Since I arrived in Europe 2 weeks ago today, it is an embarrassment of riches on which to post! I was just in Pisa before coming to Berlin, and the incredible art found in both cities inspires me!

At the National Museum of San Matteo in Pisa I was delighted to come upon two beautiful Renaissance sculptures by two of my favorite sculptors. Donatello and Michelozzo.

The San Rossore Relliquary bust is a gilded, bronze sculpture from 1424-27 by Donatello. The monks of Ognissanti in Florence acquired the skull of Saint Luxorius (popularly known as San Rossore) in 1422 and 2 years later they commissioned Donatello to create the reliquary to house it.

The casting was done by Jacopo deli Stroza who created it of 4 individual cold-assembled parts. The sculpture was documented as being in Pisa in 1591 and remains there today.

Donatello’s bust seems so much to be a portrait bust rather than the previous medieval tradition of reliquary production in which the hieratic and metaphysical type for which an object of devotion was typically designed. This seems like a realistic Roman-style bust, akin to ancient statues.

And Michelozzo!