between the actual height and one and a half times the square erected on the width of the pattern (222cm). On the other hand, the height of the patterns is now within 1.7cm of being equal to one and a half times the diagonal of the square erected on the width of the doorways as a whole.

122 See above, page 119f. 123 No simple succession of dimensions generated by the Roriczer

method on the basis of either a 21cm or a 58cm square or of any similar starting point seems to provide an alternative general ex- planation of the measurements of the Paduan reliefs. Single and double golden section proportions also seem to produce negative results. It is, however, interesting that in using the golden section together with simple multiples of whole numbers in designing the Old Sacristy, Brunelleschi was, in the earlier part of his career, working with a mixed system which is similar in principle to that suggested here as being used by Donatello in Padua. See D. F. Ny- berg, "Brunelleschi's Use of Proportion in the Pazzi Chapel,"

Marsyas, 7, 1954-57, If. 124 Janson, Donatello, 136f., 139. 125 Ibid., 132. 126 Ibid., 138. 127 I was not myself able to measure the back of the Apostles doors. All

the dimensions that are given were checked at a number of different points. Where they differ from previously published figures, the change is the result of personal observation. Since the doors are more solid and less damaged than many of the Paduan reliefs, there seems to be no point in not quoting the actual measurements as taken.




Fig. 46. Donatello, Martyrs Doors, Old Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence

(photo: Alinari) Fig. 47. Donatello, Apostles Doors, Old Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence

(photo: Alinari)




When it comes to the internal design of the door patterns, that of the Martyrs doors is extremely regular. The rectangles containing the figures, measured up to the plain frame surrounding the inner patterned molding, are uniformly 36.5cm high, except for the second rectangle from the top on the left leaf, which is only 36cm high. Their widths vary between 33.3cm and 33.7cm, giving an average of 33.5cm. The diagonal of a rectangle 36.5cm by 33.5cm is 49.5cm. This is exactly the width of the pattern on each leaf, measured to the inner mar- gin of the final plain surround and including the final patterned border which exactly repeats that in each of the figured rectangles.

On the Apostles, or right-hand, doors there is, as has been noted in the literature,128 rather less regularity. The heights of the figure rectangles, once more measured to the plain border, again average out to 36.5cm, except that the lowest pair are a full 38cm high. The widths average 34.5cm. The added height of the lowest pair of rectangles is mainly accounted for by a narrowing of the lower border. The slightly greater 34.5cm width means that the surrounding vertical elements of the framework are all about half a centimeter narrower than the

intervening horizontal elements. Still more interestingly, three times 34.5cm is 103.5cm. This is within 1.1cm of the total width of the door pattern (104.6cm), and is within 1.8cm of the width of the doorway itself (105.3cm). Since the individual figure rectangles are only one third of the total, for an absolutely exact fit the discrepancy is only 3.7mm in the one case and 6mm in the other. Furthermore, the diagonal of the figure rectangles, at 50.3cm, is once again exactly equal to the pattern on each leaf, similarly measured up to the plain outer surround. Finally, four and a half times the diagonal of the figure rectangles comes to 226.3cm or exactly the height of the doorway.

In the light of these observations it seems possible to reconstruct what may well have been Donatello's exact working procedure. Having first of all decided on the width of his doors (105.3cm), he established that their height (226.3cm) should be approximately one and a half times the diagonal of a square erected on the width. He then decided that the width of the

figure rectangles (34.5cm) should be one third of the width of the patterned front faces of the doors as a whole (104.6cm). The height of the doorway (226.3cm) or of the doors (225.2cm) was then divided into nine parts and the diagonal

of each figure panel was assigned two of these parts. This diagonal (50.3cm) then established the width of the internal pattern of each leaf, and therefore of the plain outer surround, and gave him the height of each figure rectangle (36.5cm). Finally, either by error or in order to strengthen the visual base on which the whole design rested, he increased the height of the lowermost panels to 38cm.

