Bruce Boucher, ed. Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova; & Francesco Caglioti. Donatello e i Medici: Storia della David e della Giuditta.

Bruce Boucher, ed. Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. xii + 312 pp. + 80 color and 120 b/w pls. index, illus, bibl. $75. ISBN: 0-300-09080-3.

Francesco Caglioti. Donatello e i Medici: Storia della David e della Giuditta. (Fondazione Carlo Marchi: Studi, 14.) Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2000. xxvi + 530 pp. + 1 color pl. index, append. 144.61 [euro]. ISBN: 88-222-4941-0.

A reviewer in 1900 might reasonably have presumed that there were few possibilities for new publications in the field of Italian Renaissance art; surveys on the major centers and monographs devoted to the "masters" were readily available. But art history has changed dramatically in the last century, and both publications reviewed here would have seemed improbable in 1900. Earth and Fire catalogues an international exhibition of works in terracotta, a medium that a century ago would have seemed unimportant, while Donatello e i Medici proves that a two-volume tome can be devoted to only two works.

The scholarly exhibition catalogue has been increasingly recognized for its ability to explore an idea without the restrictions of the monograph, which demands a comprehensive investigation of a circumscribed theme. Perhaps because exhibitions require confrontation with the public, their catalogues are more likely to pose problematic questions than the traditional monograph.

Earth and Fire catalogues an exhibition of more than sixty works in terracotta (in addition to drawings and related works in plaster, marble, porcelain, and bronze) in Houston and London. Entries raise problems posed by each object (many of which were conserved for the exhibition), while a series of essays discuss selected issues: "Italian Renaissance Terracotta: Artistic Revival or Technological Innovation?" (Bruce Boucher), "Michelangelo: The Master Modeler" (Jeannine O'Grody), "Base or Noble Material? Clay Sculpture in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Italy" (Maria Giulia Barberini), "Bernini's Models for the Angels of the Ponte Sant'Angelo in Rome" (Bruce Boucher), "Canova's Work in Clay" (Hugh Honour), and "The Making of Terracotta Sculpture: Techniques and Observations" (Charlotte Hubbard and Peta Motture). The absence of a comprehensive introductory essay tracing the development over the five centuries encompassed in the exhibition reveals the preliminary state of research on terracotta sculpture.

The success of the volume is largely due to the breadth of the investigation and the openness with which avenues for future research are confronted. The exhibition exposed the possibilities of terracotta by bringing together competition submissions, models for patrons, preliminary sketches, models to aid in workshop production, and finished works, some of which preserve their original polychromy, as well as study copies after well-known works, such as the Times of Day by Michelangelo. The opening essay rightly emphasizes that the development of terracotta sculpture is related to architectural and artisan traditions in glazed brickwork and ceramics. In general the essays trace terracotta's changing reputation as a medium and provide evidence about its role in workshop organization and production. Surviving examples and documentation reveal the extent and quality of polychromy within the terracotta tradition, a reminder of the importance of color within the broader sculptural tradition during these centuries, especially given the continuing prejudice for "pure" materials that is a legacy of the neoclassical and modern movements.

The contributions made in these essays and catalogue entries are so important that they encourage our consideration of a new kind of publication: a catalogue of a conjectural exhibition on a selected theme. No museum could mount an exhibition of the major examples of Italian panel and fresco painting between 1285 and 1305, for example, or of all the important examples of neoclassical sculpture before 1820, but a volume of essays and catalogue entries on such a focused topic could serve an important purpose.

Earth and Fire is published in both hardcover and paperback editions and, as has become customary at Yale University Press, the presentation is large in scale with high-quality color plates and many helpful color details. The index is surprisingly limited, however (it does not include references to works of art by location, for example, and it arbitrarily includes references to some modern scholars but not all), and the book could have used a more careful editing. A more serious complaint is the omission of some earlier scholarship in the discussion, notes, and bibliography; this is unfortunate in a volume that will surely become a foundation for future research in the field.

No such problems mar Donatello e i Medici, a two-volume set that to the best of my knowledge considers every issue or suggestion ever made concerning the bronze David and Judith groups. Comprehensiveness in coverage and presentation is the standard; we are indebted to Olschki Editore and the Fondazione Marchi for supporting publication on this scale. The index, for example, is seventy-one pages long, while six appendices list related early texts and documents and other information. On many pages the footnotes occupy more space than the text. The numerous illustrations include documents, several views of the David from below (as the figure would originally have been viewed), a reconstruction of the David's original base, the David and this base viewed in situ, and many comparanda.

That Donatello's bronze David and Judith are worthy of such extended attention is unquestioned: their dates, patrons, functions, iconographic sources, and original locations have all long been debated. Caglioti publishes a number of new sources, including definitive versions of the epigrams that were attached to the David and Judith, as well as related epigrams for a Priapus once in the Medici Garden and for the architrave of the Medici Palace Chapel.

Here it is only possible to summarize Caglioti's main conclusions and some of the evidence on which they are based. Caglioti dates the David to ca. 1435-40, in part because of stylistic similarities to the Jacquemart-Andrd Spiritelli, which he ascribes to Donatello (with a collaborator) in ca. 1436-38. He identifies the patron of the Davidas Cosimo il Vecchio and cites the original location as the Medici "Casa Vecchia" on Via Larga, perhaps in the room painted with a cycle of Uomini famosi. Caglioti reconstructs the base designed by Desiderio da Settignano when the Davidwas moved to the Palazzo Medici and identifies two battered heads of harpies as surviving fragments.

Caglioti dates the placement of the Judith in the Medici Palace garden to the early months of 1464, but argues that the group was already begun in 1457. He identifies the patron as Piero il Gottoso and agrees with most modern scholarship that its original location was the Medici Palace garden. He argues that it was never intended to function as a fountain and that the base in use today, with some modification, is Donatello's original.

Caglioti examines the David and Judith as examples of column sculptures, an ancient tradition revived by the Florentine humanists. He relates their iconography to politicized themes in other works commissioned and owned by the Medici, such as Marsyas and Hercules. The book also includes a discussion of the history of the confiscation of the two works by the Signoria and their later placement within a public civic context.

Earth and Fire and Donatello e i Medici represent two extremes within the field. While the exhibition catalogue spans five centuries and represents a foundation for future scholarship, Donatello e i Medici demonstrates that an in-depth examination on two problematic works by a well-studied artist can be the focus of lengthy study. Future publications on terracotta sculpture will surely be forthcoming, but it is hard to imagine another monograph devoted to the David and/or Judith before 2100. Like my hypothetical reviewer writing in 1900, however, I could well be wrong.

DAVID G. WILKINS

University of Pittsburgh