Heaven knows what Florence made of Donatello’s David the first time it laid eyes on the 5ft statue. It’s the star exhibit of the city’s new blockbuster exhibition, devoted to the early Renaissance master and dates back to sometime around 1440. Not an era noted for its sexually liberated sculpture.
Yet here he is, butt-naked in glistening bronze, the young biblical hero and symbol of the giant-slaying Florentine Republic, shown not as the standard stiff-necked Braveheart, but something altogether more complex. With pert bottom, firm nipples and smooth glossy skin, the underdog stands with one foot on Goliath’s head and one hand on his own out-thrust hip and looks down from his pedestal with a steady, defiant gaze. “Well, look at me and my androgynous un-muscled arms,” he seems to be saying. “You weren’t expecting this, were you?” Meanwhile, one of the feathers on the dead giant’s helmet curls longingly up David’s inner thigh, echoing — perhaps — a moment of fatal distraction before he died.
Imagine the reactions of the bankers, politicians and mercenary captains who saw it in the Medicis’ Casa Vecchia in the 15th century. They would have been on their way to an audience with Cosimo, the city’s de facto prince. Some who had heard about Donatello’s homosexuality might have understood that he was making a point. As for the rest, their minds must have turned multiple somersaults.
Nearly 600 years later, the mood is less ambiguous. With the opening of Donatello: The Renaissance, Florence has flung its arms round the master of the early Quattrocento and given him a big, proud hug. The Palazzo Strozzi, the city’s most innovative exhibition space, is leading the love-in. The Bargello — home of the bronze David — is not far behind. Together, they’re showing more than 130 works by Donatello and the many artists — including Raphael and Michelangelo — influenced by his early lead.
None can quite match the transgressive power of David, but every one of them reveals what was most human in his subjects. In an age when almost all religious art presented pure, idealised images of divinity, this was provocative enough. No wonder the curator Francesco Caglioti describes its impact as the “Donatello earthquake”.
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Parts of the exhibition are due to travel onwards after it closes on July 31. The first stop is Berlin, followed by the V&A in London in 2023, but David won’t be packing his bags and joining the party. He’s obliged by law to stay put in the Bargello. Besides, exhibition-goers in Berlin and London won’t be able to pace the streets of Donatello’s home town. They won’t turn the corner of the Via dei Tavolini, clutching an ice cream from the Perche No! gelateria, to be confronted by the 14th-century walls of the Orsanmichele. Donatello carved saints, copies of which stand in the niches of this former corn market turned church. Nor will they be able to pay their respects at his tomb in the crypt of the church of San Lorenzo. For content and context, Florence is the only place to see this show.
If that has you thinking, “Let’s go to Tuscany right now,” you’ll find direct flights to the city from three London airports, and loads more to Pisa from across the UK. From there, it’s only an hour by train to central Florence; even quicker in a taxi.
You’ll be rewarded by a lot more than David — even if he is one of the finest evocations of an underdog you’ll see in western art. The thrill of visiting Florence again is itself almost as big. If you ever muscled your way through its pre-pandemic crowds you’ll find that its piazzas and alleyways are now blissfully quiet. Eight days ago, on a Thursday afternoon, even the queue into the Duomo was only ten people long.
“It’s still early in the season,” said Elena Petrioli, who leads private walking tours for guests travelling with the city-break specialist Kirker. “But even so, it’s quieter than usual — especially on weekdays. There are many fewer Americans, and almost no sign yet of Asian tour groups.”
Then she marched me straight into the Piazza della Signoria’s Rivoire café — founded in 1872 — without having to wait for a table. Her pick of its cakes was the magnificent torta fedora, which layers up chocolate, cream and sponge cake on thin mille-feuille pastry. Coupled with an inky black espresso, it was the perfect way to revive my weary feet as I gazed across the piazza towards the riot of sculpture that crowds its southeastern corner. Lions snarl. A Sabine woman is abducted. Michelangelo’s own version of David awaits his confrontation with Goliath (or at least a copy of him does — the original is in the Accademia). None has quite the smouldering power of Donatello’s masterpiece.
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Oltrarno, south of the river, was even quieter. Donatello was born there, but in recent years the former artisan district has been a focal point of the “Noi Quando Si Dorme?” movement, which wondered — amid visitors’ midnight revelry — “When are we ever going to sleep?” Right now, however, the locals can’t have much to complain about. Wandering its alleys in search of dinner was akin to exploring a forgotten Sicilian hill town, albeit one populated by fashionistas and art historians. When I cracked open the Donatello exhibition catalogue at 5eCinque, a chatty, much-loved vegetarian restaurant on the Piazza della Passera, the owner and his staff came by to ask me what I thought of the show.
What also seems new and refreshing in Florence is the sense that art is no longer confined to the long-established museums. Sure, the Uffizi is still unmissable. At this time of year, the sight of the goddess of spring in Botticelli’s Primavera is worth every cent of the €20 ticket. Especially if you’ve booked a slot for 8.15am entry, when everyone else is still at breakfast.
