Architecture and Audience in Donatello's Florentine Reliefs

Donatello confronted the problem of narrative relief throughout his career for varied patrons: public and private, civic and individual, ecclesiastical and secular. Several of these commissions feature prominent architectural settings that have not been cohesively studied by scholars in regard to their expressive meaning. This dissertation argues that Donatello manipulated architecture in his narrative reliefs as a means to imbue further meaning, and that the forms he chose for such purposes were addressed to the specific audiences of his respective works. When comparing his use of architecture in three early Florentine reliefs, created between 1417 and 1434, it becomes clear that Donatello restrained his innovative and disjunctive tendencies when tackling public commissions, only allowing them free rein when working for the Medici within the domestic sphere. I claim that Donatello found his ideal patron in Cosimo de' Medici, and that the sculptor's desire to practice his art free of restraint drove him away from the Florentine public sphere, where his uninhibited style would be less appreciated.