It has reasonably been suggested because of these irregularities that the Apostles doors were the first to be designed.129 When it came to the laying out of the second doors, which was evidently only done after at least the modelli of the first pair had been completed and approved, Donatello had evidently decided to make minor adjustments in his established proportional system in order to give complete regularity to the subdivisions of his pattern, without, however, upsetting the general symmetry which was to unite the two pairs of doors. Firstly, he standardized the height of all the figure rectangles at 36.5cm. This meant that all the horizontal elements of the

surrounding framework were now equal. Secondly, he reduced the width of all the figure rectangles from 34.5cm to 33.5cm. This allowed the vertical parts of the framework to be exactly the same width as the horizontal elements and made the pattern of the doors completely regular in all respects. The price to be paid for this was that the figure rectangles were not quite so near to being exactly one third of the total width of the doors. On the other hand, the length of the diagonals of the figure rectangles (49.5cm) was still kept precisely equal to the width of the pattern on each leaf. The proportional consistency of the design was even tightened up slightly as regards the vertical dimensions of the doors, since four and a half times 49.5cm is 222.7cm. This is no longer so close to being the height of the doorway or of the whole of the visible front face of the doors themselves. But, since the plain upper and lower outer borders are each about 1.5cm wide, the new figure is within half a centimeter of the 222.2cm height of the pattern up to but not including the plain surrounds. The diagonals of the figure rectangles are therefore now related to the width and to the height of the pattern of each leaf in exactly the same way.

If these analyses of Donatello's working methods on the eve of his departure for Padua are correct, they show that in designing his bronze doors he was already using the same straightforward procedures, based on the sides and diagonals

128 Janson, Donatello, 138. 129 Ibid.




of a basic square or rectangle, which have been suggested as the controlling factors in the proportional design of the Padua Altar. The harmonious, even balance between elements in which the dimensions are simple multiples or subdivisions of those in other parts of the design, and elements which, being geometrically controlled, are not subject to quite such simple

numerical relationships, is not merely a basic feature of the surviving, and therefore of the reconstructed, elements of the Padua Altar. It finds a precise prefiguration in Donatello's bronze doors for San Lorenzo.

The Johns Hopkins University

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FREQUENTLY CITED SOURCES

Band, R., "Donatellos Altar im Santo zu Padua," Mitteilungen des kunsthistorisches Instituts in Florenz, 5, 1940, 315f.

Berenson, B., Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Venetian School, Lon- don, 1957.

Boito, C., L'Altare di Donatello, Milan, 1897.

Cordenons, F., L'Altare di Donatello, Padua, 1895.

Fiocco, G., "L'Altare grande di Donatello al Santo," II Santo, Anno I,

1961, 21f. - , "Ancora dell'altare di Donatello al Santo," Il Santo, Anno m,

1963, 345f.

, and A. Sartori, "I1 Trittico donatelliano del Santo," Padua, 1961.

Frankl, P., The Gothic, Princeton, 1960.

Frimmel, T., Der Anonimo Morelliano, Vienna, 1888.

Gloria, A., Donatello fiorentino e le sue opere mirabili nel tempio di S. Antonio, Padua, 1895.

Guidaldi, P. L., "Ricerche sull'altare di Donatello," Il Santo, Anno Iv, 1932, 239f.

Hadeln, D. von, "Ein Reconstructionsversuch des Hochaltars Donatellos

im Santo von Padua," Jahrbuch der preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 30, 1909, 35f.

Janson, H. W., The Sculpture of Donatello, Princeton, 1957.

Kauffmann, H., Donatello, Berlin, 1935.

Mandach, C. de, Saint Antoine de Padoue et 'art italien, Paris, 1899.

Parronchi, A., "Per la ricostruzione dell'altare del Santo," Arte antica e

moderna, 22, 1963, 109f.

Planiscig, L., Donatello, Florence, 1947.

Pope-Hennessy, J., Italian Renaissance Sculpture, London, 1958.

Sartori, A., "Documenti riguardanti Donatello e il suo altare di Padova,"

Il Santo, Anno I, 1961, 38.

, "Di nuovo sulle opere donatelliane al Santo," Il Santo, Anno m, 1963, 347f.

Seymour, J., Sculpture in Italy 1400-1500, Harmondsworth and Balti-

more, 1966.



Date post:	21-Jan-2017
Category:	Documents
Upload:	john-white
View:	218 times
Download:	3 times

Donatello's High Altar in the Santo at Padua Part Two: The Reconstruction

Documents