DONATELLO
(b. ca. 1386, Firenze, d. 1466, Firenze)

Reliquary Bust of St Rossore

1425-27
Guilded bronze, 56 x 61 cm
Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa

In the 1420s Donatello's search for a naturalistic rendering was intensified. He composed the reliquary of St Rossore, an early Christian martyr, in an unusual manner, its conception going far beyond medieval solutions too comparable commissions. Instead of producing a generalized stylisation of the metaphysical dimensions of the relics within, Donatello has chosen to present the individuality of the saint.