Donatello Dies in Florence

1466

The sculptor who had revived ancient form while pushing it toward unbearable expressiveness died an old man, carving a bronze pulpit with almost expressionist violence. He asked to be buried near Cosimo de Medici, whom he had outlived by two years. Florentine sculpture would not equal him until Michelangelo. His late works, including the harrowing wooden Magdalene, pushed sculpture toward an emotional intensity anticipating Expressionism by five centuries.