Born in 1386, four years before Fra Angelico and nearly a century after Giotto, he was the son of a well-to-do wool-comber who was no stranger to the perils of political energy in these times.

Of Donatello's youth little is known, but it is almost certain that he helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors, being thirteen when that sculptor began upon them.

At sixteen he was himself enrolled as a sculptor.

It was soon after this that, as I have said in the first chapter, he accompanied his friend Brunelleschi, who was thirteen years his senior, to Rome; and returning alone he began work in Florence in earnest, both for the cathedral and campanile and for Or San Michele.

In 1425 he took into partnership Michelozzo, and became, with him, a protege of Cosimo de' Medici, with whom both continued on friendly terms for the rest of their lives.