Timothy Champ
Essay Assignment
HUM 156
Part One:
I have decided to write about the famous work of Donatello and his sculpture called “The
Equestrian Statue of Gattameleta”. First a little bit about the creator, Donatello, he was born in
Florence, Italy around 1386, to a wealthy and educated family. He first learned about sculpting
from a goldsmith, then took to becoming unique in his style by creating “larger than life” statues
with a lot of emotion packed into each one. He would create statues that had emotions like no
other statues, showing differing emotions such as suffering, joy, and sorrow. (n.d 2014)
Donatellos greatest work includes a statue of Cosimo de Medici titled “David”, one of his
closest and dearest friends. (n.d 2014) He also created a statue that was requested by a family he
was very close to as well, of a man named Erasmo da Narni titled Gattameleta. This man was a
mercenary and is depicted riding a horse, dressed in battle attire. The horse that the man sits upon
is powerfully built and well defined, you can tell that Donatello was very interested and took
time to study the anatomy of horses at the time. It shows the importance and normality of
creating equestrian statues of kings. Erasmo da Narni is also posed on the statue looking very
stern, as if in battle currently, and is carrying a sword. Narni was a military leader at the current
time and was highly trusted among the Italians in the fifteenth-century. It took Donatello a total
of 10 years to complete and was in bronze and used the traditional method of sculpting in that era
which was the lost wax method. But you have to remember that creating emotions was very
difficult and hadn’t been experimented much due to the difficulty at that time, so for Donatello to
create such a large statue and still introduce that much emotion is very difficult to do, especially
with the lost wax method. (Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata. 2014)
One thing about the statue that you can say caused a little bit of an uproar, was the fact
that statues of men riding horses, or equestrian statues, were normally reserved for kings, or
rulers of a country. It didn’t matter if you were warrior or not. Now Erasmo da Narni, was a great
warrior, but definitely by no means a king or ruler, it was because the family knew Donatello
well, and he was a family friend is why it was created, and many people frowned upon this.
Because this was done, this opened up others to also create sculptures of people without them
being a king or ruler as well. “This created many other equestrian monuments in Italy and
Europe in the following centuries” (n.d)
Part Two:
