Donatello's Bronze 'David' and the Demands of Medici Politics

Author(s): Christine M. Sperling

Source: The Burlington Magazine , Apr., 1992, Vol. 134, No. 1069 (Apr., 1992), pp. 218-
224
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 CHRISTINE M. SPERLING

Donatello's bronze 'David' and the demands of

Medici politics*

IN JUNE 1469 Lorenzo de' Medici celebrated his marriage

to Clarice Orsini at the Medici Palace on the Via Larga.
The nuptial banquet was considered modest, though in fact
two hundred guests attended and fifty dishes were served,
each announced by trumpeters. The guests of honour,
some seventy or eighty, were seated at tables in the courtyard
around Donatello's bronze statue of David (Fig. 1).1 This
mute witness of the scene cannot describe the wedding
feast, any more than he can enlighten us regarding his own
obscure origins, his unidentified patron, or his controversial
significance. The statue's iconography, indeed its very
subject, has been questioned by Alessandro Parronchi,
Laurie Schneider, John Pope-Hennessy and others, while
suggested dates for its creation have ranged from the :
1420s through the 1460s.2 Until now the passing reference
to the statue in the description of Lorenzo's nuptials, ;
three years after the artist's death in 1466, has been the < 0 _ X ;
earliest evidence regarding Donatello's bronze David. The
new information presented here sheds light on the statue's
history prior to 1469.
The text of an hitherto unpublished inscription that
once accompanied the David is recorded in a Florentine
manuscript, where it is accompanied by the well-known
inscription from the base of Donatello's Judith and Holofernes
(Fig.2).3 The portion of the manuscript that concerns us
reads as follows:

In domo magnifici Pieri Medicis sub Davide eneo :

Victor est quisquis patriam tuetur
Frangit immanis Deus hostis iras :
En puer grandem domuit tiramnum
Vincite cives

In ortulo eiusdem sub Iudith que Olophernem interimit

Regna cadunt luxu, surgunt virtutibus urbes
Cesa vides humili colla superba manu

*This material was developed during my year as a fellow at Villa I Tatti, the
Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies, in Florence, in 1989-90. All unpublished
transcriptions from manuscripts were checked by Gino Corti, to whom I am
particularly grateful for confirming my transcription of the poem printed in the ~
Appendix.
'Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS.II, iv, 324 (formerly Strozzi
XXV, p.574) fol. l08v: '. .nel mezo della corte intorno a quella bella colonna dove quel
davit di bronzo . .'. See: Delle nozze di Lorenzo de' Medici con Clarice Orsini nel 1469;
informazione di Piero Parentifiorentino, Florence [1870]. On the later decoration of
this courtyard, see K. LANGEDIJK: 'Baccio Bandinelli's Orpheus: A Political
Message', Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XX [1976], pp.33-52.
2The best overviews of recent scholarship on the David are J. POPE-HENNESSY:
'Donatello's Bronze David', Scritti di storia dell'arte in onore di Federico Zeri, Milan
[1984], pp. 122-27; F. AMES-LEWIS: 'Donatello's bronze "David" and the Palazzo :
Medici Courtyard', Renaissance Studies, III [1989], pp.235-51; and v. HERZNER: : : ..................,..:....; ...:.1^i"'i ;-:,<,:
'David Florentinus II. Der Bronze-David Donatellos im Bargello', Jahrbuch der :::: :: :;; . . -:: . .. .
Berliner Museen, XXIV [1982], pp.63-142. See also H.w. JANSON: The Sculpture of: :- -
Donatello, Princeton, N.J., 2nd ed. [1963], pp.77-86.
orence).
3Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana MS 660, fol.85r. For the Judith inscription, 1. David by Donatello. Bronze, 159 cm. high. (Museo Nazionale
see JANSON, op.cit. above, pp.198-205; v. HERZNER: 'Die "Judith" der Medici',
Zeitschriftfir Kunstgeschichte, XLII [1980], pp.139-80; and A. NATALI: 'Exemplum
salutis publicae', Donatello e il Restauro della Giuditta, ed. L. DOLCINI, Florence
[1988], pp. 19-32.