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● The most beautiful hotels in Florence
Yet you’ll also find plenty of upmarket hotels burnishing their art and design credentials. Lie back in the master suite of the new Dimora Palanca, for example, and you’ll see not just the contemporary, ambiguous collages of the young Florentine Paolo Dovichi, which feature in all the bedrooms. Overhead there’s also a beautifully restored 19th-century fresco on the ceiling. It’s a survivor from the days when this airy, elegant villa was a suburban retreat, right on the edge of town.
Meanwhile, downstairs, lampshades double as light installations. Dominating the breakfast room is a Zeppelin 1 light designed by Marcel Wanders in Amsterdam — it will float through your mornings like sun-drenched cloud. It’s not the only memorable thing about breakfast. The hotel is not yet a year old, but the chef Giovanni Cerroni and his team are already making waves, and you’ll taste their attention to detail even in the eggs benedict.
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The idea here is to create a sense of sanctuary, one step away from the bustle of the city centre, and a springboard back into the best of it. So the hotel is keen to introduce its guests to the work of the city’s artisans, be they shoemakers, bookbinders or parfumiers. At the very least, you might leave Florence with a hand-made notebook bound in calf leather. Then you’ll just need to think of words good enough to write on its hand-cut cotton paper.
Even more eye-catching than the Dimora Palanca’s frescoes are the sketches on the walls of the Lungarno Hotel, on the banks of the Arno. It’s owned by the Ferragamo family — of the Salvatore Ferragamo fashion house — and is festooned with sketches. One, in the lounge, is by Picasso. Yet you’ll be just as diverted by the stark monochrome watercolours of the local hero Lucio Venna upstairs in the corridors. Reaching your room could take a while.
Perhaps the strangest and most remarkable example of the way art is becoming part of the day-to-day fabric of Florence is the Gucci Garden. Gucci’s fashion adventure began in 1921 in a small shop on the Via della Vigna Nuova, but now the company flagship is the repurposed 14th- century Palazzo della Mercanzia on the Piazza della Signoria. It’s home to a Michelin-starred restaurant and a boutique buzzing with electric pinks, powder blues and lime greens.
The meat of the building, however, is taken up by Archetypes, a new kind of clothes museum-cum-art space where its creative director Alessandro Michele has let rip with eye-popping installations based on his recent fashion themes. The most striking is the #GucciCollectors room, which stacks two narrow spaces with walls of Gucci sneakers, face to face with wigs, cuckoo clocks and toys. Topping and tailing this riot of colour are floor and ceiling mirrors. So when you look up or down all you get is an endless reflection.
Some of the comments on Tripadvisor are vitriolic. “A stupid place,” says one. “A big hot mess,” adds another. Yet fresh out of the Palazzo Strozzi, I loved it. Sure, the message, intentional or not, is bleak: in this world of untrammelled collecting and consuming, we’re all doomed. But as for its appetite for complexity and its willingness to provoke: that’s pure Donatello.
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Sean Newsom was a guest of Kirker Holidays, which has three nights’ B&B at the Hotel Lungarno in Florence from £998pp, including flights, transfers and tickets to the exhibition (kirkerholidays.com). He was also a guest of the Dimora Palanca, which has room-only doubles from £294 (dimorapalanca.com). Donatello: The Renaissance runs until July 31 (£12.50, palazzostrozzi.org)
Three more fabulous Florence hotels
1. Portrait Firenze
For its location and giddy sense of postwar Italian style, the Portrait Firenze is hard to beat. One of four hotels in the city owned by the family of Salvatore Ferragamo, it mines a rich seam of fashion memorabilia that includes portraits of Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, a collection of dainty 1950s furniture and bespoke modern pieces. Best of all is the view: straight out across the Arno. No wonder the sixth-floor Ponte Vecchio suite — complete with a full-façade balcony — is one of the must-have rooms in the city.
Details B&B doubles from £570 (lungarnocollection.com)
2. 25hours Florence
In a stylishly updated historic palazzo, this new branch of the 25hours chain opened in September and serves up the city’s funkiest lounge-cum-restaurant-cum-lobby. Giant fabric plants tower overhead, turquoise suitcases serve as bookshelves and outside in the garden hammocks await an upturn in the weather. Meanwhile, upstairs, the rooms are available in a range of sizes and two distinct styles: cool, white heaven and red-hot hell. Either way, you probably won’t be lying in for long. Some of Florence’s finest frescoes beckon from the church of Santa Maria Novella near by.
Details Room-only doubles from £138 (25hours-hotels.com)
3. Il Tornabuoni
If it’s quick access to the Palazzo Strozzi you’re after, then this city-centre palazzo — reopened last November — is the answer. Dating all the way back to the 12th century, it’s now part of the Hyatt group and decked out in a richly coloured version of neoclassical style. For a dose of culture, pop into the Santa Trinita church next door to feast on Ghirlandaio’s gorgeous frescoes. Answer the call of high-end fashion on Via Tornabuoni, the city’s designer hub, where Prada, Valentino and Alexander McQueen are all at your fingertips.
Details Room-only doubles from £238 (hyatt.com)
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