At the beginning of the 15th century in Italy, both scholars and artists evinced strong interest in the ancient past; this period marks the Renaissance—the rebirth of classical culture Renaissance Art and Architecture.

Lorenzo Ghiberti cast two sets of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery; both demonstrate his knowledge of ancient sculpture. The second set, known as the Gates of Paradise (1425-1452), shows, in addition, his mastery of the laws of scientific perspective, which had been discovered only recently. The demand was also for large-scale, freestanding statues, and Ghiberti, Nanni di Banco, and Donatello created monumental figures of saints, which were placed in the wall niches of Or San Michele—the oratory of the guilds—in Florence.

Donatello was the greatest sculptor of the early Renaissance; his works demonstrate that he was not only a master stonecutter, but also possessed a profound understanding of human psychology. For example, although St. George (1415?-1416, made for Or San Michele, now in the Bargello, Florence) is represented sheathed in armor, his sensitive face shows he is not invulnerable. Most astonishing is Donatello's innovative Mary Magdalen (1454-1455, Florence Baptistery), a carved wood statue, polychromed and gilded. Customarily portrayed as a beautiful young woman with lovely long hair, this Magdalen is—in Donatello's startling and revolutionary work—a semitoothless, emaciated old woman with tangled hair almost to her feet.

Outside Florence, the most noteworthy sculptor of the early Renaissance was Jacopo della Quercia of Siena. His handling of the nude in marble relief panels—Creation of Adam, Temptation, and Expulsion from Eden (1425-1438)—for the main portal of San Petronio in Bologna shows an awareness of ancient art. Adam has an idealized, muscular body, like the Greek statues of gods and athletes; Eve's body and pose are based on the type known as the Venus pudica, or modest Venus.

The towering genius in sculpture, not only during the 16th century in Italy but perhaps of all time, is Michelangelo. His mastery manifested itself early, for he was only in his 20s when he carved the Pietà (1498-1500, Saint Peter's Basilica, Rome) and the heroic David, the first monumental sculptures of the High Renaissance. For the tomb of Pope Julius II, a project never completed, Michelangelo created the majestic Moses (1515?, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome) and other highly expressive individual figures. During the 1520s the style of his sculpture changed, as illustrated by the Medici Tombs (1519-1534) in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence. Whereas Michelangelo's earlier nude sculpture displays harmonious proportions, the reclining allegorical figures on the tombs, representing the four times of day, show bodily distortions and complexities of pose indicating his departure from High Renaissance ideals. His later works, such as the Pietà (1554?-1564?, Castello Sforzesco, Milan), are also anticlassical. Thus, Michelangelo's later sculpture and the works of other 16th- century artists show that new modes were evolving.

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