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 DONATELLO S DAVID AND THE MEDICI

2. Detail offol.85r, MS 660. (Bibliotheca Riccardiana, Florence).

(The victor is whoever defends the fatherland. God suggests that this manuscript was written before Piero's
crushes the wrath of an enormous foe. Behold! a boy death in December 1469.6
overcame a great tyrant. Conquer, o citizensl As a reference to the Dasid the manuscript may thus
Kingdoms fall through luxury, cities rise through antedate the marriage description by several years. As for
virtues. Behold the neck of pride severed by the hand of the 7udith and Holofernes (Fig.3), although that statue ap-
humility. ) pears to have been at the palace in 1464 when Cosimo
died,7 there was no conclusive evidence for it being in the
The fifteenth-century manuscript in which these texts occur garden, until 1495, when it was removed to the Palazzo
contains orations, eulogies, and other items of a humanist Vecchio, after the Medici expulsion.8 Thanks to the Ric-
nature, all carefully copied on vellum by a single hand.4 cardiana manuscript, Donatello's 3adith now appears to
The inscriptions themselves are part of a four-page section have been in the garden of the Medici Palace on the Via
which contains the epitaphs of famous menn including Larga as early as 1466-69.9
Boccaccio and Leonardo Bruni, as well as other inscriptions The previously unknown inscription on the base of the
similar to those on the Xudith and Dasid. Internal evidence Davidl? is found) with identical wording, in another, later
allows the manuscript to be dated between 1466 and 1469, manuscript, in the Biblioteca Laurenziana, probably from
the latest dateable item being the epitaph from Antonio the 1470s or 1480s, where it is repeated exactly; here the
Rossellino's tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal in S. Miniato heading reads: Sub imagine enea David puer super columna in
al Monte, which was completed early in 1466. 5 The location medio aree domus Laurentij Petri de Medicis. 1 1 The inscription
of the David, stipulated in the heading as in the house of confirms that the subject of Donatello's statue was indeed
Piero de' Medici rather than that of Cosimo or Lorenzo, David: 'En puer grandem domait tiramnum' (;Behold, a boy

