There were so many amazing and amazing artists during the Renaissance. Those artists had an impact on us and the artwork we create today. The Renaissance was a period of rebirth of art and literature. He certainly proved it. One of the artists of the Renaissance was Donatello. His artwork influences artists of his era and even today. He created a sense of realism and humanity in his work. Donatello was born in 1386 in Florence, Italy. He also died at the age of 80 in Florence, Italy. Donatello lived a long life and created many masterpieces known to many people. He was an Italian sculptor and was the greatest Florentine sculptor of the Renaissance before Michelangelo. Donatello was also the most influential artist of 15th century Italy. Donatello was a descendant of a branch of the important Bardi family. They founded the powerful banking company, the Company of Bardi. So they had money when Donatello was little. He was raised in a more plebeian tradition than his older contemporary Lorenzo Ghiberti. Donatello was gifted with humanistic intuition and qualities of will that were highly prized in the early Renaissance. The gifts he had were not very common. Most of the works and statues created by Donatello were made of bronze, stone and wood. The statues he created were life-size and sometimes even larger. His later art was saturated with the spirit of Roman antiquity. Donatello's art was often disturbing due to the level of detail he used, unknown in Italian sculpture. In Donatello's early years, he was initially apprenticed to Ghiberti. In 1403, at the age of just 17, Donatello worked for the master on the bronze reliefs of the First Door of the Baptistery. He therefore left Ghiberti for... half the sheet... ale of expressions such as suffering, joy and pain in the faces and body positions of his figures. In 1415 Donatello completed the marble statue of San Seduto. . John the Evangelist for the Cathedral of Florence. Both of his works displayed a more classical technique. Donatello and his pupils completed eight life-size marble prophets for the niches of the Duomo's bell tower between 1415 and 1435. He then entered into partnership with Michelozzo, a sculptor and architect, in 1436. For many years Donatello worked with Michelozzo. They created the Tomb of Pope John XXll in the Baptistery of Florence and the Tomb of Cardinal Brancacci in S. Angelo A Nilo and Naples. He died of unknown causes on 13 December 1466 in Florence and was buried in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, next to Cosimo de' Medici. An unfinished work was faithfully completed by his pupil Bertoldo di Giovanni.