Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/483

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The sculptor Donato, called by his contemporaries Donatello, and who subscribes himself thus on some of his works, was born in Florence in the year 1386. He devoted himself to the arts of design and was not only an excellent sculptor and admirabie statuary, but was beside very skilful in works of stucco, well versed in the study of perspective, and highly esteemed as an architect. The productions of Donatello displayed so much grace and excellence, with such correctness of design, that they were considered to resemble the admirable works of the ancient Greeks and Romans more closely than those of any other master had ever done. Nor is it without good reason that he is acknowledged to be the first who conducted the practice of historical composition, in basso-rilievo, into the right path; his works of that kind giving proof of so much thought, power, and facility, that he is at once perceived to have had the true intelligence and mastery of that branch of art, which he exercised with extraordinary success, insomuch that he has not only remained unsurpassed in that style, but has never been equalled by any artist, even down to our own days. Donatello was brought up from early childhood in the