Save Venice with lead funders Jon & Barbara Landau and Friends of Florence with support from Stacy Simon

Erasmo da Narni, famously known as Gattamelata, began his career as a condottiero (mercenary soldier) around 1400 and quickly rose to prominence as one of the most celebrated military leaders of his era. His service with the Republic of Venice began in February 1434, amid fierce conflict with Milan for control over Lombardy. His reputation reached legendary status in September 1438. Trapped by Milanese forces between Lake Garda and the Alps, Gattamelata led five thousand soldiers across treacherous, snow-covered mountain passes to Verona, saving the Venetian army from disaster. Gattamelata’s daring maneuver was seen as a feat worthy of the ancients, even drawing comparisons to Hannibal’s crossing the Alps. Indeed, this tactically brilliant retreat earned the condottiero a promotion to supreme commander of the Venetian forces, the prestigious Palazzo Corner in Campo San Polo, and admission to the Great Council.

Upon Gattamelata’s death on 9 January 1443, the Venetian Signoria honored him with a state funeral attended by Doge Francesco Foscari himself. Gattamelata was buried in Padua at the Basilica del Santo, in a chapel dedicated to Saint Francis, which was built between 1456 and 1458 by his widow, Giacoma Leonessa. Outside the basilica, on what was then cemetery ground, Gattamelata’s heirs commissioned a magnificent equestrian statue in his honor, created by the renowned Florentine sculptor Donatello. Work on the statue began in 1447, and it was installed in the autumn of 1453. Given the timing of both the chapel’s construction and the installation of the equestrian monument, it is possible—though not certain—that the statue may have initially served as Gattamelata’s tomb, potentially holding his remains within its base until the completion of the funerary chapel in 1458.

The Gattamelata monument is the earliest surviving full-scale equestrian statue cast in bronze since antiquity—a landmark achievement that embodies the Renaissance revival of classical art and ideals. The condottiero stands proudly atop an imposing stone podium, nearly eight meters high, adorned with classical winged genii, two of whom hold a shield that bear Gattamelata’s coat of arms. The podium also features two carved ‘mausoleum doors’—one facing west and closed, the other facing east and ajar—clearly inspired by Roman sarcophagi and imbued with funerary symbolism.

Both Gattamelata and his mount are depicted life-size, forming a bronze ensemble of 36 components, cast at Andrea delle Caldiere’s foundry between May and June of 1447. The horse is shown with its left front leg raised in a calm trot, enhanced by lifelike details such as the folds of skin beneath its neck, its open mouth, and pricked ears. Gattamelata sits on an elaborately decorated saddle adorned with acanthus garlands, putti, and two horsemen derived from the Parthenon’s Panathenaic frieze. He is clad in a pseudo-Classical cuirass hyper-populated with motifs from antiquity, including genii, erotes, winged putti, and Medusa’s head on the breastplate, layered over a short-sleeved tunica and a Roman-style fringed lorica skirt. With a calm, resolute expression, the condottiero holds a silver-gilt baton—a symbol of imperium rooted in ancient Roman tradition—bestowed upon him by Venetian officials following his appointment as supreme commander in 1438.

Traditionally, free-standing bronze statues displayed in public were reserved for the highest secular authorities—sovereigns or emperors. A fitting comparison is the statue of Marcus Aurelius on Rome’s Capitoline Hill, sculpted more than 1200 years earlier. Ancient Roman authors such as Pliny, Livy, and Sallust describe countless examples of this type of bronze equestrian monuments, which, they assert, served to inspire courage and virtue. This tradition of portraying military leaders as exemplar heroes endured into the Renaissance. For example, Giorgio Vasari, the father of art history, described how public images of great men were intended to “fire the minds of their successors with the love of achievement and glory.”

Donatello’s Gattamelata upholds this tradition by presenting an idealized image of a condottiero rather than a realistic likeness of Gattamelata himself, who had died in his seventies, frail after a series of strokes. In fact, some have suggested that Gattamelata’s facial features recall portraits of Roman antiquity, notably that of Julius Caesar. Others believe his face resembles the Beardless Prophet that Donatello carved for Giotto’s campanile in Florence between 1415 and 1418. In either case, Donatello aimed to create an abstract figure—a portrait all’antica—that represented Gattamelata as the archetypal condottiero, a universal symbol of virtue and courage intended to inspire future generations with the example of an ideal military leader. Donatello thus took an unprecedented step: bestowing upon a condottiero—rather than a sovereign or head of state—an honor traditionally reserved for emperors. Seen in this light, the Gattamelata monument was revolutionary, redefining and reinvigorating the genre of equestrian statuary. Donatello was evidently aware of the groundbreaking nature of his work, as he inscribed his own name, rather than that of the sitter, on the podium’s cornice in Roman capitals, a style then newly in vogue: OPVS DONATELLI / FLO[RENTINI].

