Donatello (1445~53), height 3.70m, bronze
Donatello's huge equestrian portrait of the mercenary captain
Gattamelata revives one of the grandest and most technically ambitious forms of ancient sculpture - the monumental equestrian
bronze. It emulates the antique equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius
in Rome, which had survived because it was thought to show
the Christian emperor Constantine. Donatello's horse is directly
adapted from one of the four ancient gilded horses on the facade
of San Marco in Venice.
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