Home	Andrea del Verrocchio: The Life of Andrea del Verrocchio, Painter, Sculptor, and Architect [1435-1488]
	Donatello also exalted the beauty of the human form. His David is considered the first freshlyinterpreted nude statue since Antiquity, his 'Gattamelata' ( 1453) the century's first equestrian statue in its own right. Comparison with the equestrian portrait of the Swedish Regent Sten Sture -- who is still represented as an altar figure of St George, entirely in the medieval spirit -- shows how revolutionary was Donatello's statue, though the earlier of the two by several years. The Italian Renaissance sculptors glorified the great condottieri in equestrian statues that revived the Classic Roman tradition. Donatello's 'Gattemelata' no longer wears a saint's robes; he is essentially of this world and, with his baton as a Marshal of Venice, is representative of the man of power, whose thoughts and actions are determined by the utmost realism. This element is further developed in the second great equestrian statue of the Quattrocento, Andrea del Verrocchio's 'Colleoni.' Here power has turned to compulsion in the fierce gaze and gesture of the rider; it is further emphasised by the strength he displays in reining in his horse, yet it unites the movement of both man and animal. With Donatello, sculpture began to move out of the orbit of the Church and to assume more secular attributes. His fellow-pioneer Ghiberti's two bronze doors for the baptistery in Florence -- they took him 20 years to complete -- show that his work was still more firmly rooted in the old tradition. But on the second door Ghiberti took advantage of the new discoveries made by the painters, and set the biblical scenes of the fire-gilt bronze reliefs against a landscape with perspective and an architectural background. The connection between sculpture and church architecture, which had existed throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, gradually loosened. Only the interior of the church still provided opportunities -- in the decoration of pulpits or tombs. But secular sculpture grew correspondingly in importance. In addition to portraits busts, thousands of small bronze figures were now made for the houses of wealthy collectors ( Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio).