Donatello
Working and personal life

All accounts describe Donatello as amiable and well-liked, but rather poor at the business side of his career. Like (not only) Michelangelo in the next century, he tended to accept more commissions than he could handle, and many works were either completed some years late, handed to other sculptors to finish, or never produced. Again like Michelangelo, he enjoyed steady support and patronage from the Medici family.

All sources agree that he carved stone and modelled clay or wax for bronzes very quickly and confidently, and art historians feel able to distinguish his hand from that of others, even within the same work. Italian Renaissance sculptors nearly always used assistants, with the master often giving parts of a piece over to them, but Donatello, who would perhaps not have been good at managing a large workshop like that of Ghiberti, seems to have had at most times a relatively small number of experienced assistants, some of whom became significant masters in their own right. The technical quality of his work can vary, especially in bronze pieces, where casting faults may occur; even the bronze David has a hole under his chin, and a patch on his thigh.

Donatello certainly made drawings, probably especially for reliefs. In the case of his stained glass designs and perhaps other works these were his whole contribution. Vasari claimed to have several in his collection, which he praised highly: "I have both nude and draped figures, various animals which astound anyone who sees them, and other beautiful things..". But very few, if any, surviving drawings are now accepted as probably by his own hand, and these are strong and lively sketches with figures, such as the three in its collections that the French government still attributes to Donatello himself.

A story told both by Vasari and the earlier Pomponio Gaurico says that he kept a bucket containing money hanging on a cord from the ceiling of his workshop, from which those around could take if they needed it. A tax return from 1427, near the peak of his career, shows a much lower income than Ghiberti's for the same year, and he seems to have died in modest circumstances, although this may not have been of concern to him; "he was very happy in his old age" according to Vasari.
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