Roman and Greek art did not, however, in any considerable degree influence the tendency of his own mind, which was more towards sentiment and nature, the characteristics of christian art, than to the ideal and the poetic, the objects of pagan art. In his next work of importance, a wooden crucifix, the young sculptor so little departed from the living model, that his elder brother in art, Brunellesco, declared it ignoble; in fact, called it the true imitation of a peasant. Donatello, struck with the remark, excused himself by mentioning the difficulty inherent in wood-carving, and ended by suggesting to his critical rival to try his skill at something of the kind. Brunellesco did not forget the challenge, and made his experiment; and when this was completed, meeting Donatello in the market, asked him to go to his studio, and partake of some lunch with him. His intention was to take the young sculptor by surprise. Donatello having agreed, Brunellesco bought some provisions, which he intrusted to his friend to take to his place, adding, he would soon follow with more. Thus entrapped, his apron full of the comestibles, young Donatello entered the atelier; the first thing that caught his eye was the crucifix which Brunellesco had just completed. "Lord! what forms! what sublimity!" Poor Donatello, forgetting the apron and its contents, which fall to the ground, clasps his hands together, and stands amazed before the idealized conception of his clever antagonist. The latter arrives, and pretending not to notice what is passing, calls upon Donatello to join in the repast. "Nay! nay!" says the young artist, stung to the heart, "I am not worthy to eat with you; I, the mere portrayer of boors; you, the sculptor of gods." And thus saying, he rushes out of the studio. The effect of the lesson this incident conveyed to the mind of Donatello may be traced in all the works which he subsequently produced. His style, without losing its original naïve simplicity, assumed more and more breadth and grace as he studied incessantly to ennoble his types through the effect of the ideal treatment which he had learned to admire in the work of Brunellesco. In proof of this we refer to the statues of St. John; the figure of Magdalene for the baptistery of Florence; the tomb of Pope Giovanni Coscia, John XXIII.; and the far-famed figure of St. Mark, which is said to have been so admired by Michel Angelo, as to make him ask—"Well! why don't you speak?" And to these masterpieces, we must add the group of Judith and Holofernes for the Logge dei Lanzi; the equestrian statue of Erasmo Gattamelata; the Venetian condottiere at Padua, the finest of the kind produced in the fifteenth century; the St. George executed for the guild of armourers of Florence, which Raphael reproduced in one of his most celebrated drawings; the unparalleled statue of David; the four statues for the belfry of Santa Maria del Fiore, one of which (the portrait of Barduccio Chilirchino, known, on account of his bald head, as the Zuccone) is said to have elicited from its author, whilst at work, the repeated ejaculations of "Speak, friend! speak!"—the same statue, in whose name Donatello was afterwards used to attest his words, by saying, "Sulla fè che io porto al mio Zuccone" (On the faith I have for my bald man). This brief notice would be incomplete were we to omit noticing the bas-reliefs by our artist, especially those in the Medici palace, and those representing the life of St. Anthony the abbot, for the sanctuario of Padua; the gates of the church of St. John at Siena (afterwards removed to Florence); the many works he carried out for his patron Cosimo, whose wife's portrait stands foremost; those he executed at Rome in aid of his brother Simone, who was charged with the preparations for the entry of the German emperor Sigismund, &c. As a sculptor, Donatello deserves to be called the Frà-Bartolommeo of his art. As a man, there are few with whom he can be compared for simplicity and goodness. His liberality knew no bounds. His money was kept in an open basket in his studio, that his friends might use it without hindrance or control. Cosimo di Medici having died, the patronage of the family was continued by Piero, who made gift of a beautiful villa to the aged sculptor. And in that villa the jovial old man closed his days when eighty-three, in 1466, requesting to be after death reunited to his former patron, Cosimo, in the vaults of St. Lorenzo. The merits of the artist and the virtues of the man form one of the noblest pages in the history of Italian art.—R. M.
