Editing Donatello (section)

==Bronze ''David''==
[[File:Donatello, David (bronze) detail of legs.JPG|thumb|upright|Detail of the [[David (Donatello, bronze)|bronze ''David'']] from behind]]

Donatello's bronze ''[[David (Donatello, bronze)|David]]'', now in the [[Bargello]] museum, is his most famous work, and the first known free-standing nude statue produced since antiquity.  It is conceived fully in the round, independent of any architectural surroundings, and nearly at life-size.<ref>Coonin, 141; Konody; Olson, 84; Avery, 82.</ref>

Although the commission is not documented, the statue is first recorded placed on a column in the courtyard of the newly-built [[Palazzo Medici]] at a wedding in 1469,<ref>Olson, 83.</ref> but it probably pre-dates the start of that building in 1444.  It was most likely commissioned by [[Cosimo de' Medici]] for the older Medici palace on the same street, probably between 1434 and 1440, after Donatello returned from Rome and Cosimo from exile.<ref>Coonin, 141; Olson, 84; Seymour, 234-235 (note 21). The dating used more typically to be in the 1450s or even later.</ref> 

[[David]] was well-established as a symbol of the [[Republic of Florence]], victorious in defence against larger surrounding powers, with at this period the [[Duchy of Milan]] the most threatening. Though the statue certainly was intended to convey this meaning, it also has a sensuous and erotic power that was original.<ref>Jones, 1-16; Coonin, 142-145.</ref> The many previous Florentine images of David, like Donatello's stone ''David'' of about 1408–09, showed him clothed;<ref>Unlike images of [[Hercules]], who was typically shown naked, Coonin, 141.</ref> here he wears only a hat and boots which, as with the ''[[Amore-Attys]]'', serve only to accentuate his nudity.<ref>Coonin, 142-147.</ref>  

Donatello's "innovation ... is the transformation of the King of Israel into a young Greek god", in "a work of almost incredible innovation, which nothing else in the art of the time leads us to anticipate ...during the rest of the century in continues to be far beyond the current of contemporary taste."<ref>Clark, 48-49.</ref>  The figure shows "a real boy whose chest was narrower and flank less rounded than the Greek ideal", and the "waist is the centre of plastic interest, from which radiate all the other planes of the body", which became the norm in Renaissance nude sculpture.<ref>Clark, 49-50; see also Avery, 82.</ref>  

One foot rests casually on the severed head of [[Goliath]], giving the figure a ''[[contrapposto]]'' pose. The feathers of Goliath's helmet crest brush against the inside of David's thigh, in a further sensuous touch. The ''David'' and the ''Amore-Attis'' supplement various pieces of contemporary gossip to suggest Donatello's sexual interests.<ref>Coonin, 143-147; Jones, 1-4; Avery, 82.</ref>

It seems likely that Donatello's homosexuality was well known, and tolerated and protected by the Medici and so others.<ref>Jones, 1-6, 314-315.</ref> The main evidence comes from  anecdotes in the ''Detti piacevoli'', a large collection of celebrity gossip probably compiled around 1480 (but not published until 1548), perhaps by the [[Renaissance humanism|humanist]] and poet [[Angelo Poliziano]] (1454–1494), a Medici insider as tutor to Lorenzo's children.<ref>Bowen, Barbara C., “The Collection of Facezie Attributed to Angelo Poliziano”, ''Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance'' 56, no. 1 (1994): 27–38, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20679567 JSTOR].</ref> These tell of Donatello surrounding himself with "handsome assistants" and chasing in search of one that had fled his workshop.<ref>Jones, 314-315; Michael Rocke, ''Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence'' (see index).</ref> 

He was said to hire especially beautiful boys, and "stained" them (probably meaning make-up) so that no one else would find them pleasing; when one assistant left after a quarrel, they made up by "laughing" at each other, a slang term for sex.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Summers |first=Claude |title=The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts |publisher=Cleis press |year=2004 |isbn=1-57344-191-0 |pages=97}}.</ref>  However, no detail is known with certainty about his private life, and unlike many artists (for example [[Sandro Botticelli]]) there are no recorded denunciations for [[sodomy]] in the Florentine archives, though these are incomplete.<ref>Joachim Poeschke, ''Donatello and His World. Sculpture of the Italian Renaissance, Volume 1'', Harry N Abrams, New York 1993, p. ?</ref><ref>Louis Crompton, ''Homosexuality and Civilization'', Harvard Press, 2003, p. 264.</ref>