The statue suffers from ‘bronze disease,’ a form of corrosion that affects copper alloys. In this process, cuprous chloride reacts with water to form hydrochloric acid, which attacks and corrodes the bronze in its turn, thus speeding up the copper’s deterioration. Possibly on account of the difficulties involved in casting an equestrian statue of this size, Donatello split the monument into 36 pieces, thus increasing the structural instability of both the horse and its rider. The base, in trachyte and Istria stone, has also deteriorated due both to its constant exposure to the elements and to the corrosion of the cement mortar applied during an earlier restoration. Studies are in their final stages to determine the best way to preserve the ensemble.

Acting on behalf of the Pontifical Delegation, Nicola Salvioli’s restoration team conducted an initial fact-finding examination of the monument in the spring of 2023. Their close inspection consisted of in-depth examination of the surface both with the naked eye and using a microscope, endoscopies exploring the interior of the bronze, and a photographic campaign. The wealth of data concerning the artist’s technique and the condition of the monument was recorded graphically on 3D models, based on which a set of recapitulatory tables were generated, enabling the team to perform an initial assessment of the current state of Donatello’s masterpiece. This was followed by operational assistance during the diagnostic phases conducted by Padua University’s CIBA (Interdepartmental Archaeological, Architectural and Art Historical [Cultural Assets] Research, Study and Conservation Center) on behalf of the Padua Soprintendenza ABAP, leading to the identification of areas of analysis and the sampling of material for analysis in relation to the monument’s more immediately apparent issues.

Also, in the context of the research currently under way to produce a project for the restoration of the statue, one unquestionably important aspect is to determine the monument’s structural stability. This, in order not only to define its present condition both in a static situation and in the event of an earthquake, but also to identify the precautionary measures to be adopted during the delicate phase involving the transfer of the monument to a protected environment for further analysis prior to its restoration proper. On-site inspection has revealed fragility and signs of age on certain parts of the statue due both to its original construction and subsequent deterioration, and to its manipulation in the past (for example, its removal and replacement in position in wartime). It will be necessary to pay specific attention to such areas when defining the restoration project.

In view of the evidence that has emerged during every stage of the preliminary investigation, the restoration of the equestrian monument to Gattamelata and its base appears not only necessary but essential to ensure the preservation of the work of art for present and future generations.

Donatello (ca. 1386 – 1466)
Equestrian Monument to Gattamelata
1446-1453, bronze, trachyte, and Istrian stone
Podium: height 780 cm; Equestrian sculpture: height 340cm

Baldissini Molli, Giovanna. Erasmo da Narni ‘‘Gattamelata’’ e Donatello. Storia di una statua equestre. Padova: Centro studi Antoniani, 2011

Bergstein, Mary. Donatello’s Gattamelata and Its Humanist Audience. In “Renaissance Quarterly,” 55, 3 (2002): 833-868

Buonanno, Lorenzo G. The Performance of Sculpture in Renaissance Venice. New York and London: Routledge, 2022

Greenhalgh, Michael. Donatello and His Sources. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982

Janson, Horst W. The Sculpture of Donatello. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963

de Jong, Jan L. Portraits of Condottieri. In Karl Enenkel, Betsy de Jong-Carne and Peter Liebregts (eds.). Modelling the Individual. Biography and Portrait in the Renaissance. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopoi, 1998, pp. 75-91

McHam, Sarah Blake. The Eclectic Taste of the Gattamelata Family. In Brigit Blass-Simmen and Stefan Weppelmann (eds.). Padua and Venice: Transcultural Exchange in the Early Modern Age. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 29-40

Menniti Ippolito, Antonio. Erasmo da Narni, detto il Gattamelata. In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 43. Rome: Istituto della enciclopedia italiana, 1993, pp. 46-52. Link to the Article

Schulz, Anne Markham. Il monumento equestre di Erasmo da Narni detto Gattamelata. In Luciano Bertezzano and Girolamo Zampieri (eds.). La Pontificia basilica di Sant’Antonio in Padova. Archeologia, Storia, Arte, Musica. Roma, L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2021, vol. II, pp. 939-951