The Donatello’s David restored in Florence

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from 29th November 2008 at 08:15 a.m. to 23rd November 2009 at 1:50 p.m.

Donatello’s David

On November 29th, 2008 Donatello’s restored David was returned to public view at the Bargello National Museum in Florence.

The restoration was carried out in a worksite open to the public in the Donatello Room of the Bargello National Museum (where the work has been on display since 1887), with the funding of the Civil Defence Department of the Prime Minister’s Office, by agreement with the Tuscan Regional Council, the Ministry for the Cultural Heritage and Activities and the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Firenze. The restoration was designed to mark the 40th anniversary of the Florence flood (4 November 1966).

Donatello’s bronze David (1386-1466) is one of the most famous and greatly admired works of the entire fifteenth century, but there is no documentary evidence regarding its execution. It is specifically recorded for the first time in the centre of the courtyard of Palazzo Medici only in 1469.
Almost certainly commissioned by Cosimo il Vecchio and possibly initially housed in the “old house” of the Medici, from around 1459 up to 1495 it occupied this place of honour in the new Medici palazzo, which was completed by Michelozzo in 1455.

In view of the silence of the sources, the opinions of scholars apropos the chronology of the work have always been conflicting, oscillating from the late twenties to well beyond the mid-century. The theory that is currently considered most plausible places the David in the years immediately preceding Donatello’s departure for Padua (1443), also in view of the close formal affinity with other works by the artist datable between the end of the fourth and the start of the fifth decade of the century. Whatever the significance that the artist and the commissioner intended to give to the figure, what Donatello created was a totally original image of the young shepherd-hero of the Bible, protector of the Florentine Republic: an adolescent youth whose unripe nudity alludes to the humility and courage that can defeat pride and brute force.

For at least a century, the David had not undergone any restoration operations, with conservation intervention limited to ordinary maintenance. The importance of the work, the delicacy of the modelling and the presence of vestiges of the original gilding executed using the extremely delicate oil-gilding (missione) technique had up to then made an operation of intensive cleaning appear inopportune. In recent years, however, the new methods employed in the restoration of Renaissance bronzes (with the use of lasers) have made it possible to address intervention on Donatello’s masterpiece with the guarantee of a perfect result. This is now amply demonstrated by the retrieval of the gold, above all on the hair, and even of the chromatic quality of the original patina. The restoration and the scientific discoveries – of both an historic and technical nature – that emerged on the occasion are documented in the lavishly illustrated catalogue, which includes articles by the scholars and specialists who collaborated on the restoration performed at the Bargello National Museum from June 2007 to November 2008.