4They include Poggio Bracciolini's 'De nobalitate' Matteo Palmieri's oration on quoted Judith inscription, Fonzio wrote: 'In columnis sub iadith in aula medicen'.
the crowning of Carlo Marsuppini with the laurel, and Cristoforo Landini's See JANSON, op.cil?. at note 2 above, p.l98. HERZNER, loc.cit. at note 3 above
funeral oration for Neri Capponi. Although the coat of arms on the opening pp.l39-80 has argued that the marginal note should read 'in area medicea' and
page has been scratched out, it is possible to discern that the shield was divided refers to the garden. This is unlikely; see the following paragraph in the text.
in half diagonally, with a gold lion on the blue half and vice versa. 8'. . . ffudit, que est in orto disti palatii Pieri de Medicis . . .'. The Deliberazione of the
5F. HARTT, G. CORTI and c. KENNEDY: The Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal, 1434- Signoria of 9th October 1495 regarding items to be taken from the Medici
1459, at San Miniato al Monte in Florence, Philadelphia [ 1964], p.53. Palace is published in E. MUNTZ: Les (Collections des Medicis au XVe Siecle, Paris and
6The manuscript does not include the text of a second inscription on the base of London [ 1888], p. 103. The ffudith and Holofernes was set up on the ringhiera of the
the jfudith and Holothernes: 'Salus public. Petrus Medices Cos. Fi. Libertati simul et Palazzo Vecchio on 21st December 1495; see L. LANDUCCI: Diario Fiorentino dal
fortitudini hanc mulieris statuam quo cives invicto constantique animo ad rem pub. [se?] 1450 al 1516, edited by I. DEL BADIA, Florence [ 1883], p. 121.
redderent dedicavit' ('The salvation of the state. Piero de' Medici son of Cosimo 9Another notice, previously unpublished, which also places the statue in the
dedicated this statue of a woman both to liberty and to fortitude, whereby the Medici garden) from the latter part of the fifteenth century, is in the Biblioteca
citizens with unvanquished and constant heart might return to the republic), Riccardiana in Florence, MS 907, fol.l68v (175v, mod. num.). It reads: 'Hi
which first appeared in L. PASSERINI S Notizie (see A. ADEMOLLO: Marietta de Ricci versus sunt scripti forentie in orto Cosmi MediciilRegna cadunt luxu: surgunt virtutibus
. . ., Florence [1845], Vol.I, p.758, note 39). My thanks to Nicolai Rubinstein urbeslCesa 7vides humili colla superba manu.' A later hand wrote 'corte' over the word
for this translation of the inscription; earlier, less satisfactory attempts can be 'orto' in the heading.
seen in M. GREENHALGH: Donatello and his Sources, New York [1982l, p.181 and I?GREENHALGH (ot.cit. at note 6 above, p. 176) had suggested that such an
JANSON, op.cit. at note 2 above, p. 198. The authenticity of this epigraph has not inscription for the David might have existed. JANSON, on the other hand,
been questioned, largely because an inscription on the later base for this statue, reasoned that if such an inscription had existed, it would be as familiar to art
made after its removal to the Palazzo Vecchio in 1495, seems to refer ironically historians as are those from the 3udith and Holofernes ('La signification politique
to it: 'Exemplum. Sal. Pub. Cives. Pos. MCGCCXCV'. An echo of the David inscrip- du David en bronze de Donatello', Revue de l'Art, XXXIX [l978], p.34).
tion as well is discernible in the Passerini inscription's reference to the invincible I'Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Acquisti e Doni 82, fol.32r. In the margin
spirit of the citizens. the writer refers the reader to another page for further, similar inscriptions:
7Sometime before 1492, Bartolomeo Fonzio copied a letter of condolence from CRequire alia ibidem etigrammata infra 238.' This portion of the manuscript has not
Francesco of Padua to Piero de' Medici on the death of Cosimo in August 1464 been located. The use of the term 'in medio aree' brings to mind HERZNER3S
in which the Judith inscription, 'Regna cadunt . . .', figures as part of the text: argument; see note 7 above.
Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 907> fol.l43r. In the margin, next to the

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 DONATELLO'S 'DAVID' AND THE MEDICI

