Donatello a Ferrara

Three extraordinary terracotta fragments, modelled by Donatello around 1450, offer an exceptionally intimate glimpse into the creative process of the supreme Florentine sculptor. The first completes the missing half of a complex Dormitio Virginis (Funeral of the Virgin), until now known only through a fragment discovered in Ferrara in 1916 and stolen a few years later; the other two represent half-length figures, probably Evangelists, one of them headless. Different in scale and degree of relief, the three bozzetti share the same material, technique and a similarly striking freedom of modelling: a few strokes of the tool are enough to create figures, space, movement and the expression of emotion.

 

In this volume Marco Scansani studies the fragments, reconstructs the history of the first known example and attributes the newly discovered terracottas to Donatello, while Aldo Galli reconstructs the artistic context of Ferrara around 1450 and broadens the discussion through an investigation of the practice of the bozzetto in the early fifteenth century. Together, their essays illuminate a still little-known phase of Donatello’s activity in northern Italy, marked by travel, commissions and projects that remained unfinished. The three terracottas thus emerge as exceptional witnesses to the master’s creative process: ideas shaped in clay, perhaps intended for projects that were never brought to completion. 

The volume is divided into five chapters and is also published in full in English.