Editing Donatello (section)

==Children, putti and ''spiritelli''==
[[File:Donatello, cantoria, dett., 03.JPG|thumb|Detail of the ''Cantoria'' frieze]]

In the 1430s and 1440s Donatello made many sculptures of young children dancing, as well as [[putti]] (cherubs) and a variant of these traditionally called ''spiritelli'' ("[[imp]]s" or "sprites").  Putti were not new in Italian sculpture, but were given a rather unusual prominence by Donatello.<ref>Coonin, 92-93.</ref>

Some early examples are three out of a group of six freestanding bronze ''spiritelli'' on the cover for the font of the [[Siena Baptistery]] (1429), standing over his earlier relief of the ''Feast of Herod'' discussed above.  One dances and two play musical instruments.  They have been said to be "the first true free-standing figurines of the Renaissance" and were enormously influential, expressing "what was at the heart of the Renaissance—the classical reborn into the Christian".<ref>Coonin, 92-95, 93 quoted.</ref>

[[File:Amor-Attys.Donatello.P1151420.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|''[[Amore-Attis]]'', c. 1440-1442]]

His most famous work in this genre is his relief frieze for the ''cantoria'' or singing gallery of Florence Cathedral. There are two of these galleries rather high on the walls of the nave. [[Luca della Robbia]] had been given the commission for the first in 1431, and Donatello for the second in 1433, with his contract promising 20% higher payment if his were more beautiful than della Robbia's.<ref>Coonan, 112-119.</ref>

They develop the style of the Prato pulpit reliefs,<ref>Olson, 78-79.</ref> the figures "primarily symbols of [[Dionysus|Dionysiac]] abandon, and the childish character of their bodies is forgotten in our sense of their liberated animal life. If in a photograph we cover their heads our first glance reveals a Bacchic sarcophagus more intricate and vigorous than anything in antique art; and only on looking more carefully are we aware of their fat tummies and chubby legs".<ref>Clark, 279-280; see also Hartt, 236.</ref>

Six ''spiritelli'' in animated conversation crowd at the top of the large classical frame of his Cavalcanti ''Annunciation'' in [[Santa Croce, Florence]], made for a brother in law of the Medici, c. 1436-1438.<ref>Coonin, 136-138.</ref>

The remarkable bronze statue called the ''[[Amore-Attis]]'', perhaps from the early 1440s, has one foot in the world of the ''spiritelli'' and the other in the sensuous eroticism of the bronze ''David''.  The figure has wings and a tail, stands on a snake, and has a variety of classical attributes, too many for a simple identification. He wears leggings that emphasize rather than hide his private parts.<ref>Coonan, 149-151; Jones, 13.</ref>  In the 17th century it was taken to be a work of antiquity, despite a clear description of it by Vasari.<ref>Olson, 84.</ref>