overcame the mighty tyrant'). These two sources, together

with the reference to the statue as David in June 1469,
make it very unlikely that the bronze represents any other
subject. 12
The inscription is a Sapphic verse, a form frequently
found in Greek and Latin poetry and consisting of three
lines of eleven syllables apiece in a distinctive metre, with
a brief conclusion of five syllables. Poetic inscriptions are
characteristic of the first half of the Quattrocento; it is not
until the second half of the century that more classicising
prose inscriptions were favoured.13 The opening line of
the verse pronounces that whoever defends the fatherland
is a victor. The second and third lines describe God's
assistance (present tense) to the righteous in the defeat of
a great enemy, as was (past tense) the case of the boy who
slew the tyrant. The refrain returns to the present tense
and exhorts the citizens to victory. The theme of a triumph
over a mighty enemy and the references to the citizens of
Florence as participants in a struggle assume their most
natural place in the context of a military conflict.
While the author of the inscription and his literary
sources are as yet unknown, the text itself closely resembles
an unpublished poem in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence
by Francesco Filelfo, the restless and combative humanist
scholar from Tolentino (see the Appendix, below). Each
of Filelfo's twenty-four verses is in the Sapphic mode and
concludes with the words 'Vincitefortes' ('Conquer, o strong
ones!'). In the poem, Filelfo addresses by name Cosimo
de' Medici and his younger brother Lorenzo, who had
once been his patrons and supporters. He describes the
Medici triumphantly entering the city and asks, rather
forlornly, why they do not return his greeting. He concludes
by excusing himself of some misdeed and affirming the
happy nature of the occasion.
At the end of the poem appear a date and a location:
10th November Florence. No year is given but Filelfo's
account of the Medici's return and their chilly response to
his attempts at reconciliation (see especially stanza 21)
coincides with the events of autumn 1434 when the Medici's
year-long exile was concluded with their repatriation by a
new and amicable Signoria. 4 In 1429 Filelfo had come to
Florence with Medici support to teach at the University,
but after 1431 their friendship had cooled so much that in
1433-34 he penned attacks on the exiled family which
were not only vicious but widely regarded as obscene.15
When, on 3rd November, 1434, a pro-Medici special
council, or Balia, banished Rinaldo degli Albizzi and his
accomplices, Filelfo tardily recognised his own situation 3. Judith and Holofernes, by Donatello. Bronze, 236 cm. high. (Palazzo Vecchio,
Florence).
in Florence as at the least precarious, and this, it would
appear, prompted his conciliatory poem.16
Filelfo's efforts to win over his former Medici sponsors
evidently failed. He abandoned Florence and his prospects Florence, only to die that July. It should be noted that
there in late 1434 or early 1435. Although he made re- after 1434, Filelfo was never again in Florence during a
peated requests to return to the city, it was more than forty November, the month given at the end of the poem.
years later, in the spring of 1481, before he again entered What is the relationship between the David inscription

12A. PARRONCHI suggested that the statue portrays Mercury ('Mercurio e non Archivio storico italiano ser.4, X [1882], pp.57-169; N. RUBINSTEIN: II governo di
David', in Donatello e ilpotere, Bologna [1980], pp. 101-15). See also POPE-HENNESSY,
Firenze sotto i Medici (1434-94), Florence [1971], pp.3-5; and D. KENT: The Rise of
who agrees with Parronchi, and AMES-LEWIS, who argues that the identification the Medici, New York [1978].
of the statue should remain that of David (both cited at note 2 above). '5See G. ZIPPEL: 'Filelfo a Firenze', in Storia e cultura del Rinascimento italiano, ed.
13I. KAJANTO: Classical and Christian. Studies in the Latin Epitaphs of Medieval and
G. ZIPPEL, Padua [1979, orig. publ. 1899], pp.236-40; and D. ROBIN: 'A Reassess-
Renaissance Rome, Helsinki [1980], p.20. ment of the Character of Francesco Filelfo (1398-1481)', Renaissance Quarterly,
'4My thanks to Jonathon Davies and Arthur Field for discussing Filelfo with XXXVI [1983], pp.202-24, esp. 214-24.
me. For the return of the Medici, see A. GELLI: 'L'esilio di Cosimo de' Medici', '6For those exiled, see ASF, Balie 25, fols.55r-58v.

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 DONATELLO S 'DAVID' AND THE MEDICI

5. Detail of Fig. 1.

after 1434 and the humanist's almost life-long e

Florence. It could be argued that the inscription
poem were inspired independently by a source t
or as yet unrecognised. However, the hypoth
substantiated by historical and art-historical
that Filelfo based his poem of 1434 on the David i
adapting its form and character to his purpose. I
so, then the inscription on the base, and conseq
statue it supported, must already have existed i
Horst Janson always held the bronze David to
early in Donatello's career, his conclusions being
stylistic similarities between the David and t
putti Donatello made for the baptismal font
1429.18 In an article of 1976, he put the Dav
historical
4. David, by Donatello. Marble, 191 cm. high. (Museo Nazionale, context of the conflict between Florence and the
Florence).