DONATI, Corso, head of the family whose feuds with the Cerchi disturbed Florence in the close of the 13th century, had acquired by his services an influence among his fellow-citizens, which was counterbalanced by the great wealth of his rival Vieri de Cerchi. The signory having passed sentence of banishment against the factious chiefs, Corso appealed to the pope, who commissioned Charles of Valois to restore concord; but, before the negotiations were finished, the proud Florentine noble broke into the city at the head of his armed partisans, and pillaged for five days the property of his opponents. The papal influence afterwards effected a pacification; but the quarrel soon broke out again, being mixed up with the disputes of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and with another fierce family feud of that age, the feud of the Neri and the Bianchi. In the hope of composing the strife, the pope in 1305 summoned Donati and eleven others of the leading nobles to Rome; and they returned home in the following year to find the government strengthened and resolved to maintain order. Donati was again sentenced to exile, and on his refusing to submit, was attacked in his barricaded palace by the troops of the signory. Unable to repel them he cut his way out, but was overtaken and slain in 1308.—W. B.
DONATI, Ignazio, a musician, was born at Casale Maggiore, near Cremona, towards the close of the sixteenth century; he died probably at Milan about 1640. He was appointed mæstro di capella in the academy del Santo Spirito at Ferrara in 1619; he filled the same office at Casale in 1624, and removed to Milan in 1633, to discharge the same duties in the cathedral. He composed very extensively for the church, and published also a collection of madrigals.—G. A. M.
DONATI, Vitaliano, an Italian physician and naturalist, was born at Padua in 1713, and died at sea in 1763. He belonged to an illustrious Florentine family. He studied at Padua, and took his degree in medicine there. In prosecuting natural history he travelled in Italy, Sicily, Illyria, and Albania. He was afterwards appointed professor of natural history at Turin, and made a journey to the east, traversing Syria and Egypt, with the view of visiting India. He was robbed, however, of everything, and determined to return to Europe, but was drowned on the passage. He made extensive collections, but unfortunately was cut off before he had an opportunity of publishing the results of his travels. He intended to give an account of all the productions, animal and vegetable, of the Adriatic. A part of his observations is given in a work edited by Carlo Rubbi, entitled "Saggio Delia storia Naturale marina dell' Adriatico," a translation of which in English is given in the forty-seventh volume of the Philosophical Transactions. A genus, Donatia, was named by Forster.—J. H. B.
DONATO. See Donatello.
DONATO, Baldassaro, a musician, was born in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, and died at Venice in June, 1603. He was appointed mæstro di capella at the cathedral of St. Mark in that city, 9th March, 1590. Previously to this he published five collections of vocal music, consisting of madrigals and villanellas, besides which, many of his compositions are preserved in manuscript. Burney prints a specimen of his writing, and several others are familiar in our madrigal societies.—G. A. M.
DONATO, Francesco, Doge of Venice, was elected to that office in 1545, having previously rendered himself popular by his wisdom and temper in the administrative councils of the city. He held the supreme power till his death in 1553; cultivating and encouraging literature, adding to the architectural beauties of the city, and directing its political interests with ability during a period which was darkened on the one hand by the encroachments of the Turks, and on the other by the quarrels between France and the empire.—W. B.
DONATO, Leonardo, Doge of Venice from 1606 till 1612, had been one of the political society which met in the house of Morosini to advocate the principles of religious liberty; and his embassy to Rome when Sixtus V. complained of the recognition of Henry IV. by the Venetians, assisted in moderating the measures adopted against the protestant monarch. In his tenure of the chief power in his native city, he stood firmly against the pretensions of Paul V., met the sentence of excommunication with a calm and resolute assertion of civil rights, and insisted on the expulsion of the jesuits, being greatly aided in these struggles by Paul Sarpi, one of his old associates in the Morosini meetings.—W. B.
DONATO, Nicola, Doge of Venice for a few weeks in 1618, was extremely unpopular; his election and installation exposed him to public insults, and aggravated the discontent which proved so troublesome to his successor Priuli.—W. B.
