Detail of the grille

Donatello practiced as a bronze sculptor in Padua, Florence and Siena. At Padua his high altar provides a background for the mass of small bronzes that were turned out in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In Florence he inspired Maso di Bartolommeo, the artist who presided over the bronze grille of the Cappella della Cintola at Prato, where we find, entangled in the scrolls and fronds, small figures, adapted from classical originals, which in all but function are statuettes.