Visconti of Milan, which was particularly fierce in the

mid-1420s.19 Citing illustrations in the Visconti Hours, he
and Filelfo's poem, which share the Sapphic suggested that the
verse form, a distinctive winged helmet of the Goliath
triumphant theme, and the almost identical, and adistinctive
separately cast biscia, showing a serpent devouring a
youth,
refrains 'Vincite cives' and 'Vincite fortes'?17 One which he believed to have been originally held in
possibility,
that the inscription was inspired by the poem, an opening
cannotin the
be helmet but now lost, were clear references
sustained in view ofFilelfo's unpopularity with to the
theVisconti
Medici (Fig.5).20 He concluded that the bronze

7 Filelfo wrote other poems in the Sapphic mode: see G. BENADUCCI:

19JANSON, 'Contribuito
loc.cit. at note 10 above, pp.35-36.
alla bibliografia di F. Filelfo', Atti e memorie della r. deputazione 20David's
di storiahat also has
patria peran
le opening for the insertion of an ornament. Similar
province delle Marche, V [1901], p.505, no. 12-15. removable attributes, a sword and a helmet, once adorned Donatello's St George
at Orsanmichele
'1JANSON, op.cit. at note 2 above, first proposed the date 1430-32 for the(JANSON,
statue. op.cit. at note 2 above, p.26).
Donatello would have been in his early to mid-forties at this time.

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 DONATELLO'S 'DAVID' AND THE MEDICI

6. Courtyard of the Medici Palace, Florence.

David was made in 1423-28 for the Florentinedimicantibus

government,etiam adversus terribilissimos hostes deus praestat
the Signoria.21 auxilium').24 Earlier evidence could place this inscription
I believe Janson to have been almost entirely correct:
with the statue only in the late sixteenth century.25
Donatello created the David early in his careerAt theand
samethetime, the war with the Visconti of Milan,
statue did refer to the Milanese conflict, but it was made
which had defined Florence's foreign relations since the
for the Medici, not the Signoria. In March and April
beginning of the Quattrocento, appeared to conclude at
1428, Cosimo de' Medici was elected to serve last,awhen
term as
in April 1428 the peace treaty of Ferrara was
Prior, a position that required his continual signed between
habitation at Milan on one side and Florence, allied
the Palazzo Vecchio during those two months.22 While
with Venice, on the other.26 The man responsible for this
there, he frequently saw Donatello's marble significant
David, whichdiplomatic feat was the venerable statesman,
had been carved for the cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore in Averardo di Francesco de' Medici, Cosimo's paternal
1408 and was moved to the Palazzo Vecchio in 1416 uncle.
where it was set up in the sala grande (Fig.4).23
It Recent
is proposed here that the bronze David was com-
scholarship shows that the marble David was already
missioned in 1428 or shortly thereafter by the Medici,
probably by Cosimo, to celebrate the family's role in the
accompanied by this inscription in the early Quattrocento:
'To those who fight strongly for the fatherlanddefeat of the imperialistic Visconti.27 Such a David, with
God lends
its communal associations and inscription, would have
aid even against the most terrible foes' ('Pro patriafortiter

2'The information presented here regarding an early association by between

Donatello withthethe Medici, particularly Cosimo. See Alberto Advogadri's De
bronze David and the Medici renders JANSON'S contention (loc.cit. at note
religione ... of c.10
1455, in which, in the portion of the poem on the Medici Palace,
above, p.37) that the statue was originally a communal commission we read ofand a 'god
was with nude limbs, his eyes covered, standing in the middle of
given to or sold to the Medici after the war was won, probably theafter
atrium'; cited in I. HYMAN: Fifteenth century Florentine Studies. The Palazzo
1444,
untenable. Medici and a Ledgerfor the Church of San Lorenzo, New York and London [1977],
22ASF, Archivio delle Tratte 60, fol.43r. Cosimo was a prior earlier in Marchpp.210-11. On the manuscript in the Laurenziana, Plut.54, 10, which contains
this poem and other paneagyrics on Cosimo, see A. BROWN: 'A Humanist Portrait
and April 1415/16 (ibid., fol.41v). He was gonfaloniere in January and February
1434/35 (fol.43v) and prior again inJanuary and February 1438/39 (fol.44r).of Cosimo de' Medici', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXIV
23 See JANSON, op.cit. at note 2 above, pp.3-12. [ 1961 ], pp. 186ff. VASARI associates the statue with Cosimo: 'Stava gia questa statua
24My thanks to MONICA DONATO of the Scuola Normale of Pisa for sharing with nel cortile di casa Medici e per l'esilio di Cosimo in detto luogofu portata', (G. VASARI: Le
me her article on Donatello's marble David: 'Hercules and David in the decor- vite de' piu eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. G. MILANESI, Florence [1906],
ation of the Palazzo Vecchio: manuscript evidence', Journal of the Warburg and II, p.406). This passage has been considered as a mistake on Vasari's part, i.e.
Courtauld Institutes, LIV [1991], pp.83-98, esp.p.91. that he confused Cosimo's exile in 1433-34 with the expulsion of the Medici in
25L. SCHRADER: Monumentorum Italiae... libri quattuor, Helmstadt [1592], fol.78v. 1494. FRANCIS AMES-LEWIS has opined that the statue is to be associated with
Piero de' Medici: ('Art History or Stilkritik? Donatello's Bronze David reconsidered,'
26 H. BARON: The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance. Civic Humanism and Republican
Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny, Princeton [1955], passim. Art History, II [1979], pp.141-43.
27 Evidence in Quattrocento poetry also associates the statue of the bronze David

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 DONATELLO S 'DAVID AND THE MEDICI

been inspired by Donatello's marble statue in the Palazzo

Vecchio, a sculpture with which Cosimo had regular con-
tact during this dramatic juncture in Florentine history.
Then, later, in autumn 1434, the inscription on the base of
the statue served as a model for Filelfo's poem to the Medici
returning from exile. Only if the Medici owned the statue
at this early date would the poem's implicit reference to
the David inscription carry the flattering tone so vital to
the humanist's purpose of reconciliation.
Other evidence supports this date of c. 1428-30 for the
bronze David.28 In 1430, Donatello began to travel inter-
mittently to Rome; he is documented there in September
1430 and in 1432-33. At all events, we may suppose that
the statue was set up with its inscription by autumn 1433
when the Medici left Florence for what would be a year-
long exile. If it was begun in 1428 and completed by 1430,
this would explain the absence of any reference to it in the
tax records of the parties concerned in 1427, 1430 or
thereafter.29
As a Medici commission, the bronze David and its in-
scribed base would have been housed in the old Medici
palace on the Via Larga, and the visual exigencies of the
statue and its base would have been related to that setting,
long lost but now slowly being reconstructed.30 This statue,
clearly intended for close viewing as the detail on the
helmet of the Goliath demonstrates, could even perhaps
have stood in the sala grande of the old palace, a location
comparable to that of Donatello's marble David in the
Palazzo Vecchio, among the other uomini famosi painted
by Bicci di Lorenzo.31 Quite apart from the obvious
aspirations to power implied by the commission, what is
fascinating, and still not fully described or understood,
7. Column with base. i
are the circumstances in which a private citizen could
Florence, fifteenth
assume communal symbols in Republican Florence before century. White and
the mid-Quattrocento. green marble, i
145.7 cm. high.
In the 1450s, the bronze David became the centrepiece (Victoria and Albert
for the new Medici Palace, the decorative programme of London).
Museum,
which included Donatello's Judith and Holofernes in the
have been the fledgling artist's assignment simply to a
garden and the roundels in the frieze of the palace court-
yard (Fig.6).32 The David must have retained at least a
the David's original base to the statue's new surroundi
by
portion of its original inscribed base in its new setting incombining the old support- which was probably a
the courtyard of the new palace, since, as we have columnseen, as the David itself bears witness to a support that is
the inscription was transcribed twice in the latter halfcircular
of in section - with a broad, highly decorated lower
the Quattrocento. If part, or all, of the original base section.
was An extant support similar to that described above
can be found at the Victoria and Albert Museum in
retained in the new palace, how do we account for Vasari's
description of a support with harpies and vine tendrils,London (Fig.7): the green and white marble column, wh
made by Desiderio da Settignano in his youth?33 Itrises may from a white marble base adorned with dolphins,

28SeeJANSON, op.cit. at note 2 above, p.66. the Goliath does not seem to have been derived from the same antique cameo
29The bronze 'Casket of the three Saints' by Lorenzo Ghiberti, nowthat
in the
served as the model for the roundel in the Medici Palace courtyard. AMES-
Bargello, Florence, commissioned by Cosimo and Lorenzo de' Medici for
LEWISthebased a later dating for the David on the supposition that the two are
modelled after the same cameo; loc.cit. at note 27 above, pp.143-47. See also
monastery church of S. Maria degli Angeli is dated by means of a catasto
record; R. KRAUTHEIMER: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Princeton [1980], pp. 138-39. GREENHALGH; op.cit. at note 6 above, p. 173. On the models for the roundels and
300n the old Medici palace, see H. SAALMAN and P. MATTOX: 'The Firsttheir Medici
iconographic scheme in the Medici courtyard, see u. WEBSTER and E. SIMON:
'Die Reliefmedaillons im Hofe des Palazzo Medici in Florenz', f7ahrbuch der
Palace', Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XLIV [1985], pp.329-45
and D. CARL: 'La casa vecchia dei Medici e il suo giardino', in II PalazzoBerliner
Medici Museen, VII [1965], pp. 15-91.
Riccardi, ed. G. CHERUBINI and G. FANELLI, Florence [1990], pp.28-43. 33vASARI ed.cit. at note 27 above, Vol. III, p.108. Desiderio would have been
31 See VASARI ed.cit. at note 27 above Vol. II, p.50; and M. WACKERNAGEL: about
The20 years old in the late 1450s. The most complete discussion of the base is
in AMES-LEWIS,
World of the Florentine Renaissance Artist, Princeton [ 1980] p. 147. I am grateful to loc.cit. at note 2 above. Bronze tendrils of ivy can be found on the
Philip Mattox of Yale University for our fruitful discussions about the marble
casa table over the tomb of Cosimo's father and mother, Giovanni Bicci and
vecchia and the spatial organisation of its interior, one of the themes in hisPiccarda
forth- de' Medici, in the Old Sacristy in S. Lorenzo, Florence, which was
coming Ph.D. dissertation, The Domestic Chapel in the Renaissance, 1400-1600. carved by Buggiano, Brunelleschi's adopted son, in c. 1430.
32H. KAUFFMANN: Donatello, Berlin [1935]. The triumphal scene on the helmet of

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 DONATELLO S 'DAVIDI AND THE MEDICI

Quicquid et gessit populus senatus.

probably held a statue.34 The relief carvings of feathered,
Quicquid et sanxit stetit et tabellis.
diamond rings and poppy heads, link this base with theMutius mecum revocatur omne.

Medici and, possibly, the Rucellai; it was perhaps made Vincite fortes.
for the wedding of Bernardo di Giovanni Rucellai and Qui fidem solvi potuisse credat,
Piero de' Medici's daughter Nannina in 1466. Mutuam siguis dedit ipse nunquam
Recent scholarship has sought to overturn Janson's Alter asensum nova iura mergunt.
Vincite fortes.
early dating of Donatello's bronze David, overlooking his
stylistic comparisons and his discussion of historic context
Cuius heu iusti fidei putemus.
and entertaining a date for the statue toward the mid-
Si fides tante perit urbis usquam

Quattrocento. The evidence presented here upholds Posse iam credi superi cavete.
anVincite fortes.
early date of 1428-30 for the statue and demonstrates the
validity of stylistic evidence in establishing the chronology
Quisque miratur malefacta damnaque
Fere opem nemo miseros iuvare
of this early renaissance artist. What is more, the statue's
Nemo soliti didicit sub aura.
precise political meaning in the Quattrocento is explicated Vincite fortes.
through its accompanying inscription, presented here, and
Quenque tan dure miserae ferentis,
suggests an association with the Medici from its very
Quisque vir iustus dolet, at dolenti
inception. Nemo succurrit superate clari.
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Vincite fortes.

Ille simul nunquam miser esse possit.

Clara chui virtus meliora lustrat.
Astra vos fontes miseri dolendi.
34j. POPE-HENNESY: Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum,
London [1964], I, no.182 on p.200; III, fig.194. The three dowel holes at theVincite fortes.

top of the column might once have secured a statue. J.C. Robinson acquired the
piece from a Salviati villa near Florence in 1882. Turpe rem nunquam facimus subire.
Utilem possit penitus medullis.
Estuat vobis male sana pestis.
Vincite fortes.

Non Athenarum inperio parare.

Ille vir iustus maris omne lati,
Ius malas quondam voluit partes.
Vincite fortes.

Hostibus sevis sua ferre iura

Vestra ne mater dubitavit utroque.
Appendix Roma divicti caput orbis alti.
Vincite fortes.

Francesco Filelfo's poem to the Medici

Nemo consurget patriis daturus
(Florence Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magl. VII, 1025, fols. lr-2r. There are
some problems of punctuation which remain unresolved.) Legibus robur timet omnis ultor.
Nemo vir iustus reprobis repugnet
Vincite fortes.
fol. Ir: 'Francisci Philelfi'
Nonne Laurenti Medices obibis,
Vincite et celsis titulis triumphos Munus insignis pietate civis,
Invide claris agitate turbe. Nonne consurgens reprobos repelles?
Vincite fortes.
Templa frondenti redemite lauro.
Vincite fortes.
Surge Laurenti, quid amicus heres,
Gloriam vobis tribuunt pe(re)nnem. Quid meam iustus Medice patronus,
Deferens causam renuis favorem.
Jura que multo violatis estu.
Vincite fortes.
Palma sit priscas superasse leges.
Vincite fortes.
Cosme, te semper canimus virorum
Non enim quisquam faciat Philelfum Optimum, qui sunt, fueruntque dudum
Motus iniustus furor, ira, terror Qui que venturis aderunt in annis
Vincite fortes.
Certa si pestis maneat minorem.
Vincite fortes.
Cosme cunctaris nec amice surgis,
Huic enim vires animus ministrat. Cosme num frustra petimus salutem,
Crescit adversis probitate ducit. Cosme num ventos precibus vocamus
Vincite fortes.
Esse nil cuiquam magis expetendum.
Vincite fortes.
Non minus peccat pro[h]ibere crimem [sic]
Nec gubernator melior putatur. Qui valens mussat pro[h]ibere quam qui
Qui ratem portu regit in sereno. Ditus insentem premit et fatigat.
Vincite fortes.
Ipsa ne virtus requieta fulget.
Vincite fortes.
Inprobi multum valet iste livor,
Vestra successum rabies habere
Vincite nomen [sic] patrie verendum.
Quo vel in primis coluisse fertur. Gessit et preda patria triunfat.
Publice sanctas fidei tabellas. Vincite fortes.
Vincite fortes.
Vincite et letas celebrate ponpas,
Pacter frangantur gemit ipsa viris Vincite et divum date tura templis,
Vincite et festas choreas Inite
Sacra maiestas pietas et omne
Vincite fortes vel leti
Fas simul deflet, decus omne luget
Vincite fortes. Florentie IIII Idus